As an alternative to Smart TVs, something recently caught my eye on a deals website - signage displays, such as a Samsung QM49N. Anyone have experience with these?
While it does run an OS, it doesn't have a TV tuner, and I doubt it would show ads, since it is designed for signage (where I guess you have the control to show your OWN ads)
I lucked into getting one such tv for free, it works quite decently. It only has one hdmi port and the speakers are quite mediocre on it (rear firing). The color settings built into it are different things like "shopping mall, outside, train terminal, etc.". All of its downsides are mitigated by a good hdmi av reciever and speakers, it runs hdcp just fine, no problems for me.
A growing number of them are Microsoft's Surface Hub [1]. Admittedly they do have a "Smart OS" installed, but it's a Windows 10 variant (so at least amenable to the usual Windows 10 device management tools and system update processes).
While it does run an OS, it doesn't have a TV tuner, and I doubt it would show ads, since it is designed for signage (where I guess you have the control to show your OWN ads)