216 Million LG Smart TVs Caught Listening to Users

Researchers say LG smart TVs are scanning home networks, logging voice commands as plain text, and capturing microphone audio in standby.

The investigation into LG’s webOS platform came from Gamers Nexus, with researchers MrBruh, unturn, and Wendell Wilson. LG Ad Solutions claims 216 million smart TVs.

What the LG Smart TV Investigation Found

Using Wireshark, the team watched televisions sweep their local networks. One set identified 38 nearby devices, including staff phones, smartwatches, a 3D printer, and thermostats never connected to it.

The TVs also use Automatic Content Recognition, or ACR, to identify what plays across inputs. One test unit sent around 4GB of ACR data to LG each month.

The sets could also collect IP addresses, geolocation data, and nearby WiFi network names, which Wilson noted can help pin down a device’s location. Most of this is built in, not a flaw.

The Microphone Keeps Listening

Responding to the Texas lawsuit against five TV makers, LG said its TVs ‘do not collect, record, or store ambient conversations.’

These findings cover voice commands, not background conversation. Speech from those interactions could be turned into readable text and logged on the set.

The microphone stayed active 10 to 15 seconds after someone stopped talking, which researchers say could catch bystanders. Audio was captured in standby too.

In one test, voice data built up locally after the TV went offline, then uploaded on reconnect. They separately found webOS flaws that could turn a set into a listening device.

Here is the full investigation:

It struck a nerve outside the tech crowd, where one Reddit thread noted that what once read as paranoia now arrives with packet captures.

Final Thoughts from Troy

A television that turns your voice into searchable text and keeps its microphone live in standby has stopped being just a television. The 38 devices catalogued in one sweep show how far past “what are you watching” this goes.

LG denies recording ambient conversations, and researchers stopped short of calling this deliberate spying. A UK watchdog flagged the same behavior, and Amazon has its own history here. Pulling your TV off the internet should not be the best defense available.

For more details, refer to the report from Cybernews.

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