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

[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.