stevegattuso
This site is an always-in-progress repository for my thoughts and ideas. You'll generally find me writing about sustainability 🍃, urbanism 🏙️, programming 💾, vegan cooking 🍛, and whatever else pops into my mind.
🔗 What Vizio was doing behind the TV screen
Published on Feb 6th, 2017.

Here’s the final nail in the coffin for my desire to ever purchase a Smart TV. Internet connectivity has always been a gimmicky feature thrown into these devices because TV manufacturers don’t want to sell a dumb commodity. To be fair, I don’t blame them for going down this path: they want to add value to their TVs in order to differentiate and charge more.

That being said, from the perspective of a geeky consumer the idea of a Smart TV is totally unpalatable. I’m paying extra money for a device with buggy service integrations and an operating system that is rarely updated, potentially exposing a massive security hole in my home network. If that’s not bad enough, the TV manufacturer itself might be spying on my TV habits and selling it off to companies for some extra profit!

I suppose one good thing to come of this is that I’ll never have to think twice on passing on a deal for a Smart TV.