Comment on Can you un-smart a smart tv?
philpo@feddit.de 8 months agoAs long as you deactivate the wireless LAN it shouldn’t be at risk doing that. From my understanding of US FCC and EU rules doing so despite manual deactivation of the “radio emiting technology” would lead to a market ban of the device (it has led to the EU banning other,mostly chinese, electronics in the past and Amazon was in hot water for a while).
tsonfeir@lemm.ee 8 months ago
I’m sure it’s in the policy we all agree to, and thus not illegal.
philpo@feddit.de 8 months ago
Nope, not that easy. I can only speak for EU regulations (but at least my colleagues who did FCC were complaining that they were stricter) but they require to make it clear that the user needs to be made directly aware that the device emits radio waves, define which frequencies/techniques are used (so they can’t make you think they are using Bluetooth for the remote but in reality also have a NB-LTE card in the device) and the device must (and this is seen very strict) keep any radio emitting off when it’s configured to do so. (This brought Samsung,Sonos and Amazon and Xiaomi in trouble in regards to “airline” modes that didn’t really deactivate everything or devices that could self activate).
So yeah, they could surely build the TV in a way that it only works with WiFi/whatever turned on(basically any Alexa device works that way),once there is a (software) switch they cannot silently still transmit, even if you agreed to it in some obscure TOS- this would lead to a market ban. And they need to tell you which frequencies they use - so you can be aware of it.
This is just the radio frequency side of it - I am fairly sure that there is at least one EU country that requires users to be able to switch off each frequency band on it’s own (may also be in EU consumer regulation laws,but I come from MedTech, not my field)
tsonfeir@lemm.ee 8 months ago
I think you’re missing my point
SkippingRelax@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Some of the eu regulations, you can’t just waive them by accepting an unreasonable EULA.