Smart TV or not - no internet

[forward]

We don’t have or at this point intend to have internet. However it seemed sensible to have a smart TV in case in the future we do. Then I read the leaflet of neighbours new smart TV which mentioned fixing wherever possible on-line and upgrading software. So if we purchased a smart TV but don’t have internet how can it upgrade etc or are the upgrades just needed for smart functions? Perhaps in our case it’s best to steer clear of smart TV’s?
Thanks -Ray

 

[pete50]

I would be very surprised if you can actually buy a non-smart tv these days unless you go second hand. The fact that it is a smart tv does not affect your normal viewing. There is a lot of extra content that you get off the internet such as catchup tv, Netflix, Youtube etc. But 99% of tv viewing is complete and utter rubbish anyway so why bother with more rubbish from the web. as for software updates, I have had different makes of smart tv over the years and never has one updated it's software. TV boxes, such as Sky, tend to update but tellies never have. Even so if you get a smart tv it will update automatically if and when you connect it to the internet.

 

[forward]

Thank you for the info looks like a smart then

 

[Lucid]

As pete50 said, it's hard to buy a TV now that isn't smart enabled in some way. It's almost a standard feature and pretty-much expected on anything lounge-sized that isn't on the very bottom rung of the quality ladder.

Firmware updates used to happen over the air (OTA), but that was when the amounts of data being sent were very small. For example, here's a thread relating to some issues Samsung were trying to fix: https://www.avforums.com/threads/samsung-freeview-firmware-updates.699236/ Here's the link to the DTG engineering page that would have been the source for the OTA transmissions.

Now though the amounts of data required makes OTA updates impractical. Here's some info on how LG are handling their updates for web and non-web connected TVs LINK As you can see, they make and option available for a USB update. This is only one brand's approach though. You should probably check out the brands you're considering and how they support their TVs post-sale.