New Vizio TVs require a Walmart account to use smart features

[thewayne]

You may not be aware of this, but Walmart is getting into the advertising business in a big way. And one of their moves was buying Vizio in December '24. Now if you buy a Vizio TV, in order set it up and use any "smart" features, you'll have to configure a Walmart store account and sign in to your TV, so you can get personalized ads and offers.

Oh, brave new world that has such things in't!

Theoretically this only applies currently to 'select' models, but it probably won't be long until it's all the way up and down the product line. You might be able to sign in, configure the TV, then unplug or disconnect the WiFi, but I have a feeling that it's going to want to check in with its mothership on a regular basis and will plague you with popups until its reconnected.

Recommendation? Don't buy Vizio products. A few years ago they started making more money selling analytics on their users than on the TVs themselves. THIS is what Walmart wants to spur their advertising, just like Google does with search results and "anonymously" analyzing your email.

This is also why I will do my best to avoid buying a smart TV and will stick with an Apple TV for my streaming needs. Apple does not sell advertising. While you will need an Apple account to configure the Apple TV, you don't actually need any other Apple devices if you don't want them.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/03/newly-purchased-vizio-tvs-now-require-walmart-accounts-to-use-smart-features/

Comments

[gatheringrivers]

There is still a line of "dumb tv's" but they're usually used as digital signage. That's something to consider at least, for anything you're looking for in the future - digitial signage "televisions".

[thewayne]

Indeed!  I'm keeping these in the back of my mind, just in case.  There's also large computer monitors that can be used for the same purpose.  Since almost everything is streamed these days, the lack of a TV antenna isn't necessarily a bad thing.  I've gotten used to living in the sticks these last 20 years and not having broadcast.

Buyer Beware

[frith]

When I went to select a large computer monitor, I went to a store with over a dozen models on display. All were running a series of trailers for games and a movie. I chose the _one_ monitor that displayed the movie trailer in true colour. All the others were too blue.

[warriorsavant]

I have very little need of any of my home appliances being "smart."

[thewayne]

Completely agree!  Our fridge is 20+ years old, the clothes washer is the most recently replaced major appliance and I told the salesman that I explicitly don't want one that connects to the internet.  I believe it has a WiFi capability for debugging or notification, but I've never been arsed to look into how it works.  The only thing that connects to our wireless router is our laptops/PCs, phones, tablets, and one Apple TV box.

[kraig]

Well, that's annoying. We have a (now-older, 2017 model) Vizio that is technically smart, but it has no internet connection. I did try the built in stuff at first, it's awful, that lasted a few weeks, then I bought an AppleTV and connected the ethernet to it instead of the TV. It's not the greatest, but we didn't spend a ton on it either, so hey. Not looking forward to when we have to replace that thing.

[arlie]

Apple does sell advertising. Their News app. serves ads along with the news. Their App Store produces "sponsored" results.

The best you get is that if they are telling the truth, they don't sell the personal information that drives "personalization" of the ads shown to the user.

[thewayne]

Ah, that is true.  They do sell ads, we just have to trust them that they aren't selling our PI directly.

[silveradept]

Everybody's in the personal data selling game, and trying to figure out just how they can extract that data from us to sell. That "smart" TV operating systems seem to all be in favor of this advertising and extraction makes me want them even less, and to be willing to pay for the premium of "digital signage" rather than a "television" should it come to that.

Of course, since everything I do is routed through a computer, I don't have to use any of the "smart" options, but I don't like having unexploded mines in my technology. Maybe if it were a model that I could flash something different on, that would be another story.

[thewayne]

I haven't heard of anyone hacking TVs to flash their own systems onto them, but that doesn't remotely mean that people aren't doing it.

[silveradept]

To do it, they'd probably have to find some sort of security vulnerability to get at the bootloader and then go from there. Like you used to have to jailbreak.

[halfshellvenus]

*cries* A little too late now, as I already have a Visio TV. I got an email recently saying they were changing their access, which might be this. :(

In general, I'm already unhappy with the setup. I just want to be able to set up a TV without having to scan QR codes and going to websites and a bunch of other crap. The TV is right there! Make the UI something I can do entirely from the stupid TV.

OTOH, we tend to use TVs through Roku, so that gets more convoluted when you have a TV with a very heavy UI of its own.

The one large TV that IS a Roku TV is very simple compared to most. And? We only need 1 remote.

[thewayne]

pats HSV's shoulder I'm sorry for your loss.  Perhaps once you get the Roku plugged into it and set up, you can set it to that interface and ignore everything else.

[halfshellvenus]

Fortunately, it's the second TV, and no one is really spending a lot of time in that room at the moment. But I do have the Roku stick mounted for it. :D