Samsung Family Hub for 2025 Update Elevates the Smart Home Ecosystem

In my experience, they've been fine for a few years so far.

Devices that do need to be on the internet but I can foresee no reason they ever need to talk to anything else on the network go on their own VLAN (down to the level of my VR headset since it had a Meta logo on the box...).

My boys gaming PC can't even see my desktop (since there isn't a scenario where it needs to).

Other than the "smart" TV I own nothing "Smart" because I don't want anything smart.

Well the real question is why would you buy a connected fridge in the first place. Not that I visit fridges alleys in stores on a regular basis but I have never actually seen one.

most updates are downgrades in my experience unless it addresses something very specific

Naturally when my laptop is using its wifi to create a hotspot it isn't actually connected to the internet, so they never actually get access to the internet.

(Doesn't work if you actually want the internet, and not just wifi, related features of course)

I use ControlD and it's blocking 38% of all DNS requests in my household. 8% of that is IoT telemetry. It's unbelievable how much of this bullshit is built into the products we use.

You know, bit like Microsoft forces you to create online account after installation is done

I have had a lot of friends amazed by the fact that when they connect to my home Wi-Fi they stop seeing ads. Zero of them interested in implementing something similar in their home.

I agree with you 100% about Samsung. They make nice hardware, but the software experience is among the worst in the industry. I don't know how they can be considered a premium product. I would never use one of their phones again. Straight up adware. I'm surprised they don't inject ads into the photos you take. They have ads everywhere else - even in the phone dialing app. Their TV's are still good as long as you don't connect them to the internet. Once they start putting LTE radios in them to download ads without wifi, I will be done with those too.

At least with a single-purpose device, you know you're not at the mercy of some minimally-funded, likely-outsourced software team inside a hardware manufacturer.

Only saving grace I have is that I bought my P659-G1 in 2019. While it doesn't prevent bad updates, it's a little less likely they pushed deep changes to old models.

And I can't believe it's been over 6 years since I had already eliminated Samsung for their ad behavior, and not only have they not changed, they've doubled-down.

Someone my spouse knows recently bought one of the $3500 models that’s getting this, and said person was in the “test” group for the rollout. Their response to the situation has been that they won’t buy Samsung appliances ever again.

So if enough of us do that. Maybe.

In my market Samsung has driven away all the service techs. We managed to find one, and he said he only works on Samsung because it’s a captive market now. He complained that Samsung micromanages field services to a degree that they’re killing the service ecosystem for their appliances.

We had him try to fix an issue with a dryer. On his way out he looked at the fridge and said “has the ice maker stopped working yet?” It actually had stopped working a year earlier. We didn’t get it fixed then because Samsung didn’t have anyone to send, and there were no third parties we could find (even unauthorized).

We’ve been replacing all our appliances with other brands.

Edit: PS - depending on the model of fridge, the ice maker infrastructure (typically near the filter) eventually start pooling water and might freeze in inconvenient places. Watch out for that. YMMV.

Also, I assume you can still do what I did for my current LG TV, skip the wifi setup, plug in AppleTV and use it purely as dumb TV.

You can refuse to give them a direct WiFi connection, but just wait until they start using IOT mesh networks like Amazon Sidewalk as a fallback channel (assuming some aren't quietly doing that already).

But you won't find that here, and it's not going to be coming in an update. This fridge can't properly identify fruits and veggies, let alone anything in any sort of packaging.

As I demo the thing, it keeps taking snapshots of the back of my head and insists that the fridge is just packed full of kiwis.

I was only commenting on the usefulness of such features, not on whether companies would also abuse that access for more data; that is an issue, but a separate one.

As you cross the threshold of the fridge with your item, you have to pause to show the camera what you're putting in or taking out. If you don't pause, or if it just nondeterministically decides you weren't holding anything, it won't work. It has no idea where items are in the fridge, as soon as the threshold is crossed it loses sight of them.

There is one exception, and that's the fridge doors. The camera can't see that far up and out, but it takes multiple snapshots of the doors as you're closing them and bringing them within its field of view. The results are heavily distorted, incredibly low fidelity, and most likely very motion blurry. Too low quality for the fridge to even attempt to discern what's inside the door, it'll just show you the snapshot it took and let you figure it out by navigating Home > AI Vision Inside > Left Door/Right Door to see the low quality reconstruction of your door... or you could take that time instead to just open the door.

I put fliers for our store warranty inside, and just hid them under my wrist while taking them out so they show up in the AI Vision Inside app without actually taking up space in the fridge. The only time it ever saw me is when I leaned too far in and it took a picture of the back of my head. Got classified as a kiwi.

The thing that makes corporations give better warranty support is not more money. Giving them more money does not incentivize them to suddenly give better service or make higher quality goods. The thing is consumer protection laws. In the EU, consumer goods have a minimum two-year warranty period. This incentivizes higher quality manufacturing.

this attitude strikes me as remarkably naive in 2025. apple is well on its way down the slippery slope.

The problem is that even if you can amass such an IOT botnet, you still need people on the ground to conduct such burglaries, and that scales poorly. Even if you tried to operate on a SaaS model, you're going to find that your clients (ie. drug users who want their next fix) are fickle and are very eager to snitch on you to the police, making it very likely that your botnet gets dismantled. On the other hand running a DDoS or "residential proxy" botnet comes with none of these hassles.

> Please connect the Samsung^R Family^tm H.U.B.^TM^R to the internet to continue the refrigeration cycle. You refrigeration cycle will end in 28 hours unless reconnected to the Samsung^TM KNOX^R Server System for your security

> Please reposition the Samsung^R Family^tm H.U.B.^TM^R so that 6G Connectivity can be established to start the refrigeration cycle.

> Please unblock all visual obstructions the Samsung^R Family^tm H.U.B.^TM^R Camera and reauthorize usage to continue the refrigeration cycle.

> Please unblock all visual obstructions the Samsung^R Family^tm H.U.B.^TM^R Camera and Reauthorize using your government ID, fingerprint, iris scan and cryptographically singed anus print to continue usage. Failure to comply will cost you 25 Social Credits. You have 27 hours left.

This might be illegal for publicly traded companies. Shareholder maximization forces them to deceive their customers.