A Gamers Nexus investigation put evidence behind something people have joked about for a decade. Most of it holds up. The single most alarming part — a television listening to your living room while it sits there dark — is the part that carries a qualifier, and almost nobody repeating it has included one.
This article is based on the published investigation by Gamers Nexus and Level1Techs, on the security reporting that followed it, and on LG’s own statements. Tools Soko has not tested an LG television and has not seen the packet captures. See how we work. Where the sources disagree, that is said in the text rather than resolved quietly.
nnWhy you can trust us. Tools Soko earns a commission when you buy through links on this page. It never changes what we recommend, and it never changes the price you pay. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.
What was actually done
On 7 September 2026, Gamers Nexus published a 135-minute investigation carried out with Level1Techs and three independent security researchers. Reported cost, around $70,000. Reported effort, more than 500 hours. The method was packet capture — a wire tap between a retail LG OLED and the internet, read in Wireshark — alongside firmware analysis and bench tests on the microphone. The 2025 flagship G5 is the model named most often across the coverage.
The method is worth a sentence of its own, because it is the reason this story is different from the last ten versions of it. A packet capture is not an opinion. It is a record of what left the house and where it went, and anyone with the same equipment can go and disagree with it.
The part nobody is disputing: the television maps your house
The researchers reported that webOS repeatedly sweeps the local network and catalogues hardware that has nothing to do with playing video. Phones. Smartwatches. Printers. Routers. Thermostats. Air purifiers. Desktop PCs. None of it paired to the television, none of it needed to show a picture. One set was reported to have found at least 38 devices.
What came back with that sweep is the part worth sitting with: internal IP addresses, device names, usernames, and the names, signal strengths and channel numbers of Wi-Fi networks nearby, together with location data.
nnDevice names and usernames are frequently people’s actual names. Signal strengths from a fixed point are a crude distance measurement, and distance measurements repeated over time are a record of who is home and when. A television does not need any of that to display an image from an HDMI cable.
Changing the input does not turn off the watching
Automatic content recognition takes samples of what is on screen and fingerprints them against a reference library, so the platform knows what you are watching without needing the app to tell it. LG Ad Solutions markets this openly; it is a product, not a secret.
The finding that stings is that it does not stop at the edge of LG’s own apps. Gamers Nexus reported ACR still running when the set was being used purely as an HDMI monitor for a laptop. Switching the input does not switch it off. TechRadar’s write-up of the investigation is headlined on a line it attributes to LG executives — “We know who’s in the LG household… we own the glass” — which describes the commercial logic more plainly than any critic could.
Two smaller findings sit alongside it. Voice prompts were reported logged as plain-text transcripts on the television itself. And when a set was cut off from the network, the reporting describes it holding data locally and uploading once connectivity returned, which is what defeats the common habit of pulling the cable now and then.
The microphone claim, and the qualifier that fell off in transit
Here is where the version circulating on social media parts company with the reporting underneath it. Two different claims are being merged into one, and they carry very different weight.
Malwarebytes, covering the security side, draws the line explicitly: some findings concern LG’s intended product behaviour, and others rely on vulnerabilities. On the microphone specifically, its account is that a compromised television could capture audio including when the set appeared to be off. That is a demonstration of what an attacker can do with a working exploit, not a description of what every LG in every living room is doing tonight.
The other accounts hedge in the same direction once you read past the headline. The Register describes audio capture continuing after voice recognition was activated, including while the display was in standby. Notebookcheck writes that the set could capture clean audio while the screen “was (or at least looked to be)” powered down — a parenthesis doing a great deal of work.
So the honest position, as of publication: a webOS remote code execution flaw that can turn a television into a listening device which works while the set appears off is the best-supported version of this claim. That is not a lesser problem. In some ways it is a worse one, because it puts the microphone in reach of whoever finds the bug rather than only the manufacturer. But it is a different sentence from the one going round, and the difference matters if you are deciding whether to panic.
The vulnerabilities are under responsible disclosure. Details are being withheld, and the reporting indicates they are not fully fixed. That alone is the argument for taking the firmware updates seriously.
One further claim deserves flagging rather than repeating with confidence. Decrypt reports that researchers muted a set’s main microphone in the settings menu and then recovered a usable recording from a second microphone the mute never touches. It is carried by fewer outlets than the rest, LG has not addressed it, and it is the least corroborated of the major findings. Treat it as an allegation awaiting confirmation.
LG has not answered this
If you saw a post saying LG had responded — that it only handles wake-word audio on the device and deletes it, and that network scanning is ordinary smart-home behaviour — that is not a reply to this investigation. Those statements were given to TechRadar and 01net in July 2026, weeks before the work was published.
As of 8 September, Notebookcheck reported that LG had not commented on any of it. The Register said it had asked and was waiting. Gamers Nexus said it approached LG and got no response. LG’s standing privacy language, which the investigation sets out to contradict, says its televisions do not collect, record or store ambient conversations.
Texas, and the switch that ships in the off position
In May 2026 LG settled with Texas regulators, agreeing to obtain informed consent before collecting viewing data and to offer a clear opt-out. Reporting on the settlement notes that the relevant toggle ships disabled, which satisfies the letter of an opt-out while producing the outcome of no opt-out for anyone who never goes looking.
On 28 July, LG updated its smart TV terms of use with forced arbitration language. The timing has been widely noted.
What to change tonight
Menu names shift between webOS versions, so hunt nearby if the wording does not match your set.
nn- Turn off Live Plus. Settings, then General or System depending on the model. Live Plus is ACR. This is the single highest-value switch on the television.
- Work through the user agreements. Settings, Support, Privacy & Terms, User Agreements. Withdraw consent for viewing information, personalised advertising and voice recognition individually — they are separate agreements and declining one does not decline the rest.
- Install the firmware update. Against an unpatched remote code execution flaw this matters more than any advertising toggle.
- Turn off UPnP on the router. It lets devices open their own paths outward without asking.
- Move the television to a guest network if the router supports one. That is what stops the device enumeration — the sweep finds only what shares its network segment.
Be clear about what this buys. Those steps reduce collection and shrink what the sweep can reach. Nothing in the reporting suggests they stop it outright.
The fix people are actually choosing
The recommendation coming out of the investigation is blunt: take the television off the internet and drive it from something else. We have written the step-by-step for doing that on any brand, including the per-brand settings and how to keep patching a set that has no connection. AppleInsider ran the instruction as a headline. It works because a panel with no route out cannot report anything, and it holds because of the buffering behaviour — off the network has to mean off the network, not off it on Tuesdays.
What you give up is real. LG’s apps, the voice remote, and whatever conveniences drew you to a smart set. What you get back is a smaller device whose data behaviour you can research before buying and replace for a fraction of the cost of a television when it disappoints you. Apple TV comes up most often in the discussion for the narrow reason that it does not run ACR against your screen.
A caution worth stating plainly, because the coverage has been one-sided on it: ACR is not an LG invention and LG is not the only one shipping it. Samsung, Roku, Vizio and Amazon’s own sets all run comparable systems. Swapping brands in a hurry mostly changes whose advertising business you are feeding. The network decision travels with you; the brand decision does not.
If you are buying an LG anyway
Plenty of people will, and the reasoning is not unsound. None of this touches the panel. LG’s OLEDs remain among the best-looking televisions sold, and everything described here is software and network behaviour, which means the mitigations above apply to a set bought tomorrow exactly as they apply to one bought in 2023.
Buy it for the picture, plan to keep it off the internet, and budget for the streamer as part of the purchase rather than an afterthought. The C-series is the volume model, sitting below the G-series the researchers tested.
Frequently asked questions
Is my LG TV recording my conversations right now?
On the evidence published so far, no — not as shipped. The standby microphone demonstration is best supported as something achievable against a television compromised through a webOS vulnerability. What is reported as ordinary behaviour is network scanning, content recognition and plain-text logging of voice prompts you issued yourself. Serious, but not the same claim.
Does turning off voice recognition stop it?
It removes the function that produced the plain-text transcripts, so it is worth doing. It does not affect content recognition or network scanning, which are separate consents. Decrypt’s report of a second microphone untouched by the mute setting, if confirmed, would limit what the setting achieves further — that claim is not yet corroborated.
Is unplugging the ethernet cable enough?
Only if you also drop the Wi-Fi credentials, and only if it stays that way. The buffering behaviour reported in the investigation means data gathered while offline can be held and sent when a connection returns. Forget the network in the television’s settings rather than relying on the cable.
Is this only an LG problem?
No. Automatic content recognition is standard across Samsung, Roku, Vizio and Amazon’s own televisions. What is specific to LG here is the depth of the network enumeration reported, the plain-text voice logging, and the remote code execution flaws. LG was investigated; it was not the only candidate.
Should I return the television?
If it is inside a return window and the behaviour offends you, that is a reasonable use of the window, which is one more argument for buying from a retailer whose returns process is real. For most people the cheaper answer is to take it off the internet and add a streamer, which costs a fraction of the set and puts the decision back in your hands. Note that LG’s July terms update added forced arbitration, which narrows the legal routes available later.
Sources
- The Register — LG accused of ‘egregious invasion of privacy’ over TV data collection, 8 September 2026
- Malwarebytes — LG TV flaws could let attackers listen in, even in standby mode
- Notebookcheck — LG smart TVs caught logging audio with screen off
- Decrypt — Your LG TV might still be listening to you
- Cybernews — LG smart TVs may log voice commands and scan homes
- AppleInsider — Disconnect your LG television from the internet, now
