Some Samsung smart fridges stopped working on Tuesday due to a firmware update.
Korean outlets were the first to report the problems, which affect Samsung’s Bespoke AI line of fridges. Star News Korea, per a Google-provided translation, said that most of the affected devices were four-door fridges from 2024 or later.
A thermostat, a compressor and two heat exchangers.
We solved this problem decades ago.
show this to someone frm the 1950s
One day, transistors will cause this:
A fridge doesn’t need AI. Or a firmware.
Or a firmware.
So are we moving back to bi-metallic thermostats?
Imagin not understanding material science and thinking it’s a sort of slam dunk.
Remember when there was just a little dial in the top of the fridge, that you turn, from “cold” to “colder”? Yeah. That’s really all that’s required. Fancier fridges had more than one dial, that controlled individual compartments, like your crisper drawers.
Aren’t most fridges still like that?
There’s even Samsung fridges still like that.
I’m pretty sure technology connections has spent an hour explaining why that’s sub-optimal while also explaining the refrigerant cycle for the 10th time.
But it was so great… Seriously these people have no idea what they are talking about. Sure it worked. And they also broke, last time I had to fix an old style thermostat is many years ago luckily.
Given the fact my fridge regularly freezes my water, I’m reasonably confident that the bimetallic strip would possibly do a better job.
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There’s plenty of middle ground. We had integrated circuits embedded in circuit boards for a long time before re-programmable chips started appearing, and those ones certainly didn’t connect to the Internet and brick themselves.
PICs are cheaper than discrete ICs, even if they’re programmed only once and shipped. This is why you’ll see mainboards with un-populated sections - the processor has a software build that either excludes the un-populated parts or is designed to detect and ignore them. A discrete IC would need far more engineering to be able to selectively ignore, or each model would need it’s own discrete IC.
If by discrete ICs you mean custom logic baked into silicon, yes that’s always been expensive. I was referring to off-the-shelf ICs that cost pennies, which used to be orders of magnitude cheaper even than PICs (in the days before Internet connected fridges).
Before the term software engineer was commonplace, electronic engineers used design circuits around off-the-shelf components, like the venerable TI 555 timer or op-amps, and design a circuit around them. To do it they’d need the datasheets (https://www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/lm555.pdf). Hobbyists and aspiring young engineers would buy books like this: (https://www.computinghistory.org.uk/det/14021/IC-555-Projects/), which were like O’Reilly cookbooks for electronics circuits. The equipment to program a PIC used to be way beyond the reach of hobbyists, and wasn’t necessary for manufacturers producing simple control circuits. If you look at circuitboards from that time you’ll see some ICs with pins that aren’t connected to anything because those just weren’t needed for the circuit, much like you describe the empty sockets in modern boards.
It absolutely was possible in the pre-Internet days to design a fully functional fridge, and more, without writing code of any kind, and it was cheap too.
Why not? I’m sure we can easily make good ones at this point.
I think from context they mean auto pushing firmware over the Internet.
If I’d like emojis I’d use the clown emoji now.
I’ll do it on your behalf so that it’s used, but that you don’t have to say you used an emoji.
🤡
Thanks! Handshake Emoji
Oh, and don’t go through my history, I think I used an Emoji somewhere.
Lock me up. Try it.
Oh, so you like being locked up? 😏
It’s a fridge. It doesn’t even need an 8 bit microcontroller from the 1970s.
My washing machine keeps asking to be connected to the WiFi. 2 years I’ve been ignoring it, which has been very convenient. I think it just wants to watch porn.
Sock puppet porn.
So that’s what it means when it asks for a full load…
Plus it keeps collecting socks. Pervert.
Your fault for putting socks and panties in the same load…
I caught my mother’s dehumidifier connecting to WiFi to watch porn. The damn thing was actually dripping wet.
Was it a dehumidifier by marriage? A step dehumidifier is quite the thing apparently.
Imagine if you could make it watch advertising for your earnings… But yes, it would need the softwares belong to you, rather than to the washing machine’s maker…
There are apps which basically do that.
It can use a 32 bit microcontroller, like mine does, but it only has some pretty basic functionality like setting temperature and shutting down the fans if door opened. Anything beyond that is just overengineering.
it does, for massive user convenience. however, the more you add, the less convenience is gained from each addition, sort of like a law of diminishing returns-type thing.
What convenience? You open the door, a light goes on, it is cold or freezing cold inside depending on the door.
The end.
My parent’s McClary fridge from the 1960s still runs on the original refrigerant.
Don’t tell me about energy efficiency when
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We are awash in renewable electricity
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Building new fridges every five years filled with e-waste running garbage software requiring a networking infrastructure on top of it surely used a few joules as well.
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It’s not in a landfill.
I can’t wait for the global energy crash, maybe we’ll be calmer and wiser when gas is 100$/liter.
for one, beeping after you leave the door open for 30 seconds. considering the longevity of a fridge, adding a microcontroller that does that is more environmentally friendly.
I think you don’t need microcontroller for that?
i think you do, for the counting and beeping.
No I don’t. I can use common door switch and a time relay for that, which triggers buzzer. It cost a lot more than microcontroller, but you can do it.
Microcontrollers are cheaper then analog clocks
Yes they are, but that wasn’t the point.
beeping after you leave the door open for a few minutes, also electricity is over a quarter a kilowatt hour some places.
Y’all just leaving fridges open all day where you are? In my neck of the woods “Stop staring and pick something, you’re letting all the cold out.”
fridges don’t always close properly
Well
A) Close it properly then. We have one of those at work, old worn out gaskets, fridge pops open when you close the top freezer, and somehow we can manage to figure out how to close it back up every time.
B) Replace your gaskets.
a microcontroller, couple sensors, and a speaker are cheaper
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Might I inquire as to what the convenience would be?
Digital display for thermostat/thermometer is nice.
Party Mode is convenient when adding large amounts of beverages (or leftovers) as it temporarily changes the compressor setpoint/cycle for a couple of hours in expectation of heavy usage.
Night mode / vacation mode can similarly change the compressor working profile to be either more quiet or energy efficient at times when it’s not expecting the door to open for extended periods of time.
None of these are essential features of a fridge, but they can be convenient.
Some things off the top of my head are:
- you could set the temperature to a number of degrees via a numerical display, which would be much harder to implement without a microcontroller.
- maybe you could have PID control over the compressor rather than bang-bang control, so the temperature would be more stable.
- these days, a bimetallic strip costs more than a microcontroller and a chip thermometer, despite the chip being much more accurate.
All of this only requires a really dumb microcontroller, though, not one with networking. I don’t see how that could be useful until your fridge could magically track what it contains so you could ask it if you needed to buy stuff while you were shopping. I don’t think we have the technology for that yet.
I think we probably do have the tech to track what’s in the fridge but we’d need a camera and some kind of ai watching it always…
Image recognition will be able to figure out the obvious items, and hopefully the expiration dates, too, but it’s not going to be able to figure out that opaque containers are nearly empty or identify leftovers in tupperware. It’s also probably going to be unable to identify when loose produce is past its best unless it’s extremely rotten.
beeping after the fridge hasn’t been closed for a while, or controlling the temperature, or turn on the lights when the door is open.
Yeah that can moatly be done without one. The beeping maybe not but the temp and lights can be done completely analog. Our old fridge literally had a push switch that turned off the light when closed (20yr old fridge)
My washer/dryer is “smart” and there’s no convenience there at all, honestly. It argues with me, it sits and flashes suggestions freezing the entire interface, it decides to just not do things at times. It’s hella annoying.
Y’all remember when Windows updated their OS and all computers without enough memory to run it were bricked?
Because we didn’t throw a fit then, when a company’s update destroyed our possessions, now we’re getting more of it.
This could actually just be more modes of planned obsolescence.
Uhhhhhhh too many times to count, yeah. Which incident are you referring to?
And here I am using the same fridge that’s been going since before the end of the Cold War.
Old fridges do last longer, but from what I understand they use significantly more energy to run.
That’s for defrost
Half of my homes appliances are from the 70s/80s, and a handful are modern. Can u guess which ones are breaking? Fuck I will NEVER get rid of my cooktop and oven they are older than me and will likely outlive me still !
“Mourn” is a strong word here, but also, this is why you don’t connect your fridge to the internet…
Appliance repair guy here and I have only one thing to say: 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Time for me to get on my Samsung soapbox, and it is for an entirely different reason but very relevant for why you shouldn’t buy a Samsung appliance!
Never. I repeat NEVER, buy a Samsung home appliance. For this reason ONLY. Especially when it comes to food preservation… or simply keeping food cold.
Here is the thing. Samsung will not let approved service repair companies stock parts. I repeat, WILL NOT LET APPROVED SERVICE REPAIR COMPANIES STOCK PARTS. So if you buy a Samsung refrigerator through Home Depot… and it breaks under warranty… you will get an apologetic service technician that will confirm that your appliance is broken.
Great!… I already knew that. That’s why all of my perishables are starting to smell funny. The service person feels bad for you but they don’t have the part to fix your appliance. They can order the part within 24 hours and be back this time tomorrow. Did you already have to take the day off work for the 6 hour service window???
Well this is all super annoying especially if you bought the EXTRA large capacity refrigerator and freezer… that NO ONE has enough coolers and ice to preserve…
Okay, so the service person orders the part and, dang… that wasn’t the problem!
Weird, Okay so NOW the service person will order the more expensive part that is actually the problem. All of the ice in the cooler has melted. All of your cooler food has spoiled.
The refrigerator THREE DAYS LATER is now fixed. F#*k Samsung appliances. And this is the annoying part about all their 5 star reviews. Yeah they look nice when you give them their stars but their reliability is GARBAGE!!!
If an “appliance company” will not let service people stock parts… for the love of god DON’T BUY IT.
Lastly… Samsung ice makers ARE THE WORST!!! You will only have REGRETS. REALLY!!!
Do you have a link to that not-stocking of parts?
LMGTFY https://image-us.samsung.com/SamsungUS/tv-ci-site-resources/Five+Star+Service+Center.pdf
Samsung Parts Order Access: Authorized FSSC’s have access to Samsung internal parts ordering system that includes free shipping for quick and easy repairs when needed.
It says nothing about this. Google yields no results either. I doubt it is true. Perhaps the technician said it, that does not mean it is correct. After all, why should that person spend money to have stock items when they can just blame Samsung for having to order stuff? Not to mention the initial wrong diagnosis that does not exactly make this person trustworthy.
Sounds like experience and not reading knowledge.
…a smart fridge should be smart enough to still act like a fridge when its confused
Yeah this is a matter of making it fail safe. A refrigerator that isn’t operating at food preservation temperatures (and freezing temperatures in the freezer) is dangerous.
Appliances related to safety such as refrigerators and temperature control need to have a safe position they can fail to when their logic is confused.
we need to start tearing out the garbage. smart appliances aren’t smart, they’re extractive enshittification.
I mean, don’t put it on the network. Now it is dumb again. Mostly. Probably not, ok fine, so just don’t buy one with that shit in it.
my friend lives in rural vermont without internet access (he can get cell phone access at the base of the hill he lives on, but not much else) - and his samsung tv keeps telling him to agree to the terms and services, and the only way to do so is for it to be online. 2-3 times a day an overlay appears and prompts him to sign in to his samsung account and agree lol. he’s so frustrated he wants to return the tv.
even without the network being present, enshittification is all around us
It is fun for me… I am a crazy fool developper and most real software professionals tell me I am dumb to think that a mistake should lead to something else than an error that kills the program (and wait for user’s restart).
So, yes, I agree with you, out it won’t happen as long as makers trust deprivating software makers (those who make softwares no one else may modify).
Don’t connect your fridge to the internet. Just don’t.
Don’t buy a fridge that can, because eventually it will probably connect even if you don’t do it yourself via an open WiFi network or Amazon sidewalk or some shit.
Right? Just because a networked version exists, doesn’t make it a good idea.
I just don’t see the utility. I can be pretty pro “smart” stuff, especially if I can run it without an internet connection, but what’s the point for a fridge?
Like an oven I get, though I don’t have one. It’s laziness but there is some utility in being able to preheat the oven without getting up, or double check the oven was turned off. Although newer ovens tend to have rapid preheating that really can be quick (unlike my 1996 oven that takes 15-20+ minutes)
But a fridge? What are you going to do? Ensure it’s running? Except when something like this happens lmao. The only real thing it could add is an advertisement and data collection vector, which is the opposite of utility. I’ve also seen smart toasters. Not toaster ovens, but like pop in two slices of bread and push the plunger. Why? You have to come to the device to load it. Do you leave bread overnight getting stale and save the 30 seconds and greatly raise the risk of cold toast? Ridiculous
I have a wall oven that’s a couple months old and it preheats very rapidly. Unfortunately, it seems to achieve this by just lying about what temperature it’s at. It’s consistently 50°F to 75°F below the set temperature, as measured by a separate oven thermometer. The manufacturer anticipated this potential problem by including a boldface section in the manual saying not to use oven thermometers because they’re “wildly inaccurate”. Oh the irony of an electric oven using gaslighting.
For bonus points, even when the oven reaches the set temperature (which I now set higher than what I theoretically need) it doesn’t bother to maintain that temperature, so I have to frequently turn the oven off and then back on again just to cook something properly. Once again ironically, this was the reason I replaced the old oven. Fortunately it was only $2500.
I went to buy a steamer, because my last one finally fell apart. And I happen to mention I’ll be after a toaster next, did they have the brand/model I like (it’s just been tested to toast well) the salesguy says oh have you heard about the ai one, I’m getting one, they’re such a saving atm, down from $600 to $400! I straight up said wtf, why. He said oh it looks at your toast while you toast it. It was so hard not to let him know he is a fucking idiot. He wasn’t trying to sell me on it, he genuinely wanted to buy it for himself.
Eh, for a toaster it at least makes some sense to have ‘smarts’ for ensuring various types of bread reach the desired crispynes (Lathough none of that needs internet or anything close to 400$ in value). So it would still be more usefull then smart fridge.
Toasters could do that in the fifties. Crispiness is directly related to surface temperature and you can detect that with nothing fancier than a bimetal strip and some clever engineering. If you want to use modern technology you could use an IR sensor and a two cent microcontroller.
Using AI for the task suggests that they stuck a camera in there and use image processing to badly simulate an IR sensor. Less reliable than two metal strips welded together but also way more expensive.
My electric toothbrush has bluetooth. How much free time does someone have to track and analyze their toothbrushing?
Sticking it in a toaster reminds me of when LCD clocks first came out. They stuck them in EVERYTHING. Even table lamps had little clocks stuck in them. Then when LED lights came out everything had to have super bright led lights all over them. One to show you it was off, one to show you it was on, etc, etc. Same with everyone had to have a website in the 90s or a mobile app later. Now everything has to be connected to the internet because, well they can. There is no real reason for it except marketing.
So does mine but I actually like it. Not for the reason it was put on there, god no, but I can use it in my Home Assistant automations. Now whenever I brush my teeth my bathroom speaker starts playing the daily news highlights.
You could use it for other things too, like a reminder if you forgot to brush, could be good for kids. But the default functionality is complete garbage. Why they thought you’d want an app to time brushing your teeth when the vibrate function does the same thing is beyond me. I just got them because they were a good deal at Costco and I didnt pay extra for the bluetooth.
tft lcds got in this too because they’re so dirt cheap and capacitive touch interfaces are cheap as fuck to manufacture. Even if the parts costs are a tiny bit higher relative to physical buttons and interfaces the money saved on assembly makes up for it (and in some cases the parts actually are cheaper
Plus in a kitchen or bathroom setting this is much easier to make water and dust resistant, which is an actual benefit tbf, but at the expense of ergonomics and accessibility
You can literally go on Amazon right now and search LCD toaster. There’s the $4-500 ultra bougie American designed (not made lol) smart one but then there are a ton of Chinese designed ones that are like $50-60 because it’s a $20 toaster with a (when bought at scale) $0.95 lcd strapped on
Marketing is dumb, this is why I left ui/ux/hci work. You can create an ergonomic and intuitive system that is evidence based and the ad men will be like “but can we pander to the lowest common denominator by ruining it with some useless feature that’s objectively worse to use?” And then they just dropped the pretense and said fuck ux, embrace dark patterns
I could bitch about this for days
My electric toothbrush has bluetooth.
Someone bought it before it got to you. There is likely a version without bluetooth that was not purchased.
If people keep spending more money for it, they will keep making it.
Maybe, I got it because it was discounted and I didn’t know it had that feature when I got it.
I just don’t see the utility. I can be pretty pro “smart” stuff, especially if I can run it without an internet connection, but what’s the point for a fridge?
About ten minutes ago I installed a smart bulb in my fridge. I plan to set up an automation in Home Assistant to tell me when the fridge has been open too long. I also have a temp sensor near the compressor because I had an issue with the fan going out and now if the temp is too high I get an alert to check on it.
I also have a temp sensor in the freezer and the main fridge, again to alert me when things go wrong.
I have a tiny, battery powered temperature/humidity sensor in my fridge, connected to Home Assistant.
I don’t actually need it there, but I was interested to know if it would work, and it did. So now I know that my fridge maintains a steady 5⁰C.
See that’s utility and depending on the sensors you choose that can definitely be local only
But skimming the page for a Samsung smart fridge none of this is in the features. It’s that it can play music, you can put notes and pictures and shit, there’s an “ai camera” that can tell you what you need to buy (though something tells me that struggles if your fridge isn’t set up like a stock image and is actually loaded with like food and condiments and shit like a normal person)
A Bluetooth speaker can do the music part likely with much better sound quality, a smart speaker can handle the typical kitchen tasks like setting timers (which can be done purely in HA, you don’t need Alexa or whatever), a dry erase board and magnets can cover notes and pictures, and the reminders app on your phone can probably do a much more accurate job of keeping a shopping list. Then you can buy a fridge that doesn’t have a 32” proprietary lcd that is a major point of failure, and you can literally save thousands of dollars (quick search shows these fridges are 3500-4k, which is insane for a fridge, even a fancy huge one).
The market for these is people who have too much money (or are willing to take on credit debt) but also can’t be bothered to spend the 1-2 hours it takes to read up on how to do what you’ve done. Samsung, Apple, Google, Amazon, etc prey on these people
The top of the line one can make spherical ice though, which is admittedly super cool
The market for these is people who have too much money (or are willing to take on credit debt) but also can’t be bothered to spend the 1-2 hours it takes to read up on how to do what you’ve done.
Nah. The market for this is people who go shopping for a new fridge and then see this shiny, flashy thing that the other fridges don’t have. And then “Ooh, shiny!” And then the salesman comes by and gives them a quick pitch about how this is ‘the way of the future’, soon all fridges will be like this and they don’t want to be left behind with a soon-to-be-obsolete dumb fridge, do they? And due to having more money and/or credit than sense, they nod along and sign on the dotted line, because obviously, they want ‘the best’ fridge, right? And how can any other fridge be ‘the best’ if it doesn’t have this flashy, eye-catching feature on the front of it?
We’re kind of describing the same people I think
there’s an “ai camera” that can tell you what you need to buy (though something tells me that struggles if your fridge isn’t set up like a stock image and is actually loaded with like food and condiments and shit like a normal person)
What do you mean? You don’t individually label and color coordinate Tupperware containers every time you put leftovers in the fridge?
*looks at three brown grocery bags of vegetables I didn’t bother to unpack and five rubbermaids, one upside down, tossed randomly in fridge*
looks at three brown grocery bags of vegetables I didn’t bother to unpack and five rubbermaids, one upside down, tossed randomly in fridge
AI: “You seem to be running low on Nvidia, Alphabet, and Tesla stock. Let me order more shares for you.”
I installed a smart bulb in my fridge. I plan to set up an automation in Home Assistant to tell me when the fridge has been open too long.
My fridge just beeps at me if the door has been open more than a minute or two.
It’s not a ‘smart’ fridge, either. You don’t need anything complex to accomplish that. I guess that the interior fridge light is wired in parallel with a simple timer circuit, and if that timer circuit is energized long enough for its pre-set timer to run out, it energizes the beeping circuit.
You could do a similar thing with your fridge. No need for network connectivity and computers to be involved. Just find the circuit that goes to the light bulb and wire in a simple electronic timer in parallel.
You know those influencers who get like a few million views from building silly Rube Goldberg Machines?.. That’s the only thing I can think of to justify the toaster, and then it’s literally just taking the place of an RC actuator.
As for the fridge, the only thing I can think of is you’re one of those people who constantly forgets what they went shopping for, and need to video stream the interior of the fridge to check if you’re out of something.
As for the fridge, the only thing I can think of is you’re one of those people who constantly forgets what they went shopping for, and need to video stream the interior of the fridge to check if you’re out of something.
But how is that smart? It’s just a fridge with a camera connected to the internet. Oh, it’s like my washing machine with “AI”*: it connects to the internet, and all it can go is start and stop, but there’s a caveat… If enabled through online, you cannot start it physically it’s my brothers old one, never connected to the internet in my house.
*
AI stands for American Intelligence. It’s a hill I’ll die on.
I didn’t say it was a good solution. Especially when you make the whole fundamental function of the fridge dependent on the network.
I have a compressor travel fridge. I’ve had it for about six years. The display died this summer, so I had a hard time knowing what temperature it was set to, or if it was even on. (Crotch goblins love to press buttons that go beep).
Anywho, I got a new display circuit for it with Bluetooth. The only reason I paired my phone to it is so others can’t fiddle with the settings at the local campground.
Same thing with my e-bike. I don’t want someone else pairing their phone with it and locking me out.
Same thing with my e-bike.
Oh shit, man. I kind of want an e-bike, but I’d never want one with a phone app. It had better be usable without one, or I’m saying fuck it and building my own. And if I had the misfortune of accidentally buying one with any sort of wireless connectivity, I’d be sorely tempted to tear its electronics apart and find some way to permanently and physically disable that connectivity.
You don’t have to pair it with you phone… but if I don’t, what’s doing somebody else from doing it and e-locking it when I leave it on the street.
what’s doing somebody else from doing it and e-locking it when I leave it on the street
Prying it open and tearing the wifi/bluetooth antenna off of its circuit board.
I’d never want one with a phone app. It had better be usable without one
My e-bike has a phone app, and it’s great. Of course it works without the app, but it’s super useful to be able to plan a ride from the comfort of my couch and send it to my bike instead of entering it on the bike’s screen. Especially if it’s a route with multiple waypoints.
In a perfect world, operating totally on my local network I’d love if my fridge and freezer took pictures of things as I was putting them in and taking them out to automatically maintain an inventory. If it didnt require external servers, it really could be great. Hell, even if it gave me the option of local execution it could be great.
But this is the real world and we can’t gave nice things. This should never have been a failure mode at all. If the computer in these things decides to stop working, it takes fairly few things make it run like a dumb fridge. They just decided that was unacceptable, so here we are.
I have similar feelings about washers and dryers. I’d love to hook it up to my mqtt broker and get local notifications when it finishes. But there is zero reason whatsoever for it to reach the internet.
My (not yet installed) heat pump water heater wants to be connected to the internet. Can’t imagine why I’d want to do that. I know its for peak rate electricity management or whatever, something my town doesn’t seem to do due to being mostly hydroelectric, but it has a whole button pad and screen and shit built into the side of it, I think I can manage without the app syphoning my phone data, thanks. Besides, it uses so little electric I probably won’t even bother programming that.
And I’ll bet if it fails the pump stops too and the whole board has to be replaced for $500+.
Likely for ToU rates, I could imagine looking out for weather updates, if there’s a likely power outage I could see it heating the water another 5 or 10 degrees so it’ll last longer/provide “more” hot water?
le sigh. I’d like to have a home with systems that do things like…synchronize to a clock more accurate and reliable than one I can feasibly own myself, that others such as the utility companies are using. I’d like to be able to get weather alerts and have the refrigerator automatically get a degree colder the water heater get five or ten degrees hotter, run the HVAC a bit, charge batteries, etc.
What I don’t want are a thousand little ARM computers each one a member of three different botnets trying to scrape my home network, sending audio, video, FLIR and radar telemetry straight to Kim Jong Fuck’s third testicle from the left, while also DDOSing Amnesty International and waiting for the cpu.detonate() command to come down so it’s time to buy another fucking desk lamp.
You can likely call the company to tweak the configuration of yours based on the telemetry. Been there, done that with Vaillant. Nice to be able to get help without involving a tech given how expensive they are - and no tech on site will have the data Vaillant has on my heatpump which means that the tech decisions will always be inferior.
Having an alert go off if it gets too warm would be useful. That just needs a smart temperature sensor connected to your HA server though.
Skill issue. Put it on an IoT vlan or subnet and keep it off the internet. Tunnel in and reap any benefits without internet exposure. Only thing that needs to stay updated is the tunnel and it’s host. Headscale is nice
Or just get a tablet and stick it to the fridge with magnets if you want a place for your digital calendar or whatever
Leave the fucking compressor out of it
What benefits could you reap from having your fridge connected to the internet? I’m seriously asking because the thought never occurred to me, but then again, I live in a tiny apartment, I can walk like 8 steps and I’m opening the fridge door. Maybe other people have bigger houses and takes half a day to get to the thing.
Seems like a lot more work than just remembering to make a list before you leave home.
But how else will it get important updates that protect it from the latest online threats?
But how else am I going to get on that sweet sweet subscription service for keeping my food cold?
Temperatures below 35F require Chilly-Tier pro or higher
You already have that; it’s called the electricity bill
That’s the joke. Tech companies have started taking away basic functions, so they can then sell it back to you as a subscription. BMW’s heated seat subscription comes to mind. All BMWs are equipped with heated seats by default, but you can only turn the heater on if you pay a subscription for it.
but you can only turn the heater on if you pay a subscription for it.
*opens electrical repair kit with malicious intent*
(I wonder if BMW would try to sue you for finding a way to bypass this and turn on the heated seats without it? I wonder if they’d sue you if you turned this solution into a relatively easy-to-install mod product that others could install…)
In the US, my understanding is you can do it, but helping others do it (by publishing a how-to, selling a kit, even doing it for them) would be where you’d run afoul with the law
Interesting … what law would they use to justify that?
I’m on solar and batteries. I haven’t had an electricity bill in years.
Don’t buy appliances with network capability at all.
I have a Samsung refrigerator that wants to connect to the Internet. Of course I don’t allow that.
I agree, we don’t need smart fridges, we need dumb fridges
Also, don’t get Samsung appliances. They’ve always been utter trash. Washers, dryers, fridges, and dishwashers all suck.
And don’t buy fridges and other appliances from big techs. Period. Get them from industries specialized on that, who have been manufacturing appliances for a long time, like people did all this time
In some countries, the biggest appliance makers got into tech or bought by them, so there’s not a huge amount of choice there. I’m not sure about SK in particular. Thankfully, dumb fridges are still a thing here in Japan, but I don’t know how long that will last given how many of the major brands are also high-tech companies (Panasonic, Sharp, etc.)
Better yet, buy them used on the second-hand market.
I can’t imagine spending more than, say, $60 on a fridge. If you’ve got time to wait and look for good deals, you can often even find working ones (or easily repairable ones) for free.
Just wondering, is it confirmed that food actually spoiled? Because making the actual cooling dependent on smart functionality seems incredibly stupid. I assumed it would just be all the smart features that stopped working, but if it couldn’t even cool anymore… woooow XD.
Looks like it. Also seems confined to just Korea. The cooling itself was affected.
“[T]he refrigeration and refrigeration functions themselves did not work normally, so all the food in the refrigerator had to be disposed of,” one user wrote, per a translation.
I mean I can sorta understand some convenience functions but it oughta have some default setting it falls back to. Especially temperature settings.
I do have a Samsung fridge but nothing that fancy. I mean I tried to get it to trigger an Alexa routine to play a message when the door opened but that didn’t work. Alexa saying “Close the door fatty, you’re not really hungry” could have been motivational.
You know, there are plenty of cheap window sensors you could just as well attach to your fridge door to achieve this XD.
Yeah I have built little wireless sensors using ESPHome. I figured this way I could just make it work with software since it was essentially for a joke and not really important.
The only thing I really use the connectivity for is to let me know when someone left the fridge door open. Which unfortunately happens a lot.
Wait, so there’s not even a hard thermo in it to fail safely? Well done guys, you really saved 10p per unit on that one
Trully what people really need in their lives are additional risk factors for their peace and quiet in exchange for little or no value.
I’m just happy that I’m moving in the very opposite direction, avoiding externally controlled computing devices like the plague and instead having my own stuff when I actually need some smarts on my stuff (which, at the moment, is mainly my TV media player).
We’ve recently had some big brownouts in the city and country I live in and those made me keenly aware of risks to my peace and quiet (for example, electronic payments don’t work if there’s no power, so if you don’t have actual cash on hand things can get pretty tricky) and nowadays there are way too many unnecessary dependencies on external entities in exchange for little, none or even negative value for us (don’t get me started on Smart TVs) - it’s long been the case that a big utility provider going down would be quite a pain in the arse, but nowadays lots of people’s risk exposure profile is so stupidly wide that “random company turning to vibe coding and sooner or later forcefully pushing an update that bricks your ‘smart’ device” or leaves your home network and digital devices one it wide open for people wanting to steal financial info from it, are maybe one of the biggest risks.
