How To Dumb Down Your Smart TV. You just want to turn on your TV and play a video game, or use your Apple TV or Roku to watch a favourite show, but every time you tinker with your TV’s interface, ads appear. Ads in the input bar, ads on the screen where you have apps installed—it seems like they’re everywhere. It’s nearly impossible to find a “dumb” TV that still has modern features these days. However, there are ways to combat the constant barrage of advertisements on your devices, and we have five to offer, organised by increasing complexity and cost.
Some are as simple as being lazy, while others involve installing Linux on a Raspberry Pi. There is an option for every skill and level of commitment, and you can combine more than one of these options for the most effective scenario. The ultimate goal, however, is to allow you to make the most of your TV without getting bogged down by its smart features.
Table of Contents
Do not use the internet
The simplest and most direct way to prevent your television from displaying advertisements is to simply disconnect it from the internet. The TV cannot connect to the internet if you never connect it to Ethernet or enter your Wi-Fi credentials. That means no updates, but also no advertisements. If your TV’s manufacturer releases a firmware update that enables a significant feature, as both LG and Sony have done with recent televisions, you can always plug in temporarily to download an update. This is especially important if your television has microphones and a camera, which an increasing number do.
Disable Automatic Content Recognition (ACR)
If you must connect your TV to the internet, see if it has a feature called Automatic Content Recognition, or ACR. When you enable ACR, it will try to identify everything you put on your screen. This includes broadcast, cable, streaming, and DVD media. This data can then used to display dynamic ads related to the content you’re watching.
ACR, like many other features, has an industry-standard name that each manufacturer modifies on their set. If you’re setting up your television for the first time, you should be able to turn this off right away. Consumer Reports has a great guide for turning off this feature on some of the most popular brands.
Make use of a set-top box
Use a set-top box such as an Apple TV, Nvidia Shield, Chromecast, Amazon Fire Stick, or Roku instead of installing apps on your television. Many set-top boxes contain advertisements. But they are usually limited to one ad on the main screen, making them easier to ignore. It’s worth noting that Apple’s offering is ad-free.
As an added bonus, popular set-top boxes typically have better app support and more frequently updated applications, whereas smart TV apps may eventually fail due to the TV being out of date or not powerful enough to play modern content. The box can do what it does best: stream content, while your television only has to worry about displaying the image.
How To Dumb Down Your Smart TV
It’s also worth investigating which TVs allow you to set them up without requiring you to use a connected interface. Sets that use the Google TV OS (rather than Android TV), such as TCL’s R646 Mini-LED television, will allow you to use the default of Google TV, which is less of a TV interface and more of a glorified front-end for Google’s media store. You can, however, bypass the Google TV setup and use Basic Mode instead. As a result, the only advertisement on the TV is one politely suggesting that Google TV might be a cool thing. This effectively allows you to use the television as if it were a dumb television.
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Purchase an AV receiver
This is arguably the most effective option on this list because it works with almost any television. An audio-video receiver, also known as a home theatre receiver, is a device that can handle video signals from your devices while also sending audio to your speakers. This can be a bit complicated to set up, as we discovered when looking for a fully HDMI 2.1-enabled receiver recently, but it’s doable and can be very effective. With the right receiver, you’ll connect your devices—Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5, Switch, or a set-top box—rather than the television.
How To Dumb Down Your Smart TV
Then you can change the receiver’s inputs while keeping your television on the same input all the time. In other words, it reduces the amount of time you have to spend dealing with a digital interface and instead allows you to deal with simple buttons.
Another advantage is that many modern devices include HDMI-CEC (Consumer Electronics Control), which allows your television and device to communicate via HDMI. Turning on your PlayStation will activate your television. The volume of the receiver can changed by pressing the volume button on your Xbox media remote. You’ll still need the receiver remote for more complex actions, but you shouldn’t have to use it all that often.
Create a Pi-Hole
Pi-Hole is a ridiculously crude name for a powerful little device. A Pi-Hole is a network-wide ad and tracker blocker. This device built and configured by you using a do-it-yourself computer such as a Raspberry Pi 3 or 4. There are numerous guides available on the internet, so we won’t go into detail here. There numerous text-based and video guides available on YouTube. This is by far the most difficult option on this list. But it has the potential to be the most effective.
This device, once configured, will protect all other devices on your network from ads and trackers. Computers, phones, and even integrated devices like televisions and set-top boxes are included. A Raspberry Pi computer can purchased for as little as $35. And may require the purchase of additional items such as storage. But even with accessories, it is still less expensive than most set-top boxes and nearly any receiver. So, if you’re willing to put in the effort. This option will allow you to continue using the features of your smart TV. Without bombarded with advertisements—the best of both worlds.
