I bought a Sony OLED a couple years ago. I was able to set it up in “dumb” mode and all the default apps could be manually removed. It acts like a monitor and shows nothing but our Apple TV at powerup.

The home screen’s just a nice static background with a settings app and nothing else. I never see it unless I press the appropriate button, but it’s nice to know there isn’t an onslaught of junk waiting for me if I do.

YMMV but other brands with Google TV may have similar “dumb” capabilities.

This is irrelevant to what OP said which is that it this should be the default. One anecdote of "with effort and technical expertise I returned the appliance to a workable state" doesn't mean things are ok.

edit: Im not trying to be snarky, I think your reply was genuinely trying to be helpful, but its not ok that we're being sold this crap

I agree it should be the default, but this TV was readily placed into dumb mode at first powerup. Set your country & language, select dumb mode ("Basic TV"), skip WiFi and most would be satisfied with the result.

Some effort's needed to clean up the homescreen, but you never need to see it. Hand your grandparents a basic programmable remote without extras like the home button. They should be good to go.

"Well, you have to jump through all these hoops and have a CS degree and de-solder the radio and then power the TV on carefully and then–"

Yes, it is technically possible to de-fang some TVs, but it should not be necessary.

I think in cases of people with Alzheimer’s or other elderly people who can’t really operate things besides play/stop/next dumb screen isn’t going to work. Mostly because you have to hook up something else that will require additional steps to operate.

My father doesn’t have any serious dementia or signs of Alzheimer’s - he is 65 but typing in anything on keyboard is still a major hassle for him. If he could have play/stop/next button it would work for him.

Until you get a mandatory software update.

Through what means? It’s not on the internet, nor was a connection required for setup.

Cars come with cellular radios now. It’s conceivable that other electronics could start to ship that way.

Apple’s Wallet app presents this feature as being for “age and identity verification in apps, online and in person”.

I upstreamed a 1-line fix, plus tests, at my previous company. I had to go through a multi-month process of red tape and legal reviews to make it happen. That was a discouraging experience to say the least.

My favorite is when while you were working through all that, the upstream decided they need a CLA. And then you have to go through another round of checking to see if your company thinks it's ok for you to agree to sign that for a 1 line change.

Certainly easier to give a good bug report and let upstream write the change, if they will.

In this scenario does your employer have strong controls around what whether you can write hobby code on your own time?

One of my past employers in the UK added to the policy all the software the employee writes during the employment (eg. during the weekend, on the personal hardware), is owned by the company.

Several software engineers left, several didn't sign it.

Yes, company was very toxic apart of that. Yeah, I should name and shame but I won't be doxxing myself.

Many years ago an employer tried to to that and everyone .. just refused to sign the new contracts. The whole thing sat in standoff limbo for months until the dotcom crash happened and the issue became moot when we were all made redundant.

Generally yes. Or yes, you could just do it yourself in your free time.

This is what I've done in those rare cases I've had to fix a bug in a tool or a library I've used professionally. I've also made sure to do that using online identities with no connection to my employer so that any small positive publicity for the contribution lands on my own CV instead of the bureaucratic company getting the bragging rights.

Even at places that are permissive about hobby code, a company ought to want to put its name on open source contributions. These build awareness in the programming community of the company and can possibly serve as a channel for recruitment leads. But the (usually false) perception of legal risk and misguided ideas about what constitutes productivity usually sink any attempts.

It is amazing how companies want this "marketing" but don't want to put the actual effort to make it possible.

A tech company I worked at once had a "sponsorship fund" to "sponsor causes" that employees wanted, it was actually good money but a drop in the bucket for a company. A lot of employees voted for sponsoring Vue.js, which is what we used. Eventually, after months of silence, legal/finance decided it was too much work.

But hey it wasn't an exception. The local animal shelter was the second most voted and legal/finance also couldn't figure it out how to donate.

In the end the money went to nowhere.

The only "developer marketing" they were doing was sending me in my free time to do panels with other developers in local universities and conferences. Of course it was unpaid, but in return I used it to get another job.

I found a tiny bug in a library. A single, trivial, “the docs say this utility function does X, but it actually does Y”. I’m not even allowed to file a bug report. It took me some time to figure out how to even ask for permission, and they referred it to some committee where it’s in limbo.

My team lead once approved me upstreaming some changes to a open source project, so long as I did it using my private account.

Basically I got to do the work on company time&dime, but I couldn't give my employer credit, due to this kind of legal red tape.

I liked that teamlead

I drove a Genesis G80E for a week and I understand where you're coming from. The regen was a bit awkward and I had the same issues. The Mercedes EQE 350 I rented recently did better there.

Tesla has their regen dialed in quite well. I've read Ford's is good as well, but I haven't had a chance to drive one yet.

> I've read Ford's is good as well

I have a Tesla as well as a Lightning, and in my experience the Ford's regen behavior is indeed very similar to Tesla. I don't have much experience with other brands.

I’ve not had that experience. To the contrary, it’s so much more convenient than ICE for our family. Our EV always has a full “tank” every morning.

What’s the problem you’ve been having with yours?

Also not an electrician.

A concern for high current outlets in the US, such as NEMA 14-50, is that they weren't necessarily designed for a large number of plug/unplug cycles. Typically you'd plug your stove in and leave it there for years to decades.

If you use the same 14-50 outlet for car charging, which is not uncommon, the contacts can lose their grip over time. End users may want to take their mobile EVSE with them and incur cycles on the outlet. Properly installed but worn 14-50s have been known to melt or even catch fire under these conditions.

End users should prefer to have their EVSE(s) hardwired or installed with a higher grade outlet like Hubbell or Bryant.

It's not reasonable to expect someone to sell their primary mode of transportation, likely at a loss, for reasons out of their control.

But we have to suffer for their inaction. They have some small power to fight against it and are choosing not to. It's reasonable to watch people suffer or die but not to sell your car?

Would someone be expected to sell their home because the builder did something unsavory? Where do we draw the line?

I won’t be. The majority of accounts I follow have already migrated away or at least mirror their posts on other platforms. There’s nothing I need from X anymore.

I did the same with a Sony A80L, which also runs Google TV. I even uninstalled the bundled streaming apps for good measure, although I never see the home screen.

It behaves like a monitor. I never see the TV UI unless I ask for it.

My LG could be configured to behave like this (and believe me, I am thinking about going that way).

I have a cheap FireTV which cannot be made to behave this way. If you disconnect it from the internet, it will still require you to interact with the (slow-ass clunky) OS in order to select a different input.

Your best case scenario with some of these smart TV's is the ones which run Android to replace the launcher. Possibly, this gets reset periodically, meaning you have to keep doing it.

Apparently there's a few Fire devices which can be flashed with LineageOS - I might try researching that and see if it is doable. A FireTV stick with LineageOS would be the best case scenario.

I find that most of those reset to some nonsense occasionally or whenever the power goes out. I make sure they have no internet connectuon, but I usually have to dig up the remote to get back to hdmi1 so my device interface will come back up. I accept the annoyance because I accepted the discount that they give to have all of the spyware crap on there that I am blocking. I wish they could sell something cheaper that is just a display, buy product managers will be product managers.

> I wish they could sell something cheaper that is just a display…

The "smart" part is what makes TVs cheaper, since that's what opens the door to a higher CLV. People willing to put their money where their mouth is can still buy dumb displays: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/browse/Multimedia-Displays-Di...

Which is why I buy them and then cripple all of that stuff by not giving it a network connection.

I returned a Crucial P3+ after I discovered a massive performance degradation with Bitlocker. It was slower than spinning rust. Seems these drives have some unresolved firmware issues.