# Monitors / TVs

For TVs, we want the longest warranty period and lack of any "smart" features.  However, nobody seems to be selling a non-smart TV anymore. This hurts consumers in many ways:

* Useful life of the TV reduces because features like wifi or operating system gets outdated much faster than the display itself.
* It fundamentally changes the relationship between the consumer and the TV manufacturer. Smart TV turns consumer into a *product* to be sold to media companies like Netflix or Amazon Prime.

Utsav explained why this has been happening here (but did not touch on the problems above):

{% embed url="<https://youtube.com/shorts/XjwswW0DYS0?feature=shared>" %}

One solution here seems to be to buy commercial displays from Sharp/NEC and add the software smartness via a Raspberry Pi. [Here's Jeff Geerling's video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-epPf7D8oMk) about this approach. [NEC has a good catalog](https://in.nec.com/en_IN/solutions_services/display_solutions/large_format_displays/index.html) of such displays in India. Sharp even [flaunts their open-source approach](https://www.sharpnecdisplays.us/system-on-a-chip). However, NEC commercial displays are likely very expensive.

A more practical option might be to buy any TV but NEVER use its smart features. Instead, use an [open hardware streaming stick](https://www.isfixable.com/electronics/streaming-stick-box) to access the content.