I finally caught my smart TV spying on me in real time

Last month I was in my living room in Cleveland and I noticed my Samsung TV kept flickering the camera light. I checked the settings and saw it was sharing my viewing data with 14 different ad companies. I unplugged the whole thing and used a Wi-Fi analyzer on my phone to see what it was broadcasting. Turns out it was pinging servers in China every 90 seconds. I called their support line and the guy actually said "all smart TVs do this." That was the moment I built a pi-hole blocker for my whole house network. Has anyone else found a way to gut the spyware out of a modern TV without bricking it?

3 comments

3 Comments

black.joel28d ago

Actually, those camera lights on Samsung TVs from the last few years are just LED indicators for the built-in microphone, not a full camera. The privacy light you saw might have been a firmware check for the voice assistant feature. I found an easy fix for the data sharing without needing to build a network blocker. Go into the settings menu under Support and turn off "Auto Protection" and "Smart Hub" data collection. That stopped my TV from pinging anything outside the house, and I didn't need to mess with the hardware at all. The pi-hole setup is overkill for most people since the TV's own settings can kill most of the spyware stuff.

hayden70928d ago

Facts dude, I did the same thing and it worked like a charm.

carr.brooke28d ago

Hmm, I mean, is it really that deep though? Like, yeah, I get the privacy thing is annoying, but are we all just gonna sit here and act like our phones aren't doing way worse stuff 24/7? Maybe it's just me, but a TV probably isn't the device I'm sweating about. @hayden709 you seem cool with it, but honestly, do you really notice a difference in your life after turning those settings off? I feel like half the time people get worked up over this stuff and it's just a placebo thing.