It's been clear for a while now that Hive neither cares about the environment nor their customers. The Hive home hub, which you need to connect to your devices via an app, is locked to your name and email address, which can't be changed. If you sell your system, or your home where it's installed in, a new user is required to buy a new hub for £70, even though the old one is perfectly fine. When I asked them for a reason, they talked nonsense about privacy, which didn't make any sense. I believe you can now change your email address, but still not your name. I see no technical reason for this other than that they want to squeeze some extra money out of new customers that inherit a system.

So it's hard to take their "big plans to make homes greener" PR speech seriously. It's disrespectful. As others have said, if they cared they would open up the devices for local use.

When I bought my LG TV a few years back it did the same. The ads were mostly for apps you can download on the LG app store (so no yoghurts or anything). But they were still annoying enough for me to look into the DNS queries the TV does and block some of them. In case it's useful for some of you, here's what I found out and ended up blocking:

  - vcfd1.giraffic.net, vcfd2.giraffic.net: adaptive Video acceleration (seems to be used for internet TV)
  - GB.lgtvsdp.com, ngfts.lge.com: don't know what this does.
  - GB.ibs.lgappstv.com: needed to download apps and updates
  - snu.lge.com: used to check for software updates?
  - lgtvonline.lge.com: likely for the TV recommendations feature that remembers what you watch and gives you recommendations based on it
  - GB.info.lgsmartad.com: ads
  - yahoo.com: no idea why the TV needs to talk to yahoo. Blocked.
  - facebook.com: why!? Blocked.

> facebook.com: why!? Blocked.

I'm shocked that you don't want facebook to know your viewing habits to show you more relevant ads. Its a feature to improve the ad experience for the users.