For what it’s worth, our Sony OLED with the hidden “apps only” option still has a clean UI:
And basically no forced apps, as far as Android goes (which is not a high bar TBH).
An older one isn’t bad, either.
this post was submitted on 13 Dec 2025
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My LG TV is connected through PiHole with all lg domains blocked. I'm not getting any update notifications and can still stream from Jellyfin.
This is why my LG TV does not know the WiFi password.
Thanks for sharing. I’ve been using my OLED as my primary display, and the last firmware nagging really got to me.
Since you’ve posted this, I did a factory reset wiping my network info and disabling every non-tv feature.
And here I thought LG was better than Samsung at this.
Oh no. LG TVs have abhorrently slow and invasive smarts. You’re better off getting a Roku or AppleTV and doing that. Never connect the smart tv to the internet.
My LG needed to be briefly connected for a firmware update that fixed HDR video. Butbthen immediately disconnected again.
Ethernet runs for that. It doesn’t get WiFi feeds from me. Ever.
I have bad news for you.
What, the TV now has a way to plug itself in?
Wouldn't ethernet still be internet access...?
Yes but it is access you can physically disable. WiFi you would have to change passwords to really keep the TV out since it can turn itself back on.
Don't give your TV the wifi password.
But then how is your tv supposed to find the jellyfin server? Better to block your TV's mac address from accessing the internet.
Plug in any tiny computer with HDMI out.
The TV is a display. You want anything generating images separate, in case you find it disagreeable, and want to obliterate it with a ball peen hammer.
An Apple TV, a Roku, an old PC, a fucking pi, anything can speak to jellyfin just fine.
The Roku stick connects to then jellyfin..
You let your tv connect to the intertubes?
First mistake.
You know something else that sucks about LG TV's? If you disconnect them from the internet, you randomly get screen blocking pop-ups telling you to connect to the internet so you can enable voice features.
I regret buying an LG TV.
I've got a fairly new LG TV and I've never had that happen. Maybe the voice button on the remote gets pressed by accident?
How then do I get Plex running on it?
Get another box (like Apple TV) and use that.
You let that box connect to the innerwebs, second mistake.
You need to use a third box, and connect that one instead, obviously
At least with those boxes, you have a less-expensive switching cost should they make your experience worse. A tv should only do one thing, display content which is fed to it. How you get that to the tv is less important than isolating the “smart” tv from the internet.
On a TV.
Are you mad?
MadTV
Man, I really fucked up by not getting one of the last remaining 4K dumb TVs a couple years ago when I had the chance. Now it's looking like my decade-old 46" 1080p one will be the last TV I ever own.
Completely agree.
Currently working with a smart TV that never touches the internet (just plug other devices into it). I am low key paranoid they have some sub - protocol of HDMI that can connect from the TV to a game system and forward info out....but 90% sure that's just paranoia.....I hope.
I just watched a LTT video comparing $30, $300, $3,000, and $30,000 TVs and what struck me throughout the whole video was Linus struggling with and getting increasingly frustrated by the enshittified controls. The $30,000 TV was less bad than the rest, but every single one was a crappy UI (or worse, exploitative) experience compared to old TVs.
We shouldn't have to firewall our property to try to stop it from betraying us. It's a fucking outrage and becoming intolerable to the point of radicalization.
HDMI does have an Ethernet function. It is theoretically possible to have another device route traffic behind your back via that. But there’s zero legit and reason to do this when adding WiFi to the TV is cheaper and less complex so it would absolutely invite lawsuits.
What's even scarier (and I legit thing more likely) is despite the fact that either after firewalling off a smart tv's IP/Mac or using Pi-Hole to keep it from using the ad side of things and locking down firmware updates, that newer TVs seem increasingly likely to include antennas for 5G and connect to a fucking "partner" network for "free" to share revenue. It won't matter if you never connect it to the internet - it will just spy even if you don't use it's apps. Oh, and most new tvs have microphones (on the remote, but who knows about elsewhere). I'm not sure about cameras, but I wouldn't be shocked.
If we get to the 5G era a faraday cage is simple enough to ruin that without wrecking the warentee.
We need open source TVs.
Yep I was horrified to find my tv had a microphone. Physical switch to disable it at least (as long as it actually does disable it). And only using the dumb remote it came with, the smart remote with the mic lives in the drawer, has never seen a battery.
I still use a 40 inch bravia from 2014 where the remote doesnt work. But it has no smart features thank fuck
I was literally on the verge of purchasing an LG C5 with my bonus this year. Now there's no fucking way in hell.
I’ve got a 42” LG C3 as my gaming monitor. It’s connected to my network so that I can stream content from my plex server. Anybody know if there’s a way I can cut the TV’s access to the internet, to avoid updates etc., while still maintaining access to the home network?
This could be something you do via your router and/or firewall.
Usually it's an option on the router to block certain devices from the Internet. You'll want to assign a static IP to the TV first. If you need any help DM or post in any of the popular Selfhost or Privacy communities and we'll get you.
There's probably a security page with a "block access" option when you log into the router. It'll be brand specific where to look though. If you have a model can point you more
Cheers, yeah I thought about crossposting to c/privacy. I also should have searched first as it seems like it’s pretty common thing to do for networked devices of all sorts.
I’ll give it a go myself and do a write up for novices like myself if I succeed.
I have the same TV and it's wonderful. It's connected to a gaming PC which I access my Jellyfin server from so it's not a problem. I do have a couple Bambu printers here and I set up my ASUS access points to block them from connecting to the outside world, which ended up being pretty easy for me even though I'm a newb.
Yeah that’s the thing, don’t want to spin up a 500w gaming pc just to watch stuff on plex
Simplest is blocking the TV's mac address from accessing the internet
Some TVs will repeatedly bitch and moan about not having an internet connection. For Roku-based tv’s you can choose reset from settings, then select the setup option for no network connection. Then it will shut up about it and act like a “dumb” tv. This requires using an external box for watching any internet-based channels/content.
Yes, that's achievable. I use a DNS override for a couple of LG domains. Doing this, it can't update, although can use other apps.
Having said that, mine gets time from LG servers. So after a power outage, I have to set the time and date manually for SSL connections to work.
With a proper router, you can do this:
Not that simple with my older tele. If it fails to contact LG servers, it doesn't do a NTP update.
You can root it and then there's tools. https://rootmy.tv/ probably won't work for you but has links.
If you manually assign it an ip and don't set a gateway address (or use an invalid one), it won't be able to leave your subnet.
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A consumer rebellion is our only realistic option.
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