I had a long stay in a hotel in Europe one time. One day, the TV turned itself on and started playing a French music video. The TV was apparently connected to Wi-Fi and had some sort of Chromecast feature built-in, so anyone could play content to any room. Unfortunately all the settings were locked so I couldn't disable it, and had to keep it unplugged.
This was when I discovered Samsung TVs have a menu option to scan for viruses, which I still think is hilarious.
In 2002 I stayed in a hotel where the TV turned on whenever I turned on the bathroom lights.
The TV was angled so that its IR sensor was aimed towards the bathroom door. I always assumed that it was just interference from the bathroom lights starting up just happening to make the same IR pattern as the ON button on the remote.
I also had a long stay in a hotel, and I plugged in my own chromecast as what was available on their limited cable selection was...lacking.
After two instances of jokers starting to stream something over it I just left it unplugged when I wasn't using it. My bad for introducing an insecure device onto the hotel wifi rather than setting up my own little network, but I was lazy.
My Apple TV, if you choose to make it available to devices nearby (can be turned off entirely), still requires a random code, which it displays on a connection attempt from an unknown device, to be entered on the connecting device.
It’s come in handy, because our neighbors sometimes accidentally choose our Apple TV instead of theirs apparently. The only thing that happens on our side is that the TV turns on and displays the code, but our neighbors don’t see the code and likely realize their mistake then.
This was when I discovered Samsung TVs have a menu option to scan for viruses, which I still think is hilarious.