Even with LG’s concession, it may become more difficult to avoid chatbots on TVs.
LG says it will let people delete the Copilot icon from their TVs soon, but it still has plans to weave the service throughout webOS. The Copilot web app rollout seems to have been a taste of LG’s bigger plans to add Copilot to some of its 2025 OLED TVs. In a January announcement, LG said Copilot will help users find stuff to watch by “allowing users to efficiently find and organize complex information using contextual cues.” LG also said Copilot would “proactively” identify potential user problems and offer “timely, effective solutions.”
Some TVs from LG’s biggest rival, Samsung, have included Copilot since August. Owners of supporting 2025 TVs can speak to Copilot using their remote’s microphone. They can also access Copilot via the Tizen OS homescreen’s Apps tab or through the TVs’ Click to Search feature, which lets users press a dedicated remote button to search for content while watching live TV or Samsung TV Plus. Users can also ask the TV to make AI-generated wallpapers or provide real-time subtitle translations.
The thing with smart TVs is that you don’t need to connect them to your network to use them.
LG, unfortunately, still make the best OLED displays at the moment, and Samsung are arguably even worse when it comes to not respecting their customers.
Our C2 65in is hooked up to an Apple TV for all of our media streaming needs.
Apple TV is honestly fantastic. The only issue is, so many streaming devices don’t support 120 Hz so you can’t have 120 Hz Steam Link for example, you usually need to use the built-in OS Steam Link to stream games at 120 Hz.
I hope this is something that will change in the future.
I get where you’re coming from, and in certain situations where you can’t otherwise get around it, you can configure your home network to not allow the Smart TV to phone home with telemetry or to accept any inbound external network traffic, so it can only access local network data such as your PC for Steam link.
I’m not confident enough to configure my home network that well (yet), hence I just opt to have the TV air gapped instead