> "A smart-but-disconnected TV can meet all of those functional requirements, and your nonfunctional requirements"
Ehhh I beg to differ. I got a Sony TV a year or so ago with Google TV built in. It's been a nightmare - the GUI is basically unusably slow (literally 5 entire seconds from button press to response) and the whole experience sucks.
So I did what most reasonable people did - plug in some HDMI device that doesn't suck (in my case, an Apple TV) - except that didn't fix the problem entirely.
You see, this TV really really really wants to boot into Google TV. So sure, you have your dongle plugged into this HDMI port full time but it just won't reliably boot into it. Even after setting the HDMI port as the default, half the time it insists on booting into Google TV anyway. And sure, I can grab the TV remote and switch inputs - but again, it's multiple button presses on a software suite that takes ~5 seconds to respond to a single button press. It's a good 20-30 seconds just to switch inputs.
It's maddening. So maddening that I am in fact in the market for a dumb TV just so I can be rid of this cursed UX.
I'm not particularly puritanical about this. I'm willing to live with "just disconnect it", but that solution doesn't actually work for me!
Are you using HDMI-CEC? You shouldn't be touching your TV remote at all. You shouldn't need to set a default HDMI input. All you have to do is press any button on the AppleTV remote and it will turn on the TV with the correct input device selected. I have a 2 year old Sony TV with GoogleTV and it works fine. I can go directly to a PS5 and Switch by just turning on the respective controller.
Yep, I'm using HDMI-CEC. I would love to just touch the Apple TV remote and have everything "just work", but for whatever reason a good 1/3rd of the time it just boots into Google TV anyway despite not touching the TV remote at all.
This sort of annoyance would be far more tolerable if the onboard software wasn't such a gigantic pain.
But it could be worse - I owned another (slightly older) Sony "smart" TV that wouldn't even display the Input switcher until ~60s after boot. It would literally give you a "TV is still starting, try again later" prompt for a good minute after the screen turns on. So I guess this is something of an improvement.
Sure, that stuff "should" work and there are set ups that one "should" do, but one can say the same thing about how these things work as well: The manufacturer "shouldn't" be requiring things to work this way and "shouldn't" be forcing this software on everyone.
This isn’t what I’m experiencing at all. I have a Sony Bravia TV. The TV works flawlessly with HDMI CEC and the Apple TV port set to default. It never opens Android TV, I haven’t seen that interface in months. I also never even set up Google TV or logged in with a Google account, which is optional.
Indeed. I was surprised when new Apple TV 4K remote was able to turn on/off my 2009 Panasonic plasma TV. And the Apple TV remote could be IR programmed to adjust the volume of my NAD amplifier, too.
This is perfect for me as I still find the picture quality of plasma sufficient and don’t want a “smart” TV.
My LG C9 OLED from 2019 works great with my AppleTV. It starts up quickly, and I only ever see its interface if I accidentally bump the TVs remote (all normal interaction including power on and volume go through the AppleTV remote). Of course I never connected it to WiFi.
I have one of these and was happy with it until it decided to use the notification system to nag me.
1. Lots of ads of local TV stations on the system update notifications.
2. Often it nag me about other random things too, like asking me to change the brightness settings or telling me that using the TV for too long is unhealthy.
3. Often it decides to stop work properly unless I accept license agreements. Sometimes I accept and immediately deny them again, and then the TV works fine for about a week.
4. It started to show ads for porn stuff. When I complained to my country authorities they said it was just "documentary recommendations, not ads". And thus why I can't disable them by refusing to accept the EULA for the ad service.
It’s doing all this tuff without an internet connection? Did you update the firmware since you bought it? I’ve never seen anything like you describe on mine.
I've had a couple of Bravias over the past 7 years, with the newer of the two having been purchased in 2018 and I've not seen the smart TV homescreen once since configuring the last used input as the default. Neither were ever connected to the internet though.
Also, as I understand recent Sony TVs include something called "basic TV mode" that turns off all smart functionality and make them function much more similarly to dumb TVs, perhaps yours has this feature?
Hadn't heard of "basic TV mode" but it seems to be a feature of any Google TV device made in the last year or two. They say it will disable all smart tv features and leave only the HDMI inputs and antenna input.
I bought a Sony 2 years ago (2019 model apparently and not a Bravia). It’s been great as a dumb telly. I have Chromecast 4K plugged in, use its remote for everything (sometimes control it from Google speakers and phone apps too). The official remote is sitting out of the way gathering dust.
Ehhh I beg to differ. I got a Sony TV a year or so ago with Google TV built in. It's been a nightmare - the GUI is basically unusably slow (literally 5 entire seconds from button press to response) and the whole experience sucks.
So I did what most reasonable people did - plug in some HDMI device that doesn't suck (in my case, an Apple TV) - except that didn't fix the problem entirely.
You see, this TV really really really wants to boot into Google TV. So sure, you have your dongle plugged into this HDMI port full time but it just won't reliably boot into it. Even after setting the HDMI port as the default, half the time it insists on booting into Google TV anyway. And sure, I can grab the TV remote and switch inputs - but again, it's multiple button presses on a software suite that takes ~5 seconds to respond to a single button press. It's a good 20-30 seconds just to switch inputs.
It's maddening. So maddening that I am in fact in the market for a dumb TV just so I can be rid of this cursed UX.
I'm not particularly puritanical about this. I'm willing to live with "just disconnect it", but that solution doesn't actually work for me!