A security researcher who uses the handle log4j on X has published findings that claim a 2025 Samsung television running Tizen collects and transmits telemetry counters for sound events — including dog barking and baby crying — to Samsung servers. The researcher began posting discoveries about the TV’s software on 21 October and has continued sharing notes about the device’s behaviour.
What the researcher says the TV logs
According to log4j’s notes, the TV’s telemetry contains a set of counters grouped under an event identified as EV201/SOUNDSENSOR_ON. Entries include counters for dog-barking and baby-crying. The data, the researcher says, is sent as key-value pairs and logged to a Samsung cloud endpoint.
- Sound counters: dog-barking and baby-crying among entries reported under EV201/SOUNDSENSOR_ON.
- Other telemetry fields: mentions of ambient light sensor, camera-state fields and camera streaming duration.
- Connected microphones: the TV may look for a connected device that has a microphone, such as a soundbar or Bluetooth speaker, and use it for audio capture.
Samsung advertises on-device features such as Pet Care and Family Care on its 2025 Vision AI TVs; those features use on-device AI to detect barking or crying and send alerts via the SmartThings app. The researcher’s claim focuses on telemetry that appears to report counts of such events back to Samsung — behaviour the researcher notes is not explicitly disclosed by the company.
Observations and limits of the current findings
log4j emphasises that the existence of counters does not prove an alert was shown to a user, and that a full lifecycle for events has not been completely traced. Another user identified as ngxson reported observing a rooted Tizen TV open its microphone for about five seconds before closing it, while adding that a stock TV might behave differently.
The researcher also wrote that the TV loads a region-specific neural network that tracks activity inside apps such as YouTube, including skipped ads. A complete write-up spanning roughly 44 sections was promised by log4j but had not been published at the time of these posts.
What this means for users
The claims, if verified, touch on two connected-home concerns: how much audio-related telemetry a TV reports back to a maker, and the scope of devices a TV may use to capture sound. Samsung’s advertised alert features rely on local detection, but the researcher’s notes raise questions about what summarised event data is transmitted and whether TVs may attempt to use microphones in paired Bluetooth devices.
Samsung’s product pages for Vision AI TVs describe Pet Care working when the TV is switched off; the researcher notes that while detection is documented, the transmission of event counts to Samsung was not made explicit in the marketing material cited. At the time of the published findings there was no statement from Samsung appended to the researcher’s posts.
| Item | Detail from researcher |
|---|---|
| Device | 2025 Samsung TV running Tizen (Vision AI TV) |
| Telemetry event | EV201/SOUNDSENSOR_ON (dog-barking, baby-crying counters) |
| Connected mic use | TV may look for soundbar or Bluetooth speaker microphones |
| Other fields noted | Ambient light sensor, camera-state, camera streaming duration |
Readers who wish to assess the implications for their own devices should watch for any official response from Samsung and for the promised full technical write-up from the researcher. The findings underline the growing need for transparency about what smart TVs log and send to cloud services, and how they interact with other household devices that have sensors.
