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Roku and TCL are being sued for allegedly bricking smart TVs with bad updates
(www.androidauthority.com)
this post was submitted on 04 May 2026
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No connection,no issue.
A couple months back, I had an Internet outage, and decided to just watch some over the air TV. My TCL TV wouldn't even display the standard TV broadcast without an Internet connection.
My TCL disables aftermarket CEC remotes after being taken offline, even when it was previously working great
I had to give Roku internet access to scan over the air channels for "reasons"... however, I am able to watch OTA channels now with no access for Roku TV
If I bought a tv the required internet access, I'd return it.
This is the answer.
I agree with the sentiment... sadly it's almost getting to the point where if you stuck to your guns on that one, you may not find a TV you could buy
You can 100% still buy them. They’re just prohibitively expensive for the average person. Business/commercial TV displays don’t require Internet connection. They’re often used for things like digital signage, corporate meeting rooms, etc… But they’re going to be like 2-3x the cost of a consumer-level TV. Because the price of modern consumer-level TVs is heavily subsidized by the fact that the company is planning on selling your data.
As a bonus, lots of commercial TVs have quality-of-life things like built-in WiFi casting and Bluetooth controls. The WiFi is just for casting, not for data collection and telemetry. Because no company in their right mind would sign a privacy policy to allow potential trade secrets to leak because a smart TV is using OCR to send screenshots back to the TV manufacturer. Because when you’re using them in a meeting room, you want any of the corporate people to be able to mirror their laptop to it without any hassle. So casting to them with your phone or laptop is usually straightforward.
Agreed. Bought a Samsung Commercial 4K TV to use with my degoogled Onn 4k box, and I've never been happier sailing the seven seas.
Maybe we should Boycott TV'$ altogether? We have the internet, we have local free AI models, we have the ability to code and draw.
sure, if it comes to that, we can definitely do it
Lmao, I just realized I have a Roku (apartment issued), but I never use it because the local internet connection is too weak to function (and who watches cable?)
My TV is purely a second monitor with a 5m HDMI cable. All my shows and music come from my PC.
I suddenly feel needlessly cyberpunk about my setup lmao
Until your tv turns the internet connection back on without your consent. Some are even connecting to your neighbors tv to share WiFi and update themselves in order to avoid blocks at router level.
That really shouldn't be legal