Restoring 5 GHz Wi-Fi on an LG C5 by changing its webOS region

There's a special kind of rage reserved for discovering your expensive TV is deliberately gimping itself. The LG C5 is a flagship OLED panel — the kind of hardware people spend thousands on — and it ships with 5 GHz Wi-Fi disabled based on a software region flag. Not because of hardware limitations. Not because of actual regulatory requirements in most cases. Just a checkbox in firmware that says "you don't get this because of where you live." The GitHub project (https://github.com/hawshemi/lg-c5-webos25-region-change) is refreshingly direct about what's happening: LG uses the region setting to control radio band availability, and changing that setting restores functionality. No rooting, no soldering, no exotic exploits — just changing a configuration value that LG arbitrarily tied to a country code. The fact that this works at all tells you everything about how little technical justification exists for the restriction in the first place. What bugs me is the pattern. Every generation of consumer electronics adds more of these artificial walls. Smart TVs are the worst offenders because they're designed to be appliances, not computers — which means manufacturers assume you won't poke around. LG's webOS is locked down tighter than a drum compared to, say, a Raspberry Pi. But the community keeps finding the cracks. The 9 comments on the HN thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49563839) suggest people are paying attention, even if the broader public doesn't realize their TV is being throttled. This connects to the right-to-repair fight, but it's actually more insidious. Right-to-repair is about fixing broken hardware. This is about manufacturers shipping functional hardware and disabling it via software to segment markets. It's not a safety issue. It's not a compatibility issue. It's a business decision that treats customers as adversaries. When LG decides that a customer in one country doesn't get 5 GHz Wi-Fi while a customer in another does, they're not protecting anyone — they're asserting control. The takeaway: if you buy a TV, expect to fight for the features you paid for. The GitHub project shows it's possible, but it shouldn't be necessary. And every time LG patches webOS to close these loopholes, they're telling you exactly what they think of you as a customer. Keep the hacks coming.