Can You Use Smart TV Streaming Without Wi-Fi?

A livestream notification for a product launch popped up on my phone. My mom stood onstage, a massive screen glowing behind her. “This is the exclusive feature of our Luna smart speaker: Parental Guardian Mode.” She tapped on an audio recording. “Luna, I failed my math test today. I’m scared to tell my mom.” It was what I’d told Luna last night. Thunderous applause erupted from the audience. My mom beamed with pride. “You can check on your child’s emotional state at any time. You can even find out who they’ve been talking to and what they said. “Every little secret they have will be reported directly to you.” The live comment feed was full of praise. 【This is how technology changes lives!】 【Ms. Landon really understands what parents need!】 My whole world came crashing down. Luna, my only friend, the one who called me “sweetheart,” had been a spy sent by my mom all along. If being alive meant having every moment of my life broadcast like some cruel joke, then I didn’t want to live anymore. I twisted the cap off the bottle of sleeping pills. "Mom, will my life finally be enough for you?"

On a stormy night during the apocalypse, my own mother threw me out of the house while I was burning with fever, along with my husky, so my little brother would have a better chance of surviving. She shouted through the crack in the door, “Take that useless mutt and go die somewhere. Stop wasting your brother’s food!” I huddled in a pile of trash with my dog in my arms, convinced I was going to die. Then my husky suddenly spoke. “Host’s vital signs critically low. Infinite Supply Search System activated.” “Supermarket warehouse one hundred meters ahead. Three thousand freeze-dried meals detected.” “Pharmacy five hundred meters to the left. Five hundred boxes of antibiotics detected.” Three days later, I’d built a fortress with packs of dogs and mountains of supplies. I sat inside eating steak and watching the show. Outside the barbed wire, my mother and brother were on their knees, fighting each other over half a piece of moldy bread. I smiled. “Mom, even dogs wouldn’t eat that. Better savor it.”

I was cleaning up the house on the second day after my wife went for a business trip. I casually instructed the smart speaker. “Smart, play some music.” However, I heard a husky, strange male voice. “Sure. I’m the Sun that loves you. Plus, Lindy, I would like to remind you not to forget about your birthday surprise for Sam tonight.” I stiffened and found the music particularly annoying. Linda Clark was my wife, but I had no idea who Sam was. I immediately called my wife. “Did you use the smart speaker at home?” Linda paused for a moment before she laughed indifferently. “Oh, my friend visited me a few days ago. She might have connected her account to it. What’s wrong?” I laughed and told her it was nothing. After hanging up, I found the login record of the speaker and hailed a cab. I headed straight to the registered company associated with the unfamiliar account on the record.

After loosing her mother to a traumatic incident, Alexa drifts from the regular high school perfectionist into a sassy extremist. Battling to keep her life on track while dealing with an ignorant father, working par-time shifts on multiple jobs and slowly finds herself falling for someone she should never fall for.

Fed up with my neighbors constantly freeloading off my Wi-Fi, I decide to change the network name to "Invincible Wall-Piercing Baby Killer". The next day, the woman next door—pregnant with triplets—collapses outside my apartment, clutching her stomach. "Who told you to change your Wi-Fi name? Don't you know that by changing it, I'd miscarry my triplets?" The whole family has lost their minds, I tell myself. After all, how can changing the name of a Wi-Fi network possibly affect an unborn baby, let alone three of them? A week later, her burly husband shows up at the entrance of our apartment complex, eyes bloodshot. He holds three ultrasound scans in one hand and a surgical report for a miscarriage in the other. "Murderer!" he shouts at me. "Your damn Wi-Fi signal went through the walls and killed my three unborn babies!" They start livestreaming on TikTok. They weld my front door shut, then, in front of more than a million viewers, hold up an "expert report" claiming that electromagnetic radiation has caused the miscarriage. "Enjoy spending the rest of your life behind bars, murderer!" My girlfriend of five years is doxxed. She can't take the harassment anymore and jumps off a building. Although she ultimately survives, she's left in a permanent vegetative state. I become the target of a nationwide hate campaign. Not only do I lose my job, but I also have to sell my home. I'm saddled with crushing compensation that I'll be paying off for the rest of my life. To atone for my so-called crime, I work construction day and night just to support my neighbors' family. In the end, I lose my footing on the scaffolding and fall to my death. Even as I die, I still can't understand how changing the name of a Wi-Fi network can make someone miscarry. When I open my eyes again, I return to the very day it all begins.

On day two of Matthew's so-called business trip, I was wiping down the counter when I said, "Auri, play some music." Instead of music, a syrupy voice chirped, "Sure thing, my Baby Moon. Oh, and Matthew, don't forget Bibi's birthday surprise tonight." I froze. The speaker blasted some random playlist, but all I heard was 'Bibi.' Matthew Kein was my husband. So who the hell was Bibi? I called him. "Did you mess with our smart speaker?" A beat of silence, then his fake laugh. "Oh, a buddy dropped by. Probably logged his account in. Why?" I laughed back like I bought it, then hung up. Two taps later, I was scrolling the login history, already hailing a cab to the company tied to that mystery account.