Do built-in Apps shorten the lifespan of Smart TVs?

[KYBOSH]

I was chatting with a TV repair shop today and the owner mentioned this but would really go into detail so i wanted to ask you guys what you thought.

He warned that a Smart TV will last longer if you use an external device to run programs (like Netflix) rather than running it natively on the TV.


Is there any truth to this and if so can someone explain the rationale? Or perhaps cite a source where I can readup on it? I havent seen anything yet.
Thank you!

[EazyBone]

On google tvs yes. For some odd reason they only have so many read/write cycles on the EMMC. For this reason they fail more often then not. This data was from Nick's TV repair (not my own) but the only tvs I've seen fail are Sony/Hisense Google TVs.

That being said .. I use external devices because they are made specifically for streaming and I believe they offer a better experience.

Additional experience... Sony main boards are usually $100-200 but Roku tv main boards are only $20. Higher failure rate makes price go up. Also a board from Hisense h6570g also are like $150. Aka failed EMMC.

That being said, I've had a Sony TV from a customer fail and he only used a streaming stick as he said.

I'm not a tv repair shop though, just a guy who trys learning as much as he can until he gets bored with it lol

[Davi.p]

I'm not certain it is so.. once i thinked so but now i do no more.. the reason the emmc fails to write is another for me than using the internet part.. the smart section makes only more saved data than normal tv section, especially frequent software updates, so the failing is prior but it would fail also not using it, due to other salvage of data..

[KYBOSH]

Well i messaged the guy for more clarification but he was very secretive and i dont really know why.
I asked him if the issue was with the read/write limts of the EMMC or something else. And his reply was "something else" and didnt write anything else.
I dont know if this is the norm with repair shop owners but I am thankful for a forum like Badcaps where I dont have to deal with them as much!

[nomoresonys]

Well i messaged the guy for more clarification but he was very secretive and i dont really know why.
I asked him if the issue was with the read/write limts of the EMMC or something else. And his reply was "something else" and didnt write anything else.
I dont know if this is the norm with repair shop owners but I am thankful for a forum like Badcaps where I dont have to deal with them as much!

Does it shorten the lifespan? Think about what it is and what it does. The answer is obvious: https://forum.huawei.com/enterprise/...13859733254144

[Davi.p]

KYBOSH, a repair shop lives years of hard surviving against the "use and throw" era, they defends their job, and also their job is not as professional as before due to manufacturers hardeness to release the important documents.. so how to blame them? They navigate between no knowledge and lies of various types, they do good things when they can...

[Diah]

.

nice to see you again... how are yours health hope and wish you are fine... welcome back bro

[nomoresonys]

Thanks friend, just a quick little post there. Can't really justify spending much time here. The rogue moderator is still here. Owner doesn't care what he does or how he treats members. Plus I see they are still letting whatshisname FREELY attack others, I'm SO done with it.

[Diah]

Thanks friend, just a quick little post there. Can't really justify spending much time here. The rogue moderator is still here. Owner doesn't care what he does or how he treats members. Plus I see they are still letting whatshisname FREELY attack others, I'm SO done with it.

its indeed... some old jump to be admin.. at time they were ZERO.and still X2 ZERO so now start the revenge from them.... .. i will fight till they kick me out. and you need so then who reads this will know the reason-

[x_orange90_x]

Read/Write cycles will generally far out-live the LEDs in a tv. The best thing one can do for their new tv is turn the backlight down by at least 20%. That, and not stick it to the wall in an enclosed entertainment center.

The service guy is probably talking about eMMc and maybe doesn't realize it, or he's actually meaning to say the life span will be virtually limited by it's own Smart software. Manufacturers want you to buy another tv from them so of course they are going to stop pushing software updates to older devices, which generally limits or breaks app functionally, essentially "breaking" your Smart TV. Roku sells you a $30 box and has no real incentive to breaking the software in order to sell you another, so generally speaking, these devices last much much longer.

[KYBOSH]

Wanted to circle back around to this topic. I really bothered me that using the smart TV function shortened the lifespan of these TVs so when I came across a Nvidia Shield Pro that needed salvaging/repair I knew exactly what I was going to use it for. It is not connected to the TV and I have ceased using the TVs built-in apps completely. I will likely factory reset the display as well once I get everything tested and buttoned up. Only thing i regret is I cant turn off the Wifi bcos I use some of its functionalities for home automation. Thanks again for the insight guys. The Shield Pro is 20x faster than the TV and since I have it connected to ethernet its streaming speed is oh so pleasing.

[Unspun01]

I have a few comments on using the smart TV built-in apps versus using external devices as inputs:

I have had a few smart TVs over the years that allow you to individually or globally set the backlight and video parameters for each input, including smart apps or smart TV home screen.

Most TV brands have LED backlight set to max out-of-the-box. This is so the picture looks bright and vibrant, but it overdrives the LEDs and they can fail prematurely.

On EVERY brand of TV, I always set the backlight (not the brightness) down below 50% to extend life of LED backlights. However, I have noted that some brands of smart TV do not have a "backlight" setting if you are using the "smart" apps or home screen.

On one TV I repaired, I painstakingly set the "backlight" to 40% for every input, but noticed that as soon as I went to use any of the built-in apps (like Netflix or Amazon Prime), the backlight immediately defaulted to a very bright picture which could not be lowered. I suspect this happens to many people, even those who know to lower the backlight setting, but don't realize to also set the smart TV backlight down also, or that there is no way to do so.

TLDR; Independent of some of the posts above talking about failures of the eMMC IC which is definitely a problem, I believe that some brands of smart TV will suffer backlight failures due to built-in apps because there is no way to reduce backlight setting and this results in a different failure mode than the eMMC problem.

[CapLeaker]

Well… if you ask me that depends on the quality of the EMMC too. But in general my smart TVs have a HTPC and that's where stuff gets done. So far so good, none failed yet and my oldest is a 2017 Samsung MU series. Basically it's 8 years old now.

[Unspun01]

@CapLeaker: Backlight failure is largely independent of eMMC quality and more related to bad user interface (UI) design. If you cannot set the intensity of the backlight, or there is no setting to adjust, then many people will never know about it or use it.

Regarding your use of a home theater PC (HTPC), this speaks directly to using a dedicated input (HDMI or PC-VGA, etc.) rather than Smart TV home screen or Smart TV apps.

Most likely with your Samsung, you are able to reduce backlight setting for your specific input and extend the life of your TV backlight. Samsung makes it easy to adjust backlight. They are just bad for setting it to maximum by default.

On the other hand, Hisense is a garbage TV. I recently fixed a neighbor's Hisense Roku TV and backlight settings are non-existent. You only have a few choices like "eco-mode" or "standard" or "vivid". But it's very obscure and there isn't much difference between the options which explains why his TV backlight burned out after only a couple of years.