Prospective Vizio TV buyers should know there’s a good chance the set won’t work properly without a Walmart account. In an attempt to better serve advertisers, Walmart, which bought Vizio in December 2024, announced this week that select newly purchased Vizio TVs now require a Walmart account for setup and accessing smart TV features.
Since 2024, Vizio TVs have required a Vizio account, which a Vizio OS website says is necessary for accessing “exclusive offers, subscription management, and tailored support.” Accounts are also central to Vizio’s business, which is largely driven by ads and tracking tied to its OS.
A Walmart spokesperson confirmed to Ars Technica that Walmart accounts will be mandatory on “select new Vizio OS TVs” for owners to complete onboarding and to use smart TV features. The representative added:
Customers who already have an existing Vizio account are being given the option to merge their Vizio account with their Walmart account. Customers with an existing Vizio account can opt out by deleting their Vizio account.
The representative wouldn’t confirm which TV models are affected. We wouldn’t be surprised to see the requirement for a Walmart account eventually expanded to apply to all newly purchased Vizio OS TVs or already-purchased devices through an update.
Walmart’s representative said the Walmart account integration is “designed to respect consumer choice and privacy, with data used in aggregated, permissioned, and compliant ways” but didn’t specify how.
A Walmart ads vehicle
This week’s announcement shows Walmart further integrating Vizio and looking to more deeply leverage Vizio OS’s ads and tracking capabilities to fuel its $6.4 billion ads business. In Vizio’s final quarter as its own company, its ad business made a gross profit of $115.8 million, and its hardware business lost $6.7 million. Walmart doesn’t break out Vizio’s financials, but in a February call with investors, John David Rainey, CFO and EVP of Walmart, said Vizio “saw triple-digit growth in advertising” during Walmart’s fiscal Q4 2026.
While Vizio OS has required a Vizio account since mid-2024 (before Walmart’s acquisition), an account connected to a retail conglomerate has additional and more obvious implications for TVs being used to convince users to buy stuff—particularly from Walmart. Those who may have tolerated making an account with an ad-centric TV brand might resist making one with Walmart.
“The new, streamlined login simplifies setup while establishing a secure identity framework across devices, connecting streaming engagement directly with retail interaction,” Walmart’s announcement said.
Furthering Vizio TVs’ transformation into a Walmart ad vehicle, Walmart announced this week that Vizio OS will show ads for beauty brand L’Oréal that connect to Walmart’s and other companies’ product pages.
For years, Vizio has been transforming from a solidly priced TV brand into an ad business. Over a year after buying Vizio, Walmart is poised to completely push Vizio over that threshold, if it isn’t there already.
Ads and tracking have become nearly impossible to avoid among lower-priced TVs and are becoming more common in premium options, making the elusive dumb TV and other smart TV alternatives increasingly attractive.
