I hear this a lot “TVs will just connect to a nearby unprotected WiFi network!” But I ve never seen any evidence of it. It appears to just be speculation, unless you have an actual source?
If TV manufacturers wanted to be underhanded then they could actually make this much harder to detect by delaying the connection to new unauthenticated networks for e.g. months or only after seeing another device connect and then using that device's MAC when it is not around.
They could (although I’m not sure of the 80Kbps that Amazon sidewalk allows is really sufficient for the purpose of uploading ACR data), but is there any evidence that any TV manufacturer actually is? The reality is, why would they bother? 95% percent of people that buy a “Smart TV” hook it right up to their WiFi as soon as they take it out of the box.
ACR isn't generally a lossless 4K snap shot but indexed 32x32 pixel blocks from arbitrary locations on screen. In some cases it's even a fuzzy hash of the content source, and while 80Kbps isn't a lot, you can still push out data in a timely manner.
Because they don't. It's too much guesswork, and honestly pretty complicated. From the user perspective the TV would appear to go offline every now and then, so also somewhat easily detected.
It's much easier to just throw a $10 5G modem in there, pay the $2/year subscription fee for service, and extract data that way. Assuming a 5-10 year relevant lifespan of the TV, they'd throw $20-$30 on top of the sales price for the modem and 10 years of service.
The 5G modem could run completely independent of the wifi network, be a completely different circuit, and you'd never know it was there.
Cars having 5G connectivity is something that consumers actually want, it’s well documented on the spec sheets and marketing material, and obviously in a car WiFi is not going to work in most places. None of those things apply to TVs.
The linked image shows a module meant for easy integration, but it could also simply be a part of the main board of the TV. They could "hide" the GSM antenna alongside the wifi antenna.
If you think its already the case, how come nobody can provide any evidence of it? As stated above, it’s trivial to test. Surely if Brand X was doing this, there’d already be blog posts, youtube videos, HN posts, etc. about it?
