Roku's Policy Names the Other Devices on Your Network

Of the five makers we read, only Roku says in writing that it collects information about the other devices on your home network. LG says it collects the make, model and connection method of devices you link to the TV; Samsung, Vizio and Amazon describe devices you connect and say nothing about the rest of the network.

This is a different question from the one our guide to turning off ACR tracking answers. That is about what the TV records of what is on screen. This is about the phone, the console, the printer and the smart plug that never touch the TV at all.

What each maker says

Brand	What its own pages say about other devices	Turn it off?	Where the related setting lives
Roku	“Information about other devices connected to the same network”, plus your router and other routers in range	No switch named for this category	Privacy section of Settings covers ads and Smart TV Experience
LG	Devices you link: type, model, maker, connection method; plus smart bulbs, switches and appliances you control through the TV	Not by agreement — LG says device information arrives at set-up regardless	Settings › User Agreements; Limit Ad Tracking on the Advertisement page
Samsung	Devices and services “you choose to connect”; apps used through connected devices	Silent on network devices	Privacy settings, which cover Viewing Information Services
Vizio	Its own identifiers, including Wi-Fi access points; partners may match another device sharing the TV’s IP	Partly — the IP matching is a use of Viewing Data	Menu › Privacy & Legal › Advertising; Viewing Data in Settings
Fire TV	Device settings including “WiFi and Bluetooth options”; Wi-Fi credentials sync between Amazon devices if you opt in	Partly — three opt-outs, none about the network	Settings › Preferences › Privacy Settings

Read the second column as what the company has committed to in a public document, not as a measurement. None of these pages describes a mechanism, and we have not watched a television do anything.

Roku is the explicit one

Roku’s privacy policy, last updated 1 July 2026, lists under Device Information the things it receives automatically: MAC address, IP address, operating system, browser, “Wi-Fi network name and connection data, and information about other devices connected to the same network”. That last clause has no equivalent in the other four policies. The next sentence goes further than the network: Roku “may also gather the WiFi MAC addresses, country code, and broadcast signal strengths of your router and other Wi-Fi routers in your area”.

Two limits on reading that as a statement about your TV. The policy is one document covering Roku’s websites, mobile apps, players, Roku TV models, smart-home devices and speakers, so the clause is written for all of them at once and Roku does not break it down by product. And Roku publishes no technical description of what is collected or how often.

What Roku does not offer is a control. Its choices section runs through general requests, email, personalised advertising, Smart TV Experience, voice features, smart-home data and cookies. Device Information is not among them. The nearest lever is Personalized Ads, which Roku puts in the Privacy section of the Settings menu, with a Reset Advertising Identifier option in device settings — that changes how the data is used for ads, not whether it is collected.

LG counts what you plug in, and what you control

LG’s Smart TV Privacy Policy is separate from LG’s main one, and the difference matters if you go looking. The general LG policy lists “connected modem information, internet router information” under device data — and that policy tells Smart TV owners to read the other document instead. Quoting the router clause at an LG television is quoting the wrong page.

The Smart TV policy is narrower and more concrete. Under Connected devices, LG says it collects information about “other devices you link to your Smart Media Product”, including type — set-top box, DVD player, game console, mobile phone — model number, manufacturer, and connection method, which LG lists as “HDMI, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Network”. It adds that this “may include information of controlling other internet connected devices in your home via your Smart Media Product”, naming smart bulbs, smart switches and smart appliances.

So on LG’s own account the scope is things you attach or drive from the TV, which is a smaller set than everything on the Wi-Fi. The part with no opt-out is the timing: LG says device information arrives “during the set-up and authentication process” and is “not contingent upon your agreement with this Privacy Policy”, and that even with none of the optional agreements accepted it “will still receive some information…including Device Information”. Withdrawing the ACR and Viewing Information Agreement does not touch that category.

Separately, LG describes cross-device advertising by IP: ads shown “on other digital devices that share the same IP address as your Smart Media Product, such as your laptop, mobile phone or tablet”. That one is gated — LG says you must consent to its Interest-Based & Cross-Device Advertising Agreement first, and can withdraw it on the User Agreements page or set Limit Ad Tracking on the Advertisement page.

Samsung says nothing about it

Samsung’s Smart Hub U.S. Privacy Notice, effective 1 June 2026, covers device and usage information in detail and stops at the TV’s own connections. It collects information about “services that you choose to connect to the Service and/or Device (including third-party devices and services)” and may “note which applications you have accessed through your Device and connected devices”. Searching the notice for other devices on the same network returns nothing.

Silence is worth reporting as silence rather than as reassurance. Samsung has not told buyers it does this, and has not told them it does not. The choices Samsung does describe for this service are about Viewing Information Services, changed in the Service’s privacy settings.

Vizio’s link is the IP address, not the network

Vizio’s identifiers list is long — device IDs, advertising IDs, IP and MAC addresses, Wi-Fi access points, model and serial numbers, and the “friendly name” you gave the TV — and every item on it belongs to the Vizio product itself. The cross-device part arrives through partners rather than the network. Vizio says a data partner “may identify another device that shares an IP address with the VIZIO OS product” and analyse whether a website was viewed or a location visited by a device with location tracking on, after a promotion played on the TV.

That sits inside Vizio’s description of how Viewing Data is used, which is the setting our ACR guide covers. Two things do not move with it. Vizio says that “even if Viewing Data is turned off, Activity Data will still be collected” if you keep using the TV’s features. And ad targeting has its own switch, with a path that depends on the firmware era: Menu › Privacy & Legal › Advertising › Limited Ad Tracking after 2024, Menu › Admin & Privacy › Advertising before 2024, Menu › System › Reset & Admin › Advertising before 2020.

Fire TV: device settings, and one Wi-Fi clause

Amazon’s Fire TV privacy FAQ describes what the operating system collects as your use of the device and its features — home-screen navigation, apps opening and closing, and “selection of device settings (such as device language, display size, WiFi and Bluetooth options)”. That is the choice you made in a menu, not an inventory of what else is on the network. The three opt-outs all live in Settings › Preferences › Privacy Settings: Device Usage Data, Collect App Usage Data, and Interest-based Ads.

The Amazon.com Privacy Notice mentions Wi-Fi once in a way worth knowing: it lists “device log files and configurations, including Wi-Fi credentials, if you choose to automatically synchronize them with your other Amazon devices”. It also lists, under information from other sources, “information about internet-connected devices and services linked with Alexa”. Both are about things you linked to Amazon, and neither describes a Fire TV examining the network around it.

The other direction, which is the one people notice

A TV that announces itself is easier to observe than a TV that looks around, and Roku documents the announcement. Its developer documentation says Roku devices “are discoverable using SSDP” so they can be controlled over a local area network, and that from Roku OS 14.1 the Settings › System › Advanced system settings › Control by mobile apps toggle must be Enabled before the device accepts keypress and channel-query commands. Turning that off is a setting about what your network can do to the TV, not about what the TV reports to Roku. It is still the only named toggle in any of these documents that changes the TV’s behaviour on your LAN.

What none of this settles

These are policies. They set the outer bound of what a company has told you it may do, and they are written wide enough to cover products that do not exist yet. A narrow policy is not proof of a narrow product, and a broad one is not proof that your TV is doing all of it.

If it matters to you, the honest summary is short: Roku has written the broadest claim, LG has written the most specific one and attached the fewest conditions to it, and the other three have not put the question in their documents at all. If you are shopping, the privacy menus are worth opening next to the specs that actually separate price tiers and how long the set will keep getting updates. If your concern is the other devices rather than the TV, ours on smart-home kit dropping off the network is the more useful page.

Questions people ask

Can my smart TV see other devices on my network?

One of the five makers we read says so in writing. Roku’s privacy policy lists, among the information it receives automatically, “information about other devices connected to the same network”. LG, Samsung, Vizio and Amazon describe devices you connect or link to the TV, not devices that merely share the Wi-Fi. None of the five publishes a technical description of how any of this is gathered.

Does my TV know what else is connected to my Wi-Fi?

Roku’s policy says it receives information about other devices on the same network, along with your Wi-Fi network name and connection data. It also says Roku may gather “the WiFi MAC addresses, country code, and broadcast signal strengths of your router and other Wi-Fi routers in your area”. That is a statement about Roku Services generally, which covers players, TVs, apps and smart-home devices in one document.

Can I stop my smart TV from scanning my network?

No maker we read publishes a setting described that way. Roku’s privacy policy lists controls for personalised ads, Smart TV Experience, voice and smart-home data, and none for the device information category. LG says the device information it receives at set-up “is not contingent upon your agreement with this Privacy Policy”. The controls that exist are about advertising and viewing data.

Does turning off ACR stop the TV collecting device data?

Not according to two of the makers. LG’s Smart TV Privacy Policy says that if you do not opt in to its additional user agreements, LG “will still receive some information from your Smart Media Product, including Device Information”, the category that holds connected-device details. Vizio says that even with Viewing Data off, “Activity Data will still be collected” if you keep using the product’s features.

Can my smart TV be linked to my phone?

Both LG and Vizio describe linking by IP address rather than by looking at the network. LG says interest-based ads may be shown “on other digital devices that share the same IP address as your Smart Media Product”, and that this needs consent to its cross-device advertising agreement. Vizio says a data partner “may identify another device that shares an IP address” with the TV.

Where is the ad tracking setting on my TV?

Roku puts Personalized Ads and Reset Advertising Identifier in the Privacy section of Settings. Vizio’s path depends on the firmware era: Menu › Privacy & Legal › Advertising › Limited Ad Tracking after 2024, and Menu › Admin & Privacy › Advertising before it. LG puts Limit Ad Tracking on the Advertisement page. On Fire TV it is Settings › Preferences › Privacy Settings › Interest-based Ads.