Which TV brand will allow you to use without having to create an account
I am in the market to buy a new TV. But these days TVs are like phones, you need to register them giving them half your life story followed by continuous harvesting of your personal data. I will use a TV only with a connected device, don't need or want anything else from the TV. On YouTube I check out a Roku and a Samsung TV setting up, in both cases it looked like the TV would not function until you create an account with them. Is there any TV brand or a newer model that allows a user to just use it without any software setup? Or if you know of any workarounds please advise.
Sony Trinitron
Lol, you don't have to go back that far for a Dumb TV.
Google TV? You might already have a Google account and there's nothing valuable they're gonna get from your TV than what they're already acquiring through your phones.
Agreed, similarly I could go Amazon Fire TV. Although these would limit my choices, for example recent OLEDs. I am thinking the best case might be pick the TV based on hardware. Register with bogus data (for example Roku asks your birth date and sex). Then just ban the TVs WiFi from the router so that it cannot communicate to the HQ. I wonder if doing so would lock the TV for any other use.
You can get a good full array LED or QLED with Google TV. That's far better imo over OLED. The contrast is high in OLED true but it's also prone to lower brightness over QLED. If your room is brightly lit, then it would not make a great experience. Good choice if you have a home theater setup though.
HiSense TV's come with Google TV that you can never connect to WiFi/ block from the router and then only use through connected devices over HDMI. Just use as a dumb target display and never interact with the onboard OS.
Yeah, I am leaning towards that. Does a Hisense TV allow use without configuring, aka registering the onboard software? That would be ideal, compared to register and block Wifi.
No registration or activation required. Just power it on, refuse to connect to WiFi, and then plug in your devices over HDMI.
Roku TV - you DON't have to finish online setup of account, although it will really, really try to make you do so. Even so, they are still TVs and have unconnected mode - when doing initial setup, choose that option and you can use it as a "dumb" TV. Do not connect to WiFi, do not link to Roku user account. Firmware upgrade would be harder - but maybe you don't want to upgrade firmware, given in general the trend is each new version getting bigger and slower. Same applies to other brands
It is good to know I can use Roku without an account. I read the manual of a Google TV based Hisense, and it clearly states that you have an option to use the TV in so called Basic mode without setting up software. And yes I don't care about firmware upgrades.
Dumb (non Smart) TV with a fire TV stick? Amazon already knows enough.
Yes, that's what I plan to do. Already have an Amazon account and they already know about me. But I want a modern TV hardware. Is there any brand or model that is *dumb*.
I haven't been looking at purchasing one, so not sure what's up atm. I would maybe checkout Sony? They have great Display+Audio, but extremely shitty tech. To the point that I'd think they're not capable of extracting any data xD