216M Spy TVs – The LG Smart TV Problem [video] - https://smackernews.com/item/49592375 HN - Sept 2026 (971 comments so far)

(Normally we'd merge this one thither but it's already so big maybe we'll just treat it as a follow-up)

I was surprised that the first thing I was prompted to do was to download an app and sign up for an account. The TV would not work unless I was signed in (or at the very least the option was so well hidden I didn't see one). Of course the sign up asks for PII like my name and phone number.

Vizio was bought out by Walmart a while back, with the intent of expanding Walmart's advertising empire.

It's really unfortunate that the TV market has ended up the way it has. My family still has a few CRTs going that have been working every day for decades, just turn it on and TV immediately starts playing. I miss that level of simplicity.

They need to put a stop to this or they'll start losing market share fast.

Can this spying and tracking be so lucrative that they'll risk alienating their customers over it?

Like reverse engineering how the software on the TVs work.

Also what third parties are involved.

I have a feeling there must be some third party vendor selling the same toolkit that manufacturers use.

Would be nice to figure out if it's possible to send junk data to the endpoints.

In July this year, the channel flagged that some LG monitors were automatically installing an app that collected device data and ran pop-up ads for LG’s other apps and even McAfee antivirus. The public pressure from that video prompted an intervention from Microsoft, and ultimately led to LG disabling the pop-up ads.

Can anyone explain why Windows even makes this possible? I had to fight against Windows installing Alienware command center nonsense automatically because I have a "gaming" Dell OLED. Windows automatically fetched and installed it just from plugging in the monitor, adding a new system tray icon and persistent daemon with these kinds of annoying pop-ups and probably a bunch of security vulnerabilities.

It's completely incomprehensible to me. The monitor works great without it, on both Windows and Linux! I left a negative review on an otherwise good monitor as a result, but Microsoft shouldn't even be entertaining this crap.

Not exactly sure what I’m after, but the problem is acute and widely prevalent, so there has to be some solution.

I believe I did have to connect it to the network to get it to some web page or other, but after that I had full control of it.

My LG TV is a bit older, though (2021 or so).

Are they getting paid for the data (e.g. we'll pay you $100M to install spyware), or are they trying to be an ad platform, or is it simply analytics gone out of control?

The Magic Remote can also be replaced with dumb IR model without a microphone.

https://smackernews.com/item/43520903 HN

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1788838824 | GamersNexus and LG: Or why rooting your TV is a bad idea | http://leaflet.pub/p/did:plc:yhgc5rlqhoezrx6fbawajxlh/3muwrq... | https://smackernews.com/item/49605424 HN | 122 comments

What brand does not do scummy things like this, or that I can easily avoid by not requiring me to download an app to set up?

Sure you can try to open up the box and yank the WiFi antenna… until it is so deeply integrated into the board that you cannot.

This isn’t just an “oh well” situation. This needs a law.