LG to offer subscriptions for already purchased appliances and televisions, evolving into a provider for “Home as a Service”

www.theregister.com LG to offer subscriptions for appliances and televisions

Subscription fatigue is a thing and regulators are circling, but Korean giant reckons you're ready to cough up after buying hardware

LG to offer subscriptions for already purchased appliances and televisions, evolving into a provider for “Home as a Service”::Subscription fatigue is a thing and regulators are circling, but Korean giant reckons you're ready to cough up after buying hardware

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173 comments

I bought a $3k+ LG OLED. I intentionally never agreed to any TOS so that it would act as a dumb TV. I wanted it on the network so that I could control it through Home Assistant and Apple HomeKit so I put it in my IoT VLAN. Within a day it was trying to port scan my network! It is now fully isolated with no outgoing connections allowed.
- I have a 2017 era Samsung TV. I use it to connect to a media server that my router runs if I plug in a USB drive. This just worked so I assumed it was an open unauthenticated service.
  Then I tried to use VLC running on my phone to connect and found myself presented with a login screen. When I investigated further I found the router's media server defaulted to using the the router's admin credentials.
  So it looks like the TV had been programmed to try common default router creds before showing a login prompt to the user as a "convenience".
  
  That's good UX, the real fuckup is using default admin credentials om your router.
  
  Im safe.
  I changed u:admin p:admin to u:root p:service
  
  I wasn't too concerned previously as my routers are only exposing their services to the local network.
  I understand the view that it's a superior UX but I was taken aback that it was guessing passwords for other devices on the network.
- The “smart” LGTV experience is utter trash. I was very pissed off to see adverts on my Home Screen when I put it online. It’s since been taken off and an Apple TV now provides the streaming services.
  
  Samsung isn't any better. Bloated as hell too and I expect 0 privacy using it.

173 comments