Yeah, kind of obvious but good that they make the masses aware and public shame them.
Personally I never connected mine, I use an Android tv box that is segregated on a "garbage iot" vlan that can't see my other devices, behind adguard that blocks some of what it tries to phone home. Not perfect but lesser evil.
I actually tried using an external device but the external streamer was so much worse, it actually started sharing my internet as an end point. Definitely not something you'd want to go in blind.
An investigation by Gamers Nexus found LG smart TVs sweep local networks to map phones and nearby devices. Tests also showed the sets can capture microphone audio with the screen off — they then upload data once reconnected to the internet.