Hardware and software laden with ads have, unfortunately, become part and parcel of modern life, but there are occasions when the hunt for revenue goes too far. One of those cases comes from Hisense, known across Western markets as a budget electronics brand. The firm's TV sets have repeatedly come under fire for forcing non-skippable ads when switching inputs, turning the TV on, navigating to the home screen, and even when switching channels — all changes that took effect unilaterally after purchase, reportedly even for users who had all ad-related options disabled.
The affected models are mostly but not exclusively lower-end units with Hisense's VIDAA operating system, recently rebranded as Home OS. The vast majority of reports come from Hisense TV owners, but we saw at least one such complaint about a Toshiba set. The operating system is also licensed by Schneider, Akai, and Loewe, among multiple other brands.
This issue came to light recently due to press coverage, but it dates back at least a year, and possibly three, depending on how you count. The earliest notable report dates to 2022, when a user spotted an ad option in their input selection menu. These complaints have gotten more frequent with time, with some people noticing they were forced to watch ads when they turned on their sets. Reports from the last two weeks display the more aggressive tactic of forcing ads when changing TV inputs. Spanish outlets El Español and La Razón covered reports that users were being delivered ads when simply changing channels, too
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Then there's the matter of the location of these incidents. Most reports seem to come from British and Spanish users, but we also found a German-language post and screenshots of a TV set in German. La Razón dug into this matter and published a statement from Hisense that arguably raises more questions than it answers.
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