Tired of my tvs no longer updating to the latest software, tired of my phone no longer connecting to my car, tired of my few years old tech being considered legacy and no longer supported. Can anyone suggest non-android, non-apple, non-AI, non-connected, non-smart ‘dumb’ tech you’ve bought that makes a difference in your life? Should be hardy enough to last maybe 20 years (my even older plasma tv is still going on strong with a beautiful tv and forward firing speakers, while my newer Samsung lcd stopped receiving updates) and just do it’s job. I can live without mu ai enabled washer telling me how to wash my clothes.
Do a factory reset on your TV. Then do not let it ever connect to the internet again. Get a cheap laptop and play all your media on it through the TV.
It’s a huge problem. Software engineers need to step up and say no to creating artificial barriers between the user and the device. Electronic and mechanical engineers should be making devices that are repairable.
In my workshop I have switched to buying old industrial tools that don’t have embedded software. These machines were built in a time when people expected to repair their own stuff and keep it working.
It’s difficult to imagine a corporation whose ethics are more toxic than Apple but everyone seems to be following their lead and jumping on this mendacious bandwagon.
For a phone with a minimal UI, there is Light Phone. I almost bought the Nokia “banana phone” because it was used in The Matrix and I love that film. If you want something that will last a long time, maybe Fairphone (tho it is Android)
Yes Fairphone is great. My parent is still using my old v3 and is still gets updates as well has having spare parts for fixes.
Fairphones due to having pretty long lasting hardware are common early targets for LineageOS and PostmaketOS devs, so yeah definitely a good choice for longevity.
Google pixels are the best mainstream longevity alternative due to developer adoption in the non-Google Android communities and mobile linux communities. Pixel 1s are still getting updates to latest Lineage Android, though I’m sure it has to be super slow. Graphene only runs on Pixels.
Librem 5 or the PinePhone would probably be your best bets if you want an out of the box mobile gnu/linux.
The Light Phone looks pretty neat and I like the idea of a more minimalistic device (especially with e-paper), but it’s pretty unique hardware and a custom Android that needs jailbreaking to update if the company stops supporting it.
It also looks like the third iteration won’t have an e-paper display, so I’m not sure the beneft of that version will be against a ultra power-saving mode / locked down Android or a mobile Linux on much cheaper hardware.
I’m curious about something.
I fully understand your sentiment of things that don’t need to be smart, being “smart”. I have never connected my TV to the internet, because fuck that. I think there’s a bunch of things that are getting crap they don’t need layered on, all to mine more data
That said, what’s the issue with the TV not updating to the latest software? Isn’t that basically the same as a TV that never needed updates? No chance of a new feature, ever?
The key difference is the spyware, but that wasn’t what frustrated you, specifically.
Because I lose features I bought the tv for? I mean, if the selling point is a YouTube/ netflix/ spotify client, then 3 years down the line when the Netflix client is no longer compatible with the current service, and can’t be updated because the TV’s OS isn’t being updated by the manufacturer any more, it means I have to buy another device, which I could have done in the beginning. So now I want a dumb tv so I can pair it with anything I want for years (HDMI will be around a lot longer than Netflix v3.x.xxxx), instead of having a tv filled with zombie apps I can’t delete.
The spyware is there as long as I’m using the services. So it’s not what is bothering me, though it’s the common bogeyman. It’s the forced obsolescence and waste.
I had a dumb tv that I was using with a Roku streaming box. The TV became no longer supported because of the HDMI version that shipped with the TV. Roku stopped supporting certain versions of hdmi to prevent piracy.
Even if you have a “Dumb” device, newer tech may just say no.
Good counterpoint mate. Will have to avoid those too, then.
