Because of recent news i trust my LG CX Oled even less. It wasnt connected to the internet for years. But that might havent been enough. Also it always annoyed me that i couldnt disable bluetooth via the TV OS at all and it always screamed into the void.
So i followed this 3 minute video guide how to open up the backpanel which should work for most generations of the LG C-Series:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pgsggpR7-M
The daughter board with all the wireless stuff should be in the right corner. Just unscrew that one screw which holds it at place.
Carefully(or not) flip the daughter board over. Open the black tab and pull the cable out. Aside from the cable just put everything back together.
The magic mouse function of the remote wont work anymore. Otherwise its working fine via IR. You will maybe break a plastic tab of the backpanel.
Dont touch the PSU at all, it could kill you in the worst case even if disconnected.
Wifi and bluetooth obviosly wont work anymore. But that was the whole point and took maybe 15 minutes.
There is also a way to root your TV with certain firmware versions and install an homebrew app to disable bluetooth. But i dont even trust LG enough that a software toggle really disables wifi… In my case the only exploit which still works requires a LG developer account and then i would need to connect the TV to the internet and… Yeah, nope.
If you wanted to resell your TV in full “working” condition it would just take 15 minutes again to reseat the cable.
Now i’m going to read up if ethernet over HDMI could be another potential issue. Edit: Probably not.
Thank you so much for this! Know if there’s any way to disconnect the microphones?
Ooooh, havent even thought about the microphones. I was just happy that the TV is now more or less “air gapped”.
Spotting the daughter board was pretty easy because i found a picture of it as a replacement part with a bit of goo- search machining. So i pretty much just opened the back panel according to the tutorial. Looked at the innards for a minute and took a guess which turned out to be right.
According to Gamer Nexus there are several microphones in these TVs. Microphones are also just tiny these days. Too much hassle for me personally tbh.
The remote also has a microphone inside and atleast mine cant be opened nondestructivly the last time i checked for a different reason. Probably best to just buy these service remotes for 20 bucks.
Next year’s will (probably) not have a daughter board, but this is quite convenient!
You could also jailbreak it and disabled it via homebrew ;)
I only have BT disabled though, still need networking to control DYI ambilight. I think blocking LG addresses on the router does the trick for phoning home, or at least it doesn’t nag me about updates anymore.
Yeah, but depending on how new the firmware is you need a LG developer account and need to connect the tv to the internet to download the developer app and then sign into it with your developer account. Just to make the exploit work. By the time you have root access to disconnect from the internet/bluetooth the tv already uploaded all my conversations of the last years. Which is exactly what i dont want. Maybe you can find a way to download and login while still blocking all the spicy privacy invading connections with pi-hole. But by that time i disconnected the flat cable to the daughter board like five times.
With that you also have an insecure device with priviliged root access from user space. I’d rather not.
I deal with phoning home by router-level blocking LG domains and IPs (based on a community sourced list). Given that I’m not updating the TV to preserve jailbreak it’s unlikely that this list will ever have to be updated.
If you wanted to resell your TV in full “working” condition
working condition is without wifi or bluetooth garbage.
