Some brands are better than others. I bought a Sony Bravia TV less than a year ago. The nags are infrequent (maybe every fifth time I turn it on) and unobtrusive (a toast notification pops up in the upper right corner of the screen for a few seconds; it's gone by the time the Fire Stick UI comes up).

Getting rid of ads on the streaming stick and various streaming services is an interesting challenge though...

I’ve had plenty of RokuTVs and my previous home had wired gig e Internet in every room. I plugged the TV to the Ethernet to get software updates, unplugged it, set the TV to always switch to the HDMI port with my AppleTV connected and never thought about the Roku again.

The AppleTV supports CEC and controls the power and the volume.

No nagging

This must be a very new or not universal feature. I have an Element E4AA70R 70" 4K UHD HDR10 Roku TV I picked up in mid-2023 for well below $1000. It has never once been connected to the internet, and it doesn't nag me.

I rented an apartment that had an LG. It showed a FOMO-inducing popup every week.

Might still be possible to jailbreak LG TVs. Not sure what the quality of the homebrew TV firmware situation is like though. Maybe not stable enough for family use.

I have an LG C3. The old jailbreak no longer works.

I keep avoiding the upgrade to keep the possibility open. At some point they force upgrade your firmware.

Any information on model number so people can compare, learn from your experience, etc?

Maybe some brands do (feel free to name them). My Samsung does not.

However, if you do connect, then Samsung pushes so many updates (more ads) than anyone else. My ancient samsung tv in the garage was getting weekly updates for some reason.

My Phillips 65" doesn't. I just have it connected to my old PC via HDMI. Don't need any smart features.

I've not experience that on my TCL.