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Comment by dTal | Hacker News Reader

The problem here isn't that the fridge is tracking door opens. That seems like a good application for a "smart" appliance - tracking how usage patterns affect its internal state and holding a dialogue with the user. The problem is that it used email, which comes across as passive aggressive in the same way it would if a human did it. If it just showed a notification on a screen, I don't think we'd be having this discussion.

I think, if appliances are going to be "smart", it's time we started holding them to similar standards of behavior to humans. Our machines are learning to talk; now they need to learn not to be rude.

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The fridge emailed basically a performance report to the address that he configured on setup. One of the performance report items is that it had been opened a lot, which does impact efficiency and food longevity.

It didn't email a complaint. It did precisely what he configured it to do (I will go on a limb and presume the fridge didn't guess his email address), and presumably what he expected it to do given that he paid a large premium for a "smart" fridge.

There is no problem here beyond that often Twitter makes everyone a comedian/performance artist and people often take their routines a little too seriously.

> It didn't email a complaint. It did precisely what he configured it to do

From the tweets:

> I don’t even remember giving permission for our fridge to email.

Also, if you read the thread, this seems to be a new 'feature' they've added since he set it up - the fridge was silent for a year, then boom - stupid email.

It is clear he is being humorously jocular, exaggerating for effect (Twitter performance art that works wonders -- he's done well observing that the smart scale that he connected to the internet also does smart scale stuff). Those people taking this seriously need to take a walk and get some fresh air.

"I don’t even remember giving permission for our fridge to email"

He connected it to the internet and now it does stuff. He also clearly gave it his email address. How does one give "permission" for a smart device to email (beyond a giant T&C agreement that he obviously agreed to)? Who is so overburdened by an email?

This sort of "dystopia everything is hell look at all this crazy stuff!" shtick surprisingly does well, and it's bizarre.

At least it's email and not another stupid phone app they force you to install...

>it's time we started holding them to similar standards of behavior to humans.

I have observed in my own behavior that I damn near refuse to "say" why I am calling to an automated system while I am happy to ask Siri for a kitchen timer.

Siri has a personality and the customer service automated line does not. It's like talking to a wall and it feels condescending.

Once you make a device human like, it seems that a new realm of possibilities opens up.

If I want usage data for an appliance I'm probably going to want to look at how usage is changing over time. If it is just on a screen on the appliance I'm going to have to manual record it to keep for such analysis which can get tedious.

With email I've got a record of it. Ideally they would include an attachment with the email that has the data in some well known documented format, like CSV, to make it easy to work with programatically.

I probably wouldn't want an appliance to have an internet connection just to support this logging. If it doesn't otherwise need an internet connection I'd be fine with it if it logged to an SD card or thumb drive.

It'd be better if it along with other devices could set a family meeting and your smart TV could replay clips of your miss use to use whilst alexa chides you. It'd be like a family meeting almost.

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