Researchers say LG smart TVs listen and scan your home network while the screen looks off

A months-long investigation into LG’s smart TVs has concluded that the sets collect far more data than most owners realize, including logging microphone audio while the screen appears to be off and cataloging every other device connected to the same home network. The findings, compiled by the outlet Gamers Nexus working alongside independent security researchers, arrive as a 135-minute video breakdown of firmware behavior, packet captures and marketing materials aimed at advertisers.

A 135-Minute Investigation Into a Living Room Fixture

The project pulled together three independent researchers, identified in coverage as MrBruh, uturn and Wendell from Level1Techs, and was funded through a roughly $70,000 backer campaign rather than an internal LG or industry-sponsored review. That structure let the team spend months capturing network traffic and dissecting webOS firmware without relying on information LG chose to disclose. Crowdfunded technical investigations of this scale are unusual in consumer electronics, where most independent testing is limited by time and access to the kind of lab equipment needed to intercept and decode encrypted network traffic from a modern television.

Gamers Nexus summarized the scope of the findings under the phrase “216,000,000 Spy TVs,” a reference to the researchers’ estimate of how many LG sets worldwide could be reporting data on other nearby devices, extrapolated from the behavior documented in their test units.

Listening While the Screen Looks Off

Among the most alarming claims is that some LG sets recorded microphone audio while in standby mode, when the screen is dark and the television appears to be powered down. According to the investigation, that audio was queued and uploaded once the set reconnected to the internet, rather than processed and discarded locally. Security researchers who reviewed the findings separately, including analysts cited by Malwarebytes, described the standby-recording behavior as consistent with flaws that could let the microphone activate outside of normal voice-assistant use.

LG’s smart TVs, like most competitors’ sets, include far-field microphones to support voice search and assistant features such as Amazon Alexa or Google Assistant integration. The investigation’s concern is not that the hardware exists, but that audio capture appeared to continue in a state where a typical owner would reasonably assume the microphone was inactive. Standby-mode data capture is particularly difficult for an outside researcher to detect without specialized equipment, since the television gives no visible indication that it remains active in the background.

Mapping Every Device on the Network

The second major finding involves network scanning. Packet captures documented in the investigation showed the test televisions identifying other devices sharing the same home network, including phones, computers, printers, network switches and smart-home hardware, along with details of nearby Wi-Fi networks and signal strength. That level of visibility goes well beyond what is needed to stream video or run a smart-TV interface, and researchers argued it amounts to building a broader map of a household’s technology footprint than most owners would expect their television to compile.

The researchers noted that this kind of scanning can reveal a surprisingly detailed picture of a household, including the number of occupants, the types of devices they use and even patterns tied to daily routines, simply by cataloging what connects to the network and when.

What LG Tells Advertisers About the Data

Part of what makes the findings notable is that LG’s own marketing materials, quoted in the investigation and in subsequent reporting, describe exactly this kind of household-level visibility as a selling point to advertisers rather than a byproduct engineers overlooked. Sales language cited in the coverage states that LG “know[s] who’s in the LG household” and “which devices are there,” while executives have described the company’s position in the smart-TV advertising market as effectively owning “the glass,” a reference to controlling the screen that sits at the center of a household’s media consumption.

That framing suggests the data collection documented by the investigation is not a bug in the traditional sense but an extension of a business model in which the television itself functions as an advertising and audience-measurement platform, generating revenue from the sale of viewing and household data in addition to the upfront cost of the hardware.

What Owners Can Do About It

The investigation’s researchers recommended a fairly blunt fix: disconnect LG televisions from the internet entirely and rely on an external streaming device, such as a Roku, Fire TV or Apple TV box, connected through HDMI instead. That approach preserves the display itself while cutting off the network access the researchers say enables both the standby audio behavior and the local device scanning.

LG has not issued a detailed public rebuttal addressing each claim in the investigation as of the most recent reporting, and the company’s smart-TV privacy settings menus, like those of most manufacturers, allow some data-collection features to be limited without fully disabling network connectivity. The scale of the findings, spanning voice data, network mapping and advertiser-facing sales pitches, has nonetheless renewed scrutiny of how much visibility smart-TV makers have built into products that sit in millions of living rooms, and how few owners read the privacy settings closely enough to know what is actually being collected.

This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.

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