Good day! I am trying to find a good alternative as not to use the"smart" functions or using an Xbox to consume our media. I found a few options ie like plasma big screen but it's no longer in development. Essentially I would line love to have it running on an rpi4 and just hooked up to the TV.
The main issue for me is not finding a device to play content, but a dumb screen that is not a potatoe. A 4k HDR OLED Screen without any smart features is basically nowhere to be found
i got a good 55in LG oled screen, connected it to wifi and added a firewall rule to block its access to the internet because i hate how lg forces ads
i negated some of the privacy gains by having my “OS” be an apple TV that has internet access but im willing to live with it, since it allows easy remote access to my home assistant through HomeKit, plus the interface is nice and I have RetroArch installed on it, so yeah
You can replicate the same thing but switch the apple TV for a more private and adequate device for your needs
What kind of shitty TV takes 30s to turn on? Ive never seen one take that long. Smart functions have literally nothing to do with how fast they turn on. In fact a lot of smart TVs, especially with Roku built in, don't even really ever power down completely, and when you press power the screen is on and ready almost instantly.
You answered your own question. As you said, most smart TVs go into a sleep mode, so they appear to turn on in a near instant. But if you ever actually power it down, most take up to a minute to boot up.
I just got an LG C3 and don't have it connected to the network. I also turned off the fast input and power on and takes maybe 10 seconds to boot into the input. Not much longer than my blu ray player and receiver.