I have 2 Vizio tvs and neither is connected to the internet. I don’t use built in tv functionality because they all perform terrible and show unwanted content. I use 3rd party streaming boxes without issue. My oldest Vizio is nearly 10 years old and still works as well as I bought it and still on the same smart software from 10 years ago.
I owned a Vizio a few years ago, and that was my experience - I just needed a panel to turn on and show HDMI1, and bonus points if whatever was plugged in to HDMI1 could turn it on as well. That said, I don't think you and I are the majority, and a lot of people find it beneficial for these TVs to be online and stuff so they don't need a stick/box of some sort. Coming from the days of three remotes to watch a DVD with a stereo, and missing the days of Logitech Harmony, maybe it's not so bad to have one box and one remote handle everything for the average user. They clearly don't care about the ads or quality, so we shouldn't push that on them
A couple of years ago, Vizio posted that they earned more money from their analytics than TV sales. So of course that's how the TV behaves. It's also why they are so cheap.
They may be cheap and the UI does suck, but man, they are workhorses. I keep waiting for my 10+ year old 65" Vizio to die before I'll replace it with a 4K and it just won't quit.
I got a cheap Vizio TV for free that I was really impressed with the design of. That is, it did not have the outrageous number of HDMI plugs that a Sony has and didn't have stupid "Smart TV" features but instead it had some good quality and good sized speakers such that it was not a big improvement to add a soundbar to it. It really seemed to me that every cent on the BOM was carefully spent to deliver value.
One of the boards burned out though and one of my son's friends bought a Samsung TV that is also too low end to have "smart" features but I like it a lot less than the Vizio. (If I did not keep getting free TVs I might have upgraded my TV a long time ago...)
My last 2 TV's have been the higher end Vizio's and they have been great, sure they are showing their age next to OLED TV's right now but so are a lot of far more expensive ones from that same time.
But I never connect it to the internet and no matter the manufacture you never should, they are a privacy nightmare.
Mine sits on HDMI 1, it has receiver for everything else. It has been a great TV. and was hard to argue with the price of the 75" Quantum X at about $2400 in 2019.
Now most likely due to various situations I won't be going with Vizio next time and will be looking at better brands and likely just going with LG. But lets not discount the hardware itself.
The weird thing is if you lucked out like I did and got one of their earliest SmartCast TVs. My SmartCast came from the very apparently shortlived "Chromecast built-in" era and did not receive upgrades or updates to it to make it "smarter".
All my Vizio does is HDMI, QAM tuning, and an input that launches the Chromecast-built-in. They also had a very short-lived Android tablet as a companion device that would be your control surface to cast content to the TV with (installing your streaming apps to it, etc).
That was a good era of Vizio smart TVs. As soon as they actually made the TV do any heavy lifting, it got bad instantly.
I have one of these, but I never even used the Chromecast tablet/remote, I just plugged in an Apple TV 4K and disabled internet access for the TV itself on my router. I imagine this would work for the new even-crappier models as well.
I have two, one which I bought a few months ago. I find the menu navigation to be pretty fast, and it isn’t ad-ridden since I keep it offline (plug an iPhone/iPad/computer). It may not work for everyone, but it works for me.
- first of all, some satellite and DVB-C/T boxes and also TVs such as my ages old Samsung can update their firmware over the air (e.g. [1], page 54). It's possible to use a similar channel to distribute advertising as well.
- embedded WiFi that auto-connects to open networks such as many ISP routers provision in exchange for allowing the line owner access to the provider's hotspot network
- embed a LTE modem
The first way costs money, as renting aerial transmission time is not cheap, LTE modems + data plans are cheaper but still have a hardware cost attached even if manufacturers cut deals with providers, and almost every TV these days has a wifi stack built in.
This. I have a TCL TV which has great picture and nice-enough audio but the "smart" part isn't great at all. Slow, random ads, etc.
It was my first smart tv so I was curious to try it.
Then I went and factory-reset the thing, unplugged the ethernet cable, and now it works like a dumb TV. I'm very happy with it.
It still shows a popup when turned on that I don't have internet, but that's about it. It'll automatically switch to the latest used input when starting up.
The two things that bother me is that it takes ages to boot up if the "quick start-up" is disabled (basically it needs to boot the whole google tv os), and the LED is quite bright at night (but it can be disabled, just not dimmed). It also seems to have no battery for the RTC, so if I unplug it, it will forget the time when I turn it on again (since it doesn't have an internet connection, it never gets to sync).
The TCLs already run AndroidTV, which you can customize, sideload, root, etc. and isn't really the issue. There's also a "fast on" option that will put the TV in standby, so turning it on is almost instant. A full boot only takes 10-20 seconds. But you still, kinda need the firmware updates, because sometimes issues with HDR are only fixed years later.
I think that may be a universal experience with TV repairs, based on a friends experience with a name brand. He had to bring it to a local repair shop where they then held it for over 6 months. Maybe he was just unlucky.
Slow, ad-ridden, always-online, and a limited ability to configure how the TV behaves.
You get what you pay for.