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 ☺️

  • cyberwolfie@lemmy.ml
    1·
    3 months ago

    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.

    • alfenstein@beehaw.orgOPdansk
      1·
      3 months ago

      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.

    • Ark-5@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      1·
      3 months ago

      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?

      • cyberwolfie@lemmy.ml
        2·
        3 months ago

        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.