I'm suffering for that right now. Sony Bravia.

Firstly, I didn't want to buy a smart TV, but that's pretty much all that's sold anymore. I also didn't intend to connect it to the internet, but a well-meaning guest wanted to watch TV at night, and thought he was troubleshooting, not realizing he was in the TV menu and not the streaming box.

The TV updated, and IMMEDIATELY got worse. Formerly, if I turned it on, it would go straight to the streaming box. Great! As shitty updates do, it changed the settings, and would instead open to the TV's menu, so it could advertise streaming services. It also forgot that the TV input is HDMI 1. It became strictly worse, in the rare edge case of every fucking time you turn it on.

I don't trust it to not automatically connect, or to forget my login credentials, so I go to do a factory reset. It's literally an option in a menu. The TV gets stuck in a boot loop. Talking to support, they think it broke the mainboard. A factory reset bricked the TV.

It's under warranty, but this is fucking crazy. NEVER connect your TV directly to the internet.

This is the way.

HTPC for life!

Just build a media pc. Those media sticks have trackers and telemetry too.

My family stayed at my house and “the TV wasn’t working,” because it doesn’t have network access and I use an Nvidia Shield instead, so they connected it to the Wi-Fi and ad overlays showed up in the menus! I’m still mad about it years later.

Luckily I dodged a bullet and it didn’t brick it or anything, and the ads went away when the internet access did. I just disconnected it from the network and manually banned the MAC address in case anyone else tries it again.

Vizio is likely offering unusually large paperweights without Walmart accounts.

now require a Walmart account for setup and accessing smart TV features

it'll still be listening and spying.

Does the TV work as a screen if you factory reset it then never reconnect it to the internet?

I really only need 1 HDMI port on my TV- to connect my AV receiver to, everything else gets plugged into that receiver, it's got about 8 HDMI ports.

Right now there's 3 consoles, a pc, and a Chromecast hooked up to it, so I have ports to spare, and I haven't had to use anything on my tv since I initially set it up and set the input to HDMI 1

It's not necessarily feasible for everyone, it does take up a little more space in your entertainment center that not everyone has, but I also think it's 100% worth it to at least have a decent set of speakers hooked up to your TV if you can find the space and budget to do so.

I used to prefer CRTs too... And then I got an OLED. Nothing else comes close, not even the best CRTs. Especially if it's got quantum dots in combination with OLED.

Given that input lag was already solved five years ago, really the only advantage CRTs still have left is their ability to look great at non-native resolutions. But upscaling filters like HQX/xBR for retro games, and DLSS/FSR for modern titles, have all but completely eliminated that last remaining advantage. These filters are really good at upscaling lower resolution content to fit your display's pixels. Hell, DLSS is so good that it looks better than native 4K.

Nearly every electronic device sold at Walmart is a unique SKU sold nowhere else.

They have their own internal logistics and manufacturing specialist team that works with manufacturers to hit specific wholesale price targets that they demand to even consider carrying their products in store. They reduce the number of ports, features, included accessories, quality of materials, etc. to get the that specific price.

The manufacturers take a huge hit on their own profits from these... but in theory will make up for that with sheer sales quantity.

Requiring a Walmart account probably means some sort of kickback to Vizio, or other wholesale arrangement. And since these devices are usually unique SKUs that can't be sold elsewhere, they can receive differentiated software, have no risk of any sort of price matching, etc.