Roku is another prime example of enshitification.
Now I have all my “smart” TVs disconnected, and I hooked up some inexpensive Android TV boxes (with a couple minor modifications). No more ads!
can you go into detail on the boxes and your mods? interested in getting some of my family off of Roku for this reason
I got some cheap ONN boxes, Which seem like the best value for true Android TV devices. If you have the funds NVIDIA Shield TV is probably the way to go.
It’s possible to skip the Walmart account login at setup, but probably not possible to skip the Google account sign-in (let me know if you find a way!).
Setting up side-loading is trivial, although largely unnecessary. I loaded Stremio, Jellyfin, and a VPN for better streaming experience and control. I replaced the default home screen with Projectivy Launcher. You don’t need to go into ADB shell or anything like that. There are also other home screen launchers that fix the major problems with the default GoogleTV screen; Emotin UI (closed source), FLauncher (dormant), Leanback Launcher, ATV Launcher (closed-source).
There are lots of options for web browsing, File Explorer, on-device media, stores, etc. that are easily available.
So how long before ONN gets enshitified?
Always a concern. They will eventually require a Walmart account I guess. I’ll have to remember to disable updates.
very neat! thanks!
I would love to exit the Roku ecosystem. I don’t use any Apple products and I’m not interested in starting.
It’s amazing how there are really no open-source products in this category of devices.
Enshitification is just business doing business. It suck as much value as it can out of anything it touches until it’s barely worth it then just let’s the quality hover there. They call it “the price the market will bare”, also known as, giving as little value as possible.
Everytime something turns to shit it’s because the business side of the endeavor has started making the decisions.
Roku is another prime example of enshitification
Agreed, but are there any realistic alternatives in the android space to firestick and roku?
I’m also curious what you ended up with
People love to hate Apple, and that’s fine (Tim Cook sucks ass), but the AppleTV is honestly the best streamer and you can’t change my mind.
Zero ads on the Home Screen, and even the first gen 4K box that came out 8 years ago is still fast as hell and getting updates.
I know this because I had one in my closet and just took it out the other day when setting up a TV in my bedroom. It downloaded updates and is now rocking and rolling again.
It’s best because everything else is worse
My family knows me as the anti-apple IT Guy. So, it shocked everyone when I brought home a Best Buy open box Apple TV 4K (saved me $20US).
Honestly, this is my first Apple purchase since my ipod and I have to admit: it’s good.
Roku has lost their way and my 3 Roku Ultra devices are all dying for reasons unknown (freezing, random reboots, spinning endlessly when trying to open an app). I’m just so done with them (and Nvidia) for my streaming hardware business.
I wanted to buy one but Apple banned stremio recently…
I bought an AppleTV device and it is by far the best out of the box TV product I’ve purchased. It’s pricey but I highly recommend it if you don’t want to self host.
They are certainly more expensive, but it’s a “buy once cry once” type of thing. You pay a little more but the box works SO MUCH better and for longer than the cheap junk that’ll show you a bunch of ads.
I have two of them at this point and zero regrets.
Plus, it´s pretty easy to find used ones that are cheaper.
I’ll see you walled garden bullshit and raise your an nvidia shield. I think I Stoll got till September before I’m in the sane boat.
I know it’s not for everyone but fuck nvdia too, I build a pc next to my tv it’s everything and then some.
Again, I know it’s not for everyone.
My other tv’s just have onn 4k seems non enschitified yet… And is dirt cheap
I wonder how much of the anti-apple stuff comes from the extremity of the person’s views. I have always preferred PC/windows due to familiarity with it, but I’ve used iphones for 12 or 13 years, and by extension, some of apple’s services (like icloud). They’ve been pretty great this whole time. And, as a normie, I’ve been happy with what I’ve heard and seen about their stability, general lack of ads, and security/protection of customer data. I doubt there’s many others on the Fediverse with similar views due to the nature of this place, but anyway, the point I’m trying to make is that it seems like some of the dissent toward apple is inherent to their position relative to the opinion holder.
I definitely think it’s “linux brain” that exists around here to a degree. You can see it on any given thread that talks about…well…anything technical. “Just download Linux!” they’ll say. And I say this as someone who LIKES Linux. I have it on two of my pcs (and I have a Mac and iPhone/iPad, etc. as well). It’s great. But there’s a zealotry around here around it.
That said, it’s not hard to dislike Apple right now. I’m pretty mad at them for cozying up to trump all the time. I’m glad Cook will not be leading Apple soon (though I wish he’d just leave outright. He’ll still be at the company). But it’s hard to deny the hardware is great and the software is generally good and generally works well.
But Lemmy is certainly a niche population of nerds. And that’s fine! It’s great! But a lot of those nerds seem to love the “console wars”-type mentality of “MY thing is the best and anything else is bad.”
MacOS is on a steady decline though. Since Jobs died, it has become worse with each release.
Apple TV is great, though.
I really appreciate your response and I agree completely. Linux seems awesome (I’ve played with Mint a little bit, and have heard a lot about Bazzite and Kinoite, and I do plan on moving over when I have the time/energy/motivation. It does seem significantly better than the commercial offerings once one gets past the (often exaggerated) learning curve.
Would you mind expanding on the Apple stuff? I haven’t looked into them as a company since they told the courts to fuck off during the Snowden trial or something like that. I’m realizing that I’m not an Apple fanboy, but I also don’t have the data pool to really form an opinion one way or another.
I grew up an apple fanboy but in my early twenties I realized I couldn’t afford to stay one. Since the iPhone came out they’ve gotten more and more closed off and hard to modify. The last straw for me was realizing you couldn’t install older versions of software (someone gave me a 1st or 2nd Gen iPad) and I couldn’t even put an older version of home assistant on it. That really showed me how hard they push for “you must buy the newest thing” because they’ll deliberately break the old one
I built Kyu Launcher so you can get Roku experience on your Android TV.
Had to Google it but it looks pretty nice. I thought you meant that you were injecting giant ads into Android TV.
Fighting fire with fire, they’ll never see it coming
How do people tolerate this? Just looking at this pic makes me want to turn it off and throw it out the window.
Literally nothing about the interface is about the user. It all screams everything except what you might want or need. Well, maybe the Zootopia tile is good, of all things, but not much else.
They were born in it, moulded by it, they’ve never seen a world without an add somewhere in it.
*molded.
*Mauled
Madded, the ad version of being mogged.
I’m on the home screen for one second. The remote, in fact, has buttons on it, I don’t even need to look at the home screen.
You can add or remove tiles as you see fit (although they definitely like to add some for you from time to time), but like I said, I barely use the tiles.
I love people on here who don’t and have never used it expressing any feelings on it at all. Like, why do you care, other than were all here (on the internet) just to get mad about shit?
They “don’t have” the technical expertise or energy to avoid it.
That’s very true. I don’t mean they should run their own Linux on their TV’s or something, I’m more like…not having a smart TV at all must be better than this abomination.
So I have one of these pos “onn.” Wal Mart brand Roku tvs. It was legitimately the cheapest 40 something inch tv (250bucks?) they had to offer, I did not realize that the smart part isn’t like an input it’s the home screen every time u power it on. Had I known, I would have spent up to 100 bucks MORE to just have a regular ass TV. Live and learn I suppose.
You should get a Google TV one. You can select basic TV mode and it lets you set it up without Wi-Fi and has the option to power on to last input.
You have to spend a multiple of a smart TV and buy a commercial TV (as in the type of TVs businesses use for display) to ensure a dumb tv if you can’t lobotomize it yourself.
Insanity ensues
Smart TV is basically what most people would buy if not an apple TV. Amazon and Roku sticks are still around.
laughs in a Linux Raspi, hooked up to a dumb projector, sitting behind a pihole and streaming from an in-house Jellyfin media server
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Roku has had a big ad on the side for a while now? I’ve been blocking it with DNS.
was literally about to buy a Roku TV. not anymore
anyone have suggestions for a decent new TV that isn’t so invasive?
I have an LG TV with all promotional stuff disabled. Not sure if they all do that, but my 65 inch TV is ad free!! For now.
I see Alexa is on the LG TV, and there’s a way to turn it off in settings, but is it actually truly off when you do this (do u know)? lmao
I try to not accept any optional terms and conditions and never set up any assistant. If I don’t accept all the legal stuff, those features stay disabled. Again, this depends on your TV and generation. I have the 65C1.
I can’t tell what Spectre units do but they look like maybe an option
e.g.
https://www.sceptre.com/TV/4K-UHD-TV/U750CV-UMRD-75-4K-UHD-TV-product1131category1category73.html
plain old TV, and then add what you want? I have a flat screen, and a little roku box ($30 at Best Buy). I always wondered what you do if your Roku tv farts out–take the whole thing off the wall and tote it back to where you bought it? If something happens to my roku, or I don’t want it anymore, I just unplug it.
I thought it’s always been like this? No?
Back when it was only Roku boxes, I don’t recall any ads at all on the home screen. Then when I got a TV with Roku built in, I recall it also being zero ads. That was like 10 years for the Roku TV where it still had no ads on the homescreen of the RokuOS. Then they added that big right banner ad. It was that for a number of years and then they added a row at the top advertising some streaming apps. Then they started this beta program for the new layout and they jacked up the size of the content advertisement space and pushing your stuff further down where your cursor focus defaults at when starting the TV/Roku. The expanding presense of advertisement icons have been pretty rapid.
Roku used to be have no advertisements. Then they started trying to be a digital storefront for movies/tv and that was just a button on the side list menu. Then they started adding advertisements more and more
Sounds like cable tv. No ads to making as much profit as possible
Yep for like 10 years at least
I don’t have a Roku. I own a non-smart TV connected to a mini PC. But for folks that don’t want to go through that setup, wouldn’t using an adblock DNS block it?
TCL TVs (whose OS is just Roku, and I imagine Roku is the same situation) blink the front LED as an Error when there’s no network connection or it can’t hit whatever servers it has configured for FW update check. It can get stuck on partial firmware updates when it can’t cokplete every check it wants to make. The LED has a diffuser on it so it’s a significant negative impact.
I can’t even tape that LED because that’s also where the IR sensor is. My next step is to disassemble the thing and snip snip.
I don’t use any smart features, just HDMI input like you. Finding a Dumb TV has been a challenge.
You might want to replace the LED with a normal silicon diode since if I were a piece of shit TV company I would measure that circuit as a voltage divider, and for a complete circuit. No current flow and no 0.6V drop, and that means I activate my out of warranty self lobotomize routine.
That’s not something I would have considered and thank you for pointing me in the right direction. Now I know about silicon diodes.
Because this reminded of it: For a similar reason, and if you own an older vehicle, you don’t want to replace the warning lights (battery, oil, engine/MIL) with LED bulbs. Or you’ll need “error free” bulbs with built-in parallel resistors. LED gauge lights are usually fine but, on a lot of vehicles, an incandescent bulb is expected on the warning light circuits. If you replace, for example, the battery bulb with an LED - the alternator might not engage as it should, because there won’t be sufficient current for it to do so, and your battery could drain despite a running engine.
(I’m far from an electrician, nevermind an automotive one, but I did a lot of research before upgrading/replacing my burnt out dash lights and that’s a mistake I would’ve otherwise made)
TCL makes Google TV models which explicitly allow you to set them up without Wi-Fi so only HDMI and antenna work. You should buy one of those next time.
Oh good to know. Much appreciated. Thisnines still going strong after 6.5y, great panels honestly. If LED neutering failed I was only going to look for other brands because of this thing so this is super good news
I did a factory reset on my TCL roku tv and use a third party streaming box. Blinking red light on the TV went away after the factory reset for me.
Ooh, definitely gonna try this first. I actually assumed that factory reset would use the 1y old firmware that introduced the problem, but it could well roll back to the 6y original.
Don’t worry, the next model they release probably won’t allow you to do that.
Never used it, preferring my ways.
Yeah, this gives anyone with tech savvy a reason to avoid the damn thing and make their own media center.
It gives us what?
Feels nice to get some trade-in cash for my Roku tv. Digital TV with the local channels and YouTube more than satisfies.
Is this on a hardware level? Or can I just plug it in a nvidia shield or such and just use it as a screen
This is how I learn there’s a TV adaptation of “The Burbs”???
It’s pretty good too! Low impact, great cast and decent story that takes place in world but not as a reboot or anything cheese like that.
Bumbling oddball neighbors banding together to do a SERIOUS INVESTIGATION is such a no-brainer of a formula. I love the original film, just watched the trailer and it looks fun as fuck.
It really is. The cast has fantastic chemistry and feels like real people despite the heightened ridiculousness of the premise.
Dope. Will give it a look.
It’s been like this for a while. Nvidia Shield is even worse but I put up with it because it’s so useful.
Apple TV hasn’t been enshitified yet. The hard part is finding a non smart tv to plug it into.
It is? I don’t think I’ve ever seen an ad on mine.
On the homepage there are ads
I don’t use the default launcher, I didn’t even know it was a thing, it’s probably also blocked on my network, but I’d expect at least placeholders.
Since there are a lot of comments here I want to ask this: we purchased a xiaomi tv stick (specs below) and a 15 year old intel pentium dual core w/ android runs circles around it with the exact same apps plus the PC has significantly more stable network connection. The stick’s OS is old however not bloated and it even blocks google banner ads OOB. Did we get a very bad unit or are all of TV sticks / boxes unusably slow unless you get a shield or an apple tv?
When my really old TV box was in it’s last legs I tried 2 different Android TV boxes, which whilst not in TV Stick format like that, have very similar hardware specs.
These things were around €50 from AliExpress.
They were frustrating, one was actually sluggish, the other not exactly fast (it really boils down to the version of the cheap ARM CPU in your device and the processor names don’t exactly make clear which ones are more or less powerful), and ran Android TV isn’t all that great at customizing it and comes with pre-installed crap and Google spyware.
Replaced them with an N100 Mini-PC running Lubuntu and with Kodi always on top. That thing runs circles around those 2, not even reaching 10% CPU usage when playing 1080p h256 videos.
Now, I also use the Mini-PC as a home server, hence Lubuntu makes sense, but for the stupidly simple solution just install LibreELEC which is a distro pre-configured to just run Kodi.
You can get a wireless remote for it, at which point it’s pretty much the same sofa experience as a TV Box or TV Stick except for the ON/OFF button (because it only works to turn the Mini-PC OFF, not to turn it back ON).
That said, that Mini-PC with 8GB memory and a 128 GB SSD was about €130 over a year ago and now it’s about €240.
I believe the Shield and Apple TV are actually more expensive and you don’t fully control what’s running in that hardware, what it does with your personal data and even if it will end up enshittified or not, unlike with a Mini-PC were you installed Linux.
My current setup is similar. the pc runs a custom build of android tv w/o google services, with the remote of the tv box. I already have checks notes 5 spare pcs, i just had no idea 2.4ghz remotes could be dirt cheap. The item you sent appears as 2 usd before taxes & shipment but doesn’t ship to my location lol. Oh and every single one of the pcs have hdd, i’ll need either a new ssd or use one of my flash drives with a live linux install as permanent is very slow from USB.
Well, a quick check of my Mini-PC which has a bit more software than Lubuntu and Kodi but not by much (so, also stuff like Firefox and qbittorrent) shows a bit over 20GB used for everything but the mount to were the qbittorrent is downloading files, so even in this day and age of stupidly expensive storage all the storage you need is still going to be about €20 or less (that’s the price of a new 64GB SATA SSD from AliExpress, which should fit the same connectors as your HDDs unless those PCs are so ancient they still use PATA instead of SATA).
I expect a dedicate distro for just a TV box like LibreELEC should be even smaller.
Mind you, I have the storage for the videos I watch in Kodi outside in the form of portable mobile HDDs since its a much better price per GB for bulk storage and the speed of even mobile HDDs is fine for playing h264 and h265 compressed stuff, so that’s of course not counted in those 20GB.
Upgrading an old PCs with a 64GB SATA SSD should be reasonable cheap and more than enough to run either LibreELEC or Lubuntu with Kodi plus a bunch of extra stuff.
That said, the benefit of a Mini-PC like the one I got (with an N100 processor or similar) is that it uses very little power (unlike old desktop PCs or even notebooks) so it’s cheap to just leave running all the time and it’s quiet.
forgot to add this to my previous reply: if you configure the remote to put the PC to sleep instead of shutting down and allow waking up from USB devices, you might be able to wake your PC up with the remote. I can’t do this because my remote uses Bluetooth low energy which I couldn’t configure wake up for. And yes 2 of the PCs are ancient enough to use ATA instead of SATA probably, one has a Pentium T4300 and Intel GMA 3100. However I don’t need 5 HTPCs lol.
I am locked in the software space as I need something very specific that kodi could only partly satisfy and android tv could fully satisfy.
