What you want to look for is called "Commercial Signage Display". These are basically large "TV" monitors that are sold to businesses like sports bars.
I used to go on here about Sceptre TVs, because they are relatively cheap and dumb as a brick. Was just shopping for one because of this LG news (wanted to replace my old one from 2014), and while Sceptre still lists them on their website, they tell me to go to Amazon or Walmart to buy one.
Amazon and Walmart say they are out of stock, with no expected date.
My conclusion is that Sceptre, the last holdout in the dumb TV industry, has quit in favor of focusing on monitors/displays for computers. Now I'm not sure if I'm going to ever replace my TV!
Just keep it disconnected and enjoy the "dumb" TV with a streamer box.
The reports of user-disconnected TVs jumping on open wifis or Amazon sidewalk by themselves are not credible. All of the problems stem from connecting the TV so don't.
I would be surprised if a truly dumb TV would be as good quality as modern LGs etc for the price. Maybe I'm wrong. But please don't pay _more_ for a dumb TV.
TBH only hope at this point is for BOE/PRC panel makers to thoroughly involute and for bare panels + dumb connectors make it to aliexpress, i.e. like we have after market screens for everything else. Buy a screen, buy a case, get your dumb screen. TV manufactures will absolutely not pass up ad monetization, especially Korean ones that can't survive with lower margins.
I’m looking for a TV and it seems like dumb ones simply aren’t available anymore
Seems like the only options are:
1. Buy a smart TV and not connect it to the internet and/or physically neuter it by unplugging the Wifi/Bluetooth module. I wish there was more info about this out there as I assume there are some models that don’t allow this
2. Buy a projector. I’ve been using a cheap $80 projector for a few years due to space constraints in the apartment I was living in. Now that I’m in a larger apartment, I wanted to buy a TV. But all this has me wondering whether I should just buy a better projector
It does have the “drawback” that it can only be used after sunset (assuming you don’t have a basement or blackout curtains or something). But I find that this provides a natural hard cap to the screen time that everyone is trying so hard to cut back on
I just got a new TV and agonized over how to get one that was dumb. I wasn't confident that it would be sufficiently dumb at the time of purchase, but I got a TCL QM6K. This was incidentally recommended by the 4K TV subreddit as one of the cheaper "good" TVs that you can buy this year, which I was glad to read, because I don't particularly care about agonizing over TV hardware details and I was glad to outsource that train of thought.
I set the TV up and was immediately pleased. The first thing it did was ask me if I wanted "smart" or "basic" mode. I selected basic mode, skipped the network connection, and disagreed to as many policies as it would let me. One week in, it hasn't nagged me a single time to connect to the internet or tried to push any other BS on me. I have it hooked up to an Apple TV and my Switch, and it seems to just work.
So yeah, I hope I'm not jinxing something here, but TCL was a great way to go for a delightful dumb TV experience.
