Why I wish I hadn’t bought my Samsung OLED TV

In June 2024, successful a dusty TV shop quiet of customers prevention myself, my wife, and my kids, I stared heavy into the LG C3 and Samsung S90C. I went backmost and distant betwixt the 2 OLED screens for easy 20 minutes, happily paralyzed by the prime successful beforehand of me. The Video Only salesperson attempted to explicate that location was nary incorrect decision.

A twelvemonth and a half later, I disagree: I regret picking the Samsung complete the LG. I regret it each clip I set the measurement connected my TV, each clip I plug successful a caller device, and particularly ever since the Logitech Harmony Amazon Alexa integration crap the furniture and I person to fumble a Samsung distant to move inputs.

Samsung’s QD-OLED sheet itself is phenomenal, if thing typical successful 2026. The problem is the software. I would salary Samsung $100, correct now, for this “smart” TV to beryllium arsenic dumb arsenic the ones I grew up with.

Heck, I’d springiness Samsung 50 bucks conscionable to fto america disable the measurement indicator. Failing that, let’s spot if shame works.

Let maine beryllium clear: One of the last deciding reasons I chose the Samsung S90C complete the LG C3 was that LG had grounded maine before. My LG E7 OLED, purchased from a not-long-for-this-world Fry’s Electronics successful 2018, yet developed a ample power blemish (not your emblematic burn-in) that sometimes discolored the picture. Before that, my erstwhile Sony TV developed a statement of acheronian pixels soon aft the warranty expired.

But some Sony and LG had unobtrusive onscreen measurement indicators, conscionable small icons adjacent the separator of the screen. Samsung believes that anyone who ever needs things a small louder aliases quieter is consenting to tolerate this aberration:

This eyesore stretches astir a 3rd of the measurement crossed the screen, vertically and horizontally, obscuring the unthinkable moving creation I’m trying to watch underneath. And if you’re utilizing a receiver, it consumes each this surface abstraction to convey basically zero information. Not the existent measurement level, unless you’re utilizing the TV’s built-in speakers, and not whether I’m getting a stereo aliases situation aliases Dolby Atmos signal.

It is the Samsung balanced of Microsoft Clippy, but worse: “Looks for illustration you’re trying to set the volume!”

We watch plentifulness of movies that incorporate some too-loud action and too-quiet dialogue, astatine an hr erstwhile kids are expected to beryllium successful bed, truthful we’re adjusting that measurement each the time.

In 2023, personification “1544CT” connected the Samsung Community forums complained that “as a personification that watches a batch of Movies and shows I tin nary longer urge Samsung until this annoyance is fixed.” But they didn’t look optimistic. After all, the institution hadn’t yet acted connected a 26-page thread astir the annoyance from 2020, 1 that now has complete 130,000 views.

There are galore Reddit threads and moreover a Change.org petition to hole it. Though a Samsung moderator promised to present the title to the company’s engineers, it’s been 3 much years and astir 50,000 much views without a resolution. Some users reported getting a v2203 update that reduced the size of the overlay, astatine least, but it appears that update may person been paused successful December owed to issues. Will we ever get it?

Problem number two: Samsung has nary due conception of an HDMI input, truthful I’m fumbling pinch a distant each clip I plug a caller gadget in.

Here is really my Samsung TV useful successful 2026:

I fishy not everyone’s ever plugging successful caller gaming handhelds and Analogue 3Ds and mini-SNESes complete HDMI for illustration me. But connected my LG TV set, and each HDMI-capable group I’ve ever owned before, I could conscionable property a fastener to rhythm done HDMI inputs until the correct image showed up.

Thankfully, my PS5 and Switch 2 person beautiful decent implementations of HDMI-CEC, the communications protocol that lets them nonstop commands to my TV. When the kids want to watch Netflix aliases occurrence up Astro Bot, the powerfulness fastener connected the DualSense pad aliases Switch 2 Joy-Con will do it. But weirdly, they won’t move my TV and receiver off.

I utilized to get astir about of this by mounting up analyzable Logitech Harmony Hub routines that’d occurrence erstwhile I said “Alexa, move disconnected the TV” aliases “Alexa, move connected the Nintendo Switch.” But since that infrared Wi-Fi distant stopped syncing to Amazon and Logitech’s servers decently this year, I’ve had to usage Samsung’s package and distant much than ever.

One day, I had the thought to effort Home Assistant, erstwhile the Samsung TV and Samsung’s SmartThings showed up successful a database of imaginable integrations. Maybe I could move HDMI devices from my phone? But Samsung doesn’t expose individual HDMI ports there, either; I could only show my surface to move to “TV” aliases “HDMI,” nary different sources aliases channels.

Those different HDMI sources do exist successful Samsung’s API, because a homebrew third-party integration made my different Connected Devices for illustration “PlayStation 5” and “AV Receiver” look successful Home Assistant — but only aft connecting my TV to Samsung’s unreality and generating a civilization API key. Yes, I person to scope retired complete the net done Samsung’s unreality and backmost into my location to alteration HDMI inputs. And it’s still not reliable, because Samsung’s unreality sometimes tells maine I’ve made excessively galore requests, and sometimes needs a full caller token earlier it’ll judge commands again.

I’m astir fresh to spell looking for an old-school infrared cosmopolitan distant astatine this complaint and thatch my kids immoderate pointing skills. But hey, Samsung, really astir $50 for a fix? I person PayPal, Venmo, hell, I’ll type my paper number into the TV itself if you’ll fto me.

I asked Samsung a mates days agone astir imaginable updates, but it didn’t person an reply by people time.