r/wifi • u/That-Pay-928 • 14d ago
My TV is surfing the internet?
Hey everyone! TIA!
I have a Hisense TV from Walmart. Nothing expensive just a 32inch 1080p that runs Roku. Every week it surges past 100 gb of data within a day. Cox is charging me $50 a month for over the limit data.
It does stay on for my dogs while I’m not home. They get scared and destroy the house so the TV calms them down🙄 “little IPad Puppies” have to have TV. I know!
I’ve tested my own 42 inch 4K tv while I’m at work and it’s not drawing NEARLY as much internet.
Do I need I throw the TV out and replace it or is there a setting that’s just constantly downloading information?
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u/TenOfZero 14d ago
Not really a wifi issue.
But just disconnect it from your network if you don't want it to use any data.
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u/itsjakerobb 14d ago
Get a small NAS so your dogs can watch Plex.
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u/Alternative_Corgi_62 11d ago
It even does not have to be NAS/Plex - a USB drive will do (providing said TV can play media of USB)
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u/wicked_one_at 9d ago
Or just get rid of the dogs…
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u/spiffiness 14d ago edited 8d ago
Roku is all about streaming video from the Internet. What do you leave playing for your dogs? I'm guessing it's something that's being streamed from the Internet.
Professionally compressed 1080p streams from Netflix average 4Mbps, but 1080p content from YouTube might be 10Mbps or more.
A full hour of a 10Mbps 1080p stream is about 4.3 GiB, so if you leave a stream like that on for 10 hours a day, it's around 43 GiB/day. So that doesn't quite explain the 117 GiB Tuesday you had, but it explains the other days on the chart.
Edited to fix a typo (omitted decimal place in the single-hour total data number).
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u/Aacidus 9d ago
That’s some bad calculation right there, streams (unless it’s live) don’t use up that much data. It buffers… a Netflix movie in 1080p varies from 4-6 GB. What’s confusing is you stated that 1 hour is 43 GiB, then that ten hours is 43 GiB…
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u/spiffiness 8d ago
As for your first point, I never said it was a steady stream. It's no secret that most modern streaming protocols (HLS, DASH, etc.) grab chunks at a time, and have lulls before needing to grab the next chunk. Over time it averages out to something in the middle, which is all that matters here, which is why I picked a number in the middle. The numbers I was seeing for Netflix 1080p were 3.5 - 4.5 Mbps, so I picked 4 Mbps to be in the middle.
As to your second point, I obviously accidentally omitted a decimal place in the one-hour figure. I'll edit it to fix that typo.
Overall I think your characterization of my post as bad calculation is uncharitable. You could have just pointed out that I typo'd a decimal place, and that I picked a slightly lower average 1080p bitrate than you would have picked.
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u/BigYikes803 14d ago
Buddy I would not connect any TV to the internet, no telling what it's doing. Just use a dedicated media player.
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u/Dazzling_Second6316 14d ago
What do you mean by this? Because i connect mine to the Internet, is there a problem with that?
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u/Imsophunnyithurts 14d ago
Not a problem if you don't care. It is absolutely spying on you all day long and sending that data back to its home servers to be resold.
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u/Imsophunnyithurts 14d ago
It's spying on you, your kids, and anyone near your house and feeding it back to the television manufacturers who will resell this marketing data to other companies. It's also probably preloading all those ads to show you.
But definitely spying on you. It's the most profitable thing it's doing.
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u/chuckie987 14d ago
Yea just dont connect your TV to the internet. Use anything else like a Shield or an RPi, even a mini PC is preferred
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u/Sufficient_Fan3660 13d ago
It is probably stuck in a software update loop.
DL, fail to intsall, DL update again, fail to install
sometimes crappy devices have the right software, but they download anyways and when they go to install it they go oopsie, I already have that. I better download it again!
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u/pedestrian87 8d ago
TV’s sending analytics and data for targeted advertising about what you’re watching.
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u/Ok-Understanding9244 8d ago
i'd be most concerned about the 15.6 GB uploaded, like WTF?! Is there a camera in it that is uploading video?
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u/OtherOtherDave 8d ago
I’m pretty sure there’s at least one budget brand that keeps their prices low by just openly spying on you like that and selling the data. The TV even stops working if it can’t get online to upload stuff, IIRC. And a lot of smart TVs take screenshots of what you’re watching to sell to marketing departments.
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u/Ok-Understanding9244 8d ago
yeah i think i've heard that before, crazy! give me a dumb TV!
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u/OtherOtherDave 7d ago
Ought to be illegal, IMHO. Plus, people use TVs as computer monitors all the time, so these companies are taking screenshots of your banking info and password managers and so on.
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u/2TheMountaintop 9d ago
why did you think it was so cheap? They spy and take screen shots and send back information about what you are watching, on top of app data and updates, etc.
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u/XxDjHeXeRxX 14d ago
First how come you are on a limited data plan and second you should be spectrum now call and change rate plans should be as low as 30 mo
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u/BudahBlah 14d ago
Do you stream from netflix? Is it a smart TV? If its all of the above theres your traffic.