LG Electronics has denied claims that its smart TVs record conversations and profile home networks, telling Tom's Hardware on 9 September 2026 that "The claims made in the recently published video are not true." The company confirmed that its televisions scan local networks for other devices, describing it as a standard smart TV function.
The denial follows a two-hour-15-minute investigation published by Gamers Nexus on 6 September 2026, titled "216,000,000 Spy TVs, The LG Smart TV Problem." Editor-in-chief Steve Burke produced it with Wendell Wilson of Level1Techs and two independent security researchers, MrBruh and uturn, who tested retail LG OLED televisions, including the flagship G5, using Wireshark packet captures and firmware analysis.
What the researchers found
Gamers Nexus reported that the LG televisions it tested collected substantially more than viewing data. According to the investigation, the tested sets were capable of identifying and logging:
- The household's public IP address and approximate geographic location
- Internal IP addresses of other devices on the same network
- Names, signal strengths, and channels of neighbouring Wi-Fi networks
- Phones, smartwatches, printers, thermostats, and other connected hardware
- On-screen content across every input using Automatic Content Recognition (ACR), the fingerprinting technology that identifies what is playing
- Audio fingerprints of content played through the television
- Voice commands are converted to plain text and written to logs on the device
- The user's own privacy and consent settings, including whether they had opted out
In one test, a single LG television identified 38 other devices on the network. Burke said the set "crawled our entire network and found dozens of unrelated devices", including phones and smartwatches belonging to staff who were not involved in the testing. Cybernews reported that the test television sent roughly 4GB of ACR-related data to LG each month.
TechSpot reported that ACR tracking on the tested sets extended to content played through the HDMI, USB, RJ45, optical, RCA, and coaxial ports, not only to streaming apps. The 216 million figure in the video title comes from LG Ad Solutions, the company's advertising arm, which markets a global footprint of 216 million LG smart TVs to advertisers and advertises a United States reach across 49 million LG televisions plus 363 million addressable secondary devices.
Voice logs and standby recording
The researchers reported that the microphone remained active for 10 to 15 seconds after a voice command ended, and that speech captured during those interactions was transcribed and stored in plain text in the television's logs. They recovered those files after rooting a test unit to inspect its storage.
They also captured microphone audio while a set appeared switched off in standby, and demonstrated that the television buffered audio locally after its Ethernet cable was unplugged, then uploaded it once connectivity returned. That demonstration was performed on a television the researchers had already compromised, a point noted by India Today in its own report on the investigation.
Unpatched webOS vulnerabilities
Gamers Nexus said its researchers separately identified remote code execution vulnerabilities in webOS that could be used to convert an affected television into a covert listening device. Technical details are being withheld while responsible disclosure runs its course, and no CVE identifiers or patches have been published as of 9 September 2026.
Malwarebytes, in its findings on 7 September 2026, said the security weaknesses matter mainly because they increase the consequences of a television being compromised. A compromised set can offer an attacker a foothold on a home or business network, access to audio, and a route to probe other devices.
LG's response
LG issued a point-by-point statement to Tom's Hardware and provided the same statement to India Today Tech and Business Today. The table below sets the investigation's findings against LG's stated position.
| Finding | LG's response |
|---|---|
| Televisions scan the local network and inventory other devices | Confirmed. LG says scanning for compatible devices enables connectivity, content sharing, and smart home features, and calls it a standard function of smart TVs and smart home devices |
| The microphone captures the ambient conversation | Denied. LG says voice data is processed only when the remote's voice button is held, or the "Hi LG" wake word is recognised after the user has enabled Far-Field voice recognition |
| The microphone is active in standby | Partly confirmed. LG says the television monitors for the wake word in standby only if the user has enabled Far-Field voice, and that undetected audio is processed on-device and deleted without being sent to LG servers |
| ACR fingerprints content across inputs and feeds LG's advertising business | Confirmed as a feature. LG says ACR is opt-in, requires separate explicit consent, and that ACR data is not used for advertising without that consent |
| Voice transcripts stored in plain text on the device | Not addressed in LG's statement |
| Remote code execution vulnerabilities in webOS | Not addressed. LG says it monitors its platform, works with independent security experts and delivers security updates |
Tom's Hardware reported that LG did not address the storage of transcripts in plain text and said it had not been able to independently verify either Gamers Nexus's claims or LG's counterclaims.
The investigation arrived four months after LG settled a related case in the United States. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued five television manufacturers in December 2025 over ACR data collection, and LG settled on 11 May 2026, with an Agreed Final Judgment entered in The State of Texas v. LG Electronics U.S.A., Inc. Under that agreement, LG stopped using ACR to collect viewing data without informed consent and agreed to display a pop-up disclosure and a clear opt-out on its televisions. LG admitted no liability.
What LG TV owners can change
The settings below are available on current webOS models, though the wording varies across model years and firmware versions.
- Turn off Live Plus, LG's name for ACR, at Settings > All Settings > General > System > Additional Settings.
- Review the user agreements at Settings > All Settings > Support > Privacy & Terms > User Agreements, and decline Viewing Information, Voice Information and Interest-Based Cross-Device Advertising.
- Enable Do Not Sell My Personal Information in the same Privacy & Terms menu.
- Switch on Limit Ad Tracking under Privacy & Terms > Advertising, then select Reset Ad ID.
- Delete stored viewing data using Delete My Viewing Information under Privacy & Terms.
- Disable Far-Field voice recognition. LG confirms the television listens for the wake word in standby only when this is enabled.
- Move the television to a guest network or separate VLAN so a compromised set cannot reach laptops, storage or work devices. Malwarebytes also recommends disabling UPnP on the router unless it is needed.
- Install firmware updates, since the webOS vulnerabilities remain unpatched publicly.
Wendell Wilson has published a free walkthrough, "LG TV Block Mini-How-to," on the Level1Techs forums, covering DNS blocking and locking a rooted webOS television out of LG's services. Rooting a television voids its warranty. Gamers Nexus recommends keeping the set entirely offline and streaming it from an external streaming device over HDMI.