from Hacker News

Custom Linux powered smart-TV breaks free from ads and tracking

by PotatoNinja on 7/21/24, 8:11 PM with 26 comments

  • by Animats on 7/21/24, 9:26 PM

    Reasonable prototype. What else is available in this space, as a finished product you buy and which isn't tied to some service?

    I'm surprised this isn't a Raspberry Pi thing.

  • by figmert on 7/21/24, 9:37 PM

    Had a quick look through the readme. Seems like there's quite a bit of improvements that can be done, running it with Firefox's Kiosk mode for example. Perhaps a better option would be to use a custom webview (maybe Tauri?) to have better control over the inputs.

    It's a cool start regardless.

    [0] https://github.com/carltheperson/earlgreytv

  • by qwerty456127 on 7/21/24, 10:07 PM

    I don't understand why do "smart TV" even have to exist when we can just attach whatever a smart box to any ordinary TV/monitor/projector?

  • by candiddevmike on 7/21/24, 9:44 PM

    I've thought about this a lot recently. It would be ideal to reflash the PC embedded in the back of the TV, but failing that, how hard would it be to connect the display to something like a raspberry pi. This prototype seems like the latter, and it definitely has its warts. You really need the display unit to make this functional.

    I wonder how hard it is to flash the onboard components. Is there an OpenWRT equivalent for smart TVs?

  • by kkfx on 7/22/24, 8:05 PM

    A personal question: if modern TVs are essentially low power computers, why not buy a low power desktop with a good enough monitor? Why people in 2024 buy TVs if it's possible to have ONE damn computer with little extras to serve video content on multiple screen, a homeserver maybe?

  • by program on 7/21/24, 10:05 PM

    This is interesting. I simply do not connect my TV to the Internet and choose Apple TV, which gives me everything I need. Modern “smart TVs” are just ad terminals. That's why I think they are relatively cheap.

  • by NikkiA on 7/22/24, 8:58 AM

    there are plenty of hdmi-sticks that can run linux without duct taping a half-disassembled laptop to the back of your TV

  • by branon on 7/21/24, 9:47 PM

    I thought this was going to be open hardware or at least custom firmware that could replace Tizen or webOS. Imagine my disappointment when I click and it's a laptop strapped to the back of a TV.

    Does this do anything that existing solutions (OSMC, LibreELEC, Jellyfin MPV Shim) don't? From reading the source blog post it doesn't look like it. HDMI CEC, navigation without a mouse and keyboard (an airmouse is not a viable solution imo, at least use a Flirc), casting... all can be had better elsewhere with smaller, cheaper, quieter, more discrete hardware with lower power consumption.