Other thought on the Walmart/Vizio buyout

[thewayne]

A recent post mentioned that it's also seen as an adspace thing for Walmart, they can get their ads seen on Vizio's smart screens for free if they own the product.

Kinda sneaky way to spread their advertising. Of course, if the TV isn't plugged in to the internet, them ads ain't gonna appear.

Not that I'd buy a Vizio product if they're owned by Walmart.

Comments

[silveradept]

I have a suspicion they'll require you to plug the TV in to the Internet for at least some amount of time, long enough to download the ads and the updates together. Just makes me want dumb screens more and more, or if I must have smart screens, to be able to replace their operating systems with one that I want more.

[thewayne]

I haven't heard of people hacking smart TVs to replace the OS like they do with DD-WRT routers, but me not having heard of it doesn't mean much.  I hope there are such projects.

[silveradept]

They do exist. It's mostly trying to port Android TV over to them, or LineageOS, more specifically, or some form of Linux, but I suspect most of the work is in writing and testing device drivers for them, and that could take quite some time to hack together. Probably easier just to grab a computer and hook that up and never use the TV function at all if you can avoid it.

[thewayne]

That's my opinion.  Just boot a linux kernel and install Plex, stream your material from a home NAS.

[disneydream06]

Bye bye Vizio. :o
Hugs, Jon

[kaishin108]

Advertising has gotten so very sneaky!
Yes, good to know not to buy that brand.
My dislike of WalMart is right up there with Amazon.

[thewayne]

There's a couple of things that we can only get at Walmart, fortunately we only need them like once a year or so.  Since Albertson's opened, we pretty much never step foot in that store.  As for Amazon, I go out of my way to avoid it.

[kaishin108]

Right, once in a while there is a need for either of those places. I just read this morning that Amazon is getting even tougher on Unions and labor laws and want a few laws changed, sigh. (I didn't word that very well, I can't find the article now).

We go to Albertsons a lot.