I was looking to buy a TV for my living room, but many people say that smart TVs are a privacy nightmare. I thought maybe I could buy a smart TV, disconnect it from the internet and plug in a raspberry pi or something. But I really don’t want to control it with a mouse and keyboard. 😵
So do any of you know of any good privacy friendly TV setups? Or know which brands are the least privacy invasive? Thanks ☺️
You could install LibreELEC on the Pi, it’s a distro specifically made for Kodi and that can be controlled with the Kore app from your phone
+1 Kodi. Been running it for ages on an old laptop with a infared remote with USB dongle. Kodi is set to autostart. Pretty hands off and can stream to it from local sources using Kore for android.
EDIT: Can stream from local AND online sources using Kore ex Newpipe (Youtube).
I think I will try Installing libreElec on my old laptop and see how that goes. I saw somewhere that the tv remote that the tv comes with might work because it sends the input through the HDMI. If that doesn’t work do you think IR remotes are better than Bluetooth?
I think bluetooth or 2.4 mhz is better than IR. Coming to think of it mine is a china something with keyboard on the side and remote on the other using 2.4 mhz. So point of line is not needed which is nice.
You can also just use your phone. The app is called Kore and is free and open source. It connects over the local network, so you don’t need an IR pointer or anything like that.
Edit: Just noticed that the comment you replied to already mentioned Kore. Anyway, I actually prefer using it over a remote. I always have my phone with me, I can use the phone’s keyboard and I can share stuff like YouTube links directly to it.
Yes I use Kore now and it’s great, but with a remote I can more easily give others control.
I have an old-ish dumb TV. Just look around on something like Craigslist and you’ve got a good chance of finding one
Sadly I can’t really find any good dumb Tvs. Isn’t a smart TV with disconnected internet just as good for privacy?
How much are you willing to spend?
https://www.sharpnecdisplays.us/system-on-a-chip
Or just any non smart digital signage display would work
Thanks. I will try libreElec first and if I’m not happy with that I will try the Nvidia shield + LineageOS setup.
I have a setup which is not ideal, but I believe improves privacy while preserving convenience: I never connected my TV to the internet, and instead use a MiBox TV S 4K for all my streaming with custom DNS blocking trackers and ads.
I guess there might be other Android TV boxes that allow you to change the DNS server. It might be worth checking a bit around if you decide to go down this route.
In my case, I found this Reddit post and was able to change the DNS server on the MiBox to NextDNS, where I could later activate relevant blocklists (SmartTV, Xiaomi, Google). I also perform monitoring of the domains the MiBox connects to and have blocked a couple manually.
This way I have an AndroidTV experience with the streaming services that I want, and with the domains I don’t want blocked.
Depends on your budget, I guess. My setup consists of a regular Samsung Smart-TV that I have disconnected from the network, connected to a mini-PC from Minisforum running Linux Mint. The reason I got that was mainly for gaming, could get away with a significantly cheaper option if not. I run my own Jellyfin-server for media content (movies, TV and music) and use FreeTube to watch YouTube (which I sync with my laptop and mobile using SyncThing). I do use a wireless foldable and rechargeable keyboard with built in trackpad, but it’s not working as great as I imagined. Corsair used to have a nice media keyboard, but as far as I know they have discontinued it and I haven’t yet found a new one that fits my criteria, so I keep using the foldable one.
As for gaming, I run emulation through RetroArch and Steam in big picture mode. I have four 8BitDo Ultimate controllers in case I get any friends over who are keen on a round of Mario Kart.
I have installed Kodi on my old laptop and added my Synology Nas as a source, so that I can stream media from there. I really don’t wanna use a keyboard, so I’m probably going to buy a Bluetooth remote.
Syncing freetube with syncthing?? I use both of those, but I didn’t know there was some way to keep freetube synced across devices. What does that setup look like?
Playlists, history, subscriptions and settings are all stored as .db-files in ~/.config/FreeTube (or whatever path it is if you are using the Flatpak). Sync those :) On FreeTube Android, you have to turn on custom data storage path in the settings first.
Amazing! Thanks so much for the info!
Thank you! I use FreeTube too. Gonna try this 👍
I just could not find anything to replace the convenience of a chromecast…. Throwaway google account, VPN, seperate network, that was the best I could do
