Samsung accidentally freezes its smart fridges with a software update
androidauthority.com
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I am now eyeing my dishwasher very suspiciously.
I will never own a Samsung or LG appliance. They are built almost explicitly to force you to get a new one in a couple of years.
Then couple that with both companies trying to use weaselly legal maneuvers like putting the EULA that agrees to arbitration on the outside of a box and saying "If you open this box you agree to the EULA".
When I moved into my first own flat, family, friends and colleagues pressured me to buy good appliances. They will last longer they said.
Buy Miele for a washing machine, nothing else, they said. I didn't had the money for that, so I bought a washing machine for 250 Euro. It has been going for 11 years, moved two times and doesn't show any signs of going out.
Another friend told me he only buys Samsung fridges. Best machines, one shouldn't buy anything else. I bought a fridge for 200 Euro because I liked the retro look and its red color. Also going strong for 10 years and moving two times. He has got the third Samsung fridge in 10 years now.
Yeah, that's anecdotal but I haven't really found the part where buying something more expensive really helped with expanding its lifespan, rather the contrary where "high tech" broke earlier or more often.
buy professional stuff that's expensive, not consumer gadgetry expensive.
a samsung fridge is expensive because of the gimmicks and high tech integrations.
a sub zero fridge is expensive because of the build quality and manufacturer network , part re-use and larger consumer part availability and market.
Note that I said many above. there are also 250 appliances built for the penny wise and pound foolish - they will break in a few years (just long enough that the warranty is up).
Even knowing that though, often there are features of the more expensive appliances that while not needed are nice enough that I'm willing to pay extra.
Washing machines are a solved problem and it does not need a high tech solution. A good, reliable motor and good weights is pretty much it. No need for brittle over-engineering, fragile touchscreens or temperamental sensors.
When I had to buy one, I got a basic Beko* because they are usually good with replacement parts, and it had the bare minimum in terms of electronics. It was also one of the cheapest, but that’s a consequence of the other criteria more than something I optimised. I would be reluctant to get a no-name Chinese one, even if it is cheap. Anyway, it’s been going for 5 years now just like on the first day. Very happy with it.
> He has got the third Samsung fridge in 10 years now.
Fridges are also a solved problem. It’s just a cooling loop with a radiator on one side and a pump in the middle, and good thermal insulation. Using three of them in 10 years is not very impressive, decent ones should go forever. There is no reason why one should fail before 10 to 15 years.
> Yeah, that's anecdotal but I haven't really found the part where buying something more expensive really helped with expanding its lifespan, rather the contrary where "high tech" broke earlier or more often.
Definitely. But I would not say that going for cheap is the best strategy. Going for simple and sturdy is, and it is usually correlated with being cheap. But there’s also a lot of cheap disposable crap.
* I am not sure how well they are known around the world, it’s a Turkish brand. Their stuff is built mainly in Turkey and in my experience sturdy and easy to fix and repair, if a bit bare bones features-wise.
My 2004 RV has one and runs whenever I need it. I'd insall it in my house but I'd need to build a cabinet, chimney and gas piping for it first... so instead I have to listen to a compressor spinning when it runs.
No obsolescence, no spare parts, no breakdown, no posibility for continuing profit. Bad ideaQ
Can confirm this. My mum has broken two drawer fronts in her Beko freezer and I was pleasantly surprised with how easy it was to get replacements.
No reason to buy those when you have ie some basic Bosch stuff. TBH smart stuff should be left to computers and phones, rest should be dumb as brick. But folks keep buying it for some reason (ie hey Samsung makes good phones, lets buy their fridge), hence crapware everywhere.
The fridges are dead-silent and working great for 7+ years. Washers are also nice, washing for a bit too long but don't wear the clothes down and have better stain removal performance than their peers, and dishwashers are extremely slow and not designed for European market. Their baskets are not suitable for our dishes, we can't fill them efficiently even.
So, from experience their fridges are A-OK, washers are great with some caveats, but dishwashers are not good.
My first choice is still BSH group and Beko, but Samsung is acceptable if required, but LG? Ain't nobody got time for that.
My own Siemens fridge is with me for ~14 years, as well.
Last fridge I had was a Kenmore Elite with 10 year warranty, it failed to the same compressor issue that has been plaguing the LGs. It was replaced once under warranty but that failed 3 years later.
Just got a GE; first one was DOA, didn't cool at all. My thermometer is saying it's replacement is currently sitting at 44F when it is set at 34F, I have had it for 2 weeks....
I have replaced shock absorbers and power switch of a 15 year old Beko washing machine last year, and it cost me 6$ plus workmanship to get genuine parts installed in 20 minutes.
I bet that won't be very possible over there, though.
If you're going to get snitty, cite your claim.
I remember LG as Goldstar from my Grandma’s microwave oven. That was not something unreliable, but rather unremarkable appliance with no glaring problems. It was eh. Then they became LG.
I remember their other electronics. AC units, phones, TVs, optical storage devices. All of them were either okayish or below that. Phones? Sub-par even if they were innovative. TVs? Unreliable and lower quality than their peers. Optical storage? Can’t read a disc it burned 30 seconds ago, or can’t rip an audio CD correctly, or broke in a year.
I have seen so many LG devices fail or fail to meet their own specs they advertised with in my life, I have sworn to not buy any LG device ~25 years ago.
I somehow had to buy one of their portable DVD burners because I needed something quick. It failed to read a pristine CD other drives read at full blast after taking it out of its box.
So, please tell me I’m delusional. Invalidate my experience I collected over decades. Tell me about my grandeur.
I can tell you how many Samsung devices I have still continue to run or outlived their expected lives in another comment, if you feel like reading it as well.
I’m waiting.
Expensive consumer appliances aren't always the same quality as expensive professional appliances.
I replaced my AEG washing machine last year after ±10 years of service. The new one, also roughly 200 euro, uses a fraction of the energy, and cleans better. I should have swapped it out way earlier to save money.
Repeat that calculation after 9 more years.
Out of all the fridges that LG sold, what percentage had issues? LG sells a lot of units, so even small percentages may end up with 'critical mass' of problems that gains wider awareness.
An article from an appliance retailer that has their own in-house service department, and so has statistics on repair rates of the various OEMs that they sell:
* https://blog.yaleappliance.com/lg-compressor-class-action-la...
Looking at service rates in total (for all issues), LG has the lowest number out of all the manufacturers they sell/service:
* https://blog.yaleappliance.com/the-best-counter-depth-refrig...
* https://blog.yaleappliance.com/most-reliable-counter-depth-f...
Would you prefer an A-grade quality appliance that can spy but that spying can be disabled, or a B-grade appliance that doesn't spy but needs replaced in three years?
Other than minor design flaws like lettering that wipes off if laundry detergent contacts it (older models), that was the only issue I’ve had in 11 years.
Sorry malfist for thinking bad thoughts. I've redirected all that negative energy back to its rightful owner: Samsung.
The washer next to that dryer was an LG, and in my notes I never touched it.
Always good to reattach to reality.
Ah, I see that the washer/dryer pair we bought new 4 years ago and hauled across the country are LG ThinQs. Very happy with them. Apparently can be "smart" but I shut that down.
That said, next go around, I'm buying a top loader Speed Queen Commercial washer and dryer. The ones with analog knobs.
But yeah, I'd never buy a Samsung appliance and that seems to be universal advice among the clued.
They were plain dumb devices.
Where we live (Kazakhstan), we had a Samsung fridge, AC and TV for about 7 years without any issues whatsoever. After moving to a new apartment, we bought another Samsung fridge and it has been quietly humming along for over 2 years now.
I never heard anybody complaining about Samsung.
Could be that US runs on 120vac and that means a lot of different parts.
Could be the US market gets more advanced compressors and what not to meet energy efficiency requirements (and maybe reduced noise) and Kazakhstan gets a simpler refrigerator that just keeps working.
Sammy/LG/GE business models aren't built on services but volume. If you buy a third party warranty service, that solves the issue somewhat, but they churn out so many models that parts become scarce.
You just got lucky or your models are from a different era. I don't want to drop money on Bosch, so I buy the cheapest ones and just replace them when needed.
"If I had a choice between a Samsung and an LG, I'd pick a Yeti cooler!"
That's especially ridiculous if you consider that many customers will never see the box if they have someone else install it.
I feel like I save a lot more money just buying whatever decent rated LG stuff on Costco and replacing it whenever it breaks (hasn’t happened yet).
Since you already have them I wish you luck. Maybe they now last.
A tech enthusiast has the latest and greatest smartphones, voice assistants, and everything else cool and flashy. A programmer has a single inkjet printer from the 90s, and they keep a shotgun by their bedside in case it makes a noise.
Software sucks a lot of the time and it often gets in the way, at least the way it's deployed over the last decade. Very few things in my home should connect to the internet. My phone and computers. Begrudgingly my TV now.
Also, those things that connect to the internet but don't let you have control? They get EOL'd, despite having paid a premium for them. I've never had a stove from this century and they all work fine, because why the hell wouldn't they?
I get triggered when watching my family or friends struggle with egregiously poor design.
I have avoidance techniques, so I can avoid facing the most anger inducing software.
I just feel lucky I'm not a graphic designer or architect or writer. How does someone with good taste even survive facing the outside world?
If you have any avoidance techniques that are easy to articulate, please share them.
Mostly just saying no to helping anyone with computer problems. Fortunately changed from Windows 7 to Linux, so I can be mostly honest when I tell people I don't understand their laptop problems.
Said no to helping family with with any printer issues after ~2005. I often print stuff, but I use the printer at my local library or printshop.
I still occasionally dabble, but only for those people I dearly love. I'm still very good at tech support, I just don't do it.
I've got my tech frustration level down to about the background radiation level (as politics or taxes).
"If you really hate someone, teach them to recognize bad kerning."
If you want to be nice to yourself, don't train yourself to notice small annoying common problems.
P.S. only the oldest that I can track down.
(to ruin an otherwise good joke)
Appliances with mandatory wi-fi is a bad trend. The mid-tier dishwasher from Bosch locks the Eco(nomy) energy saver cycle, delayed start, etc functionality behind a smartphone app. This requires connecting the dishwasher to wi-fi and using the smartphone to create a Bosch online account. That's what the whole Jeff Geerling complaint video was all about.
You're typically better off looking for some kind quick/fast mode. Or even the "regular" mode.
(YMMV, look things up for your specific model)
Under EU Commission Regulation (EU) 2019/2023, washing machines sold in the European Union must include a mandatory standardized program called "Eco 40-60".
The whole point is to enforce strict legal limits on maximum water and electricity consumption per cycle based on the machine's rated capacity. This it the reason they tend to run for hours - it uses less water and energy than a standard cotton cycle by having longer soak times and using less electricity to heat the water.
In 1995 it took 94 litres of water and 350 kWh/a for a cycle in the average EU washing machine. These measures, amongst others, reduced that to 36 l/cycle and 96 kWh/a in 2020 and an expected 30 l/cycle by 2030.
https://energy-efficient-products.ec.europa.eu/product-list/...
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELE...
That cycle is available via a button on the front panel and is actually the one that came selected by default. I can program it from the front panel, too. I think the app allows loading some more "special" cycles, but I never understood what those were good for.
All the functions of the washer are configurable through the front panel (water hardness, telling it it's connected to the hot water tap rather than the cold, how much rinse aid to use, etc).
TLDR: there aren't really any shortcuts to getting dirt out of clothes.
Since I live in a poor country, I am allowed to use cotton shirts until too much skin shows (hyperbole, I only allow one small hole) Then, it becomes a rag or a mop 100% of the time.
Having few stains in an worn bought-new shirt is a good indicator of not being rich and still having class.
Eco friendly means unfashionable most of the time. Smaller cars, or even public transport, god forbid.
The quick conclusion? "Quick Wash" uses less energy and water than "Eco Wash". "Intensive Wash" uses more energy than both.
https://theconversation.com/why-some-countries-give-away-fre...
My house came with Samsung front load washer and drier. They're not wonderful but they're still running for the 6 years I've lived here. I had to replace the drier drum after the rollers deteriorated and gouged out holes in the drum. Then I had to replace the rollers again after a year because I bought cheap rollers :(
I'm happy to tell you why I like it to save you guessing again: I like knowing when the wash is done via a notification, and also to get status updates when things like salt are low.
Dishes can sit in the dishwasher after it's done for however long it takes me to remember to unload them, but leaving damp clothes in a closed box is something I'd rather avoid.
He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told the door. Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked tight. “What I pay you,” he informed it, “is in the nature of a gratuity; I don’t have to pay you.”
“I think otherwise,” the door said. “Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt.”
In his desk drawer he found the contract; since signing it he had found it necessary to refer to the document many times. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip.
“You discover I’m right,” the door said. It sounded smug.
From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless steel knife; with it he began systematically to unscrew the bolt assembly of his apt’s money-gulping door.
“I’ll sue you,” the door said as the first screw fell out.
Joe Chip said, “I’ve never been sued by a door. But I guess I can live through it.
IoT is not for me.
That "feature" and incompetence at The Intercept leaked the identity of Reality Winner.
"most" might not, I can't claim anything there and EFF claims most don't, when they were checking on it in 2015-2017. I'm pretty darn sure that some do though.
There are also databases cataloging the specific printing characteristics of various models of printers and research has demonstrated that it's possible to trace documents back to individual printers based on slight variations in how they print.
I expect the printer to use whatever inks it has on hand to print in the best quality it can.
The use of ink is an inevitability.
It always struck me as one of those things analogous to “I don’t understand why my car needs oil when I already put gas in it.”
Just give the machine the stuff it requires to operate.
Humans have historically been able to decide when quality is low enough that replacement/repair is necessary in these situations. This goes for almost anything: appliances, farming equipment, clothing, etc.
Having a device/appliance/tool that decides for you that “it’s time”, especially when the manufacturer has a vested interest in coercing you into a buying a replacement right away, takes away that owner agency.
I just don’t think it’s a big deal to consider the printer a device that requires all inks to be present to function properly. If the printer is consuming some color inks in order to print black colors better the implication is that less black ink is being consumed. Either way you’re buying ink.
Some people are just cheap.
Your unpreparedness on your kids’ homework isn’t the fault of the manufacturer. I can’t blame Ticonderoga if I run out of pencils.
If you ran out of black ink you’d be similarly in trouble.
That analogy doesn’t hold up. You have other colour pencils at hand, but you can’t use them because the blue pencil is worn down. Let me use my goshdarn pencils.
Let’s make another analogy: two wheels fall off my car. You tell me “hey, motorcycles exist, you can still use that car!!”
But my car isn’t a motorcycle, it’s a car.
If you buy a printer that requires two cartridges to function then you keep both cartridges filled to keep it functioning.
I’ve always felt like this whole discussion has mostly surrounded people who are penny pinching to an extreme level that doesn’t make sense. You didn’t run out of color ink because you never printed in color. And if you never printed in color you wouldn’t have bought a color printer. You’ve gotta refill your color ink eventually.
This is the same thing as people who add water to their liquid hand soap to try and make it last longer. It just makes the soap gross and saves 10 cents at best.
I can find some Brother monochrome laser printers for $70 on eBay.
And here we are talking about a difference in cost of roughly $35 or the price of a meal for 2 at Chipotle.
Would you say that it’s unfair that the Toyota Prius costs more to purchase than a Nissan Sentra but the Prius costs less to operate due to having much better fuel efficiency?
Are consumers somehow unable to understand why they might choose invest more up front?
There are 0 other reasons, you being ignorant of basic facts and repeating your weird mantra doesn't change that.
In consumer models it is security theater for politicians to claim prints can be tracked and for the consumers to use/waste more ink and buy more.
A printer can still print black when color ink is gone
It doesn't need that to operate, except in certain situations. The odds of being hit by a windshield-high wave of mud by a passing truck, when the sky is clear, are very low.
That doesn’t hold up because I didn’t buy a motorcycle, I bought a car.
If you buy a color printer it needs two cartridges to have ink in order to function.
If people would just realize that and accept it as reality the issue becomes much less of a big deal.
Let’s keep in mind that plenty of tank style inkjet printers exist where refills are trivially expensive and third party refills are allowed.
This whole subject is just one of those “I dilute my liquid hand soap to save 10 cents” issues where it seems super unappealing to me.
These hypothetical scenarios where we run out of color ink the day before the big homework assignment is due and now my draconian printer won’t let me print…I dunno, it just seems like blame shifting. How hard is it to keep a spare ink cartridge around?
For all you know, the black ink isn’t really a perfect black and the color inks are used in conjunction with the black ink.
I also think a lot of people are just being cheap about it. It’s just not a big deal.
In my experience a color inkjet printer makes a much better print than a black and white laser printer. If you are willing to sacrifice print quality then buy a black and white laser printer.
Do you?
Monotone printers are a thing and have been since the 60's.
If you want a monotone printer, buy one. I just have a little bit of confusion around the situation where people who bought color inkjet printers aren’t willing to put color ink in the printer.
I’m pretty sure the reasoning for color ink cartridges relying on both sets of cartridges is that the “black” cartridge is no longer perfectly black in that configuration.
Anyone who runs out of color ink presumably could run out of black ink or run out of paper, too, because they weren’t keeping necessary supplies on hand.
So really the only cognitive adjustment they need to make is to tell themselves “this printer requires two cartridges to operate” rather than making a blind assumption that it will work with just one.
I would be surprised if this wasn’t already disclosed in the user manual as well.
The psychological justifications don’t matter. This is how the machine works. If you don’t want that machine then you buy a different printer.
Your steadfast refusal to acknowledge this obvious point makes me wonder whether you work in the hp inkjet division designing ways to piss off customers. I suspect you understand it quite well, though, and are just enjoying being a contrarian.
I bought a color laser in 2004 and I’ve never replaced the C M or Y toner because I almost never print color. Miraculously, it is still happy to print “imperfect” black and white, which is exactly what I want.
I think that this definition of “user-hostile” depends on a deliberate misinterpretation of the requirements of running the device.
If we just change our frame of reference to hold the expectation that “all ink supplies supplies must be sufficient for it to operate” it seems perfectly reasonable to me.
I dunno, maybe I just have an aversion to broken shit being in my house. Maybe you’re right, maybe it would be better to have some kind of “emergency” functionality for the times when I forget to refill ink. I also just keep spare ink cartridges so I’m never rushing out to buy another one. This is, to me, part of being a functioning adult.
I wouldn’t really allow the things I own to be broken or out of supplies if they’re things I rely on.
These are $30-50 ink cartridges, and many inkjet printers have cheaper refill supplies with the popularity of ink tank designs where you can refill them yourself including third party ink without the need to buy new ink cartridges.
There’s just so much outrage around this subject for no reason if you ask me. People barely print anymore anyway, I think it’s time we get over it.
You don't, either.
Black ink is all that's required to print B&W documents. Period. No one designs a black ink to be supplemented by another color before it achieves "full blackness". That's literally the entire point of black ink.
If you have a fancy modulating furnace and variable speed compressor or a variable speed heat pump, a thermostat that uses a PID would work better.
As far as the company is concerned it's primary job is personal data collection and being an ad platform. Anything else it does, like keeping your food cold, is an optional feature that can be remotely disabled at any time.
We have a mix of splits, central air, and gas baseboard, so being able to customize all that to fit our utility pricing time slots is a dream.
I have a Sonos soundbar. It used to be nice. Now it automatically goes to sleep after a few minutes of tv inactivity. I now hate the device and the company.
My old M1 mbp used to feel super fast. A number of MacOs updates later it feels sluggish. I don't see anything better about MacOs of today vs. 3 years ago, literally NOTHING.
My apple tv now routinely drops airplay -- it used to work flawlessly.
Etc. etc. All those companies push shit updates to keep their existing engineering teams busy.
Literally anything, there is simply no real gain, potential for loss absolute.
> All those companies push shit updates to keep their existing engineering teams busy.
Or comply with idiotic energy conservation laws in places like Europe.
I could do without them, and it's not the end of the world if the laundry stayed 20m or 1h longer in the drum. It's practical, and hopefully not a critical feature of the internal board. One could argue if alerting is really a "smart" feature either.
1. I can change the light in the bathroom while sitting in the bathtub.
2. I can have very nice colorful light synchronized with LEDs is display cabinets
- You might start a smart dishwasher remotely. But who is going to load it with dishes? And if the dishes are already loaded, why not just set a delayed start?
- Same with washing machines. Oh, they can also tell me when the detergent is running out, but I will see it during the next washing cycle.
- A smart oven can prepare warm food before you get back home from work. Assuming you want to keep your food in an oven at room temperature for the entire day.
Source: https://learn.mdsdiabetes.com/wiki/how-long-insulin-unrefrig...
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/04/samsungs-tizen-is-ri...
In general home assistant, with exception of apple, have zero or negative margins on the hardware. But the model is to recoup it from ads. It's a model. It works better with software. Ex. Youtube is free, but there are ads. Youtube with no ads, would probably be prohibitive to most or just no be built.
Appliances make money. Fridges make money, the same way cars make money. Trying to add the ad model revenue stream into hardware is a square peg.
The results is trash hardware. Like ads in your Jeep car. It is unfortunate that see this direction. I would gladly quit my job and just build fridges that last forever. Might become a side project.
There are scientific reasons to need the plot, but that is not normal and they likely need a special fridge with tighter controls or something anyway.
Or, y'know, press the switch yourself.
Plus, since it's a Sub-Zero, it's got a pretty cool finishing move.
Why should anyone care about stuff that happens after Sales has gotten the customer's money?
I however have zero trust in our tech industry making this work without abusing me at every possibility so I will never buy such a product.
Chest freezers would be more tricky if full and could take maybe up to a minute but we don't have those. If you are bad at tracking, make a list.
No, we really don't need 'smart' fridges and people should vote with their wallets.
You would turn up unannounced with things you think are missing from the fridge surveillance camera? Here's how that should go: Visit old person. Check fridge. Check cupboards. Visit store. Visit old person.
If you’re thinking about the domestic appliance, apparently since 1913 [1], so close enough (what a stupid name, though). AFAICT the first one with something that looks like the modern cooling loop is the first Frigidaire from 1916. But the concept of refrigeration to keep food for longer is older.
- it notifies if your kids (or spouse) have left the door open.
- you can use as a tool to check if the power company (or the road maintenance one!) has managed to reconnect the power back (or cut it, as in literally)
- Other than that not so much.Highly recommended upgrade for anyone with parents. I would now even go to trouble to import a unit with knobs (I asked at a heap of shops before luckily finding someone just beginning with a new line for their shop).
Finding usable devices and buying them for your parents takes a LOT of work, but the work really pays off when you get it right. I also gave them a microwave with knobs.
whether because someone just wants chaos or a clever scheme to manipulate stock prices of food distributors.
a smart fridge knows when it's opened, which will let an attack algorithm to reliably determine the sleep schedule of the household. just a few hours night over night is enough to compromise your food leaving no trace.
Despite having since remodelled the kitchen (again spending more than expected as one does when renovating), I kept the fridge...it's still working fine 20 years later, though the plastic drawers are starting to degrade. Next to higher-end German appliances it looks a bit well worn and out of place in an otherwise very nicely renovated kitchen, which my wife and I semi-seriously joke gives the place character.
Every once in awhile I'll wander through an appliance aisle and sigh. Similar fridges feel cheap and are much more expensive. In fancy fridges, I just see more components that'd fail. I'll I really want is a freezer and a fridge. I want need an ice maker (especially after learning how gross they can get). Ideally I'd have a standard old-fashioned sized fridge that had a good separate temperature control for the freezer and is common enough that I can get replacement parts 20 years from now.
The kicker was I now realize the old 26 year old fridge probably just needed a coolant top up. Maybe that wasn't possible as I'm not sure when freon was banned and if it would have been possible to do that.
They're just very bad at software.
That’s why the compressor answers to software. How else would I change the temperature remotely if it didn‘t?
I find that the anti-smart device brigade among tech enthusiasts is very detached from the reality of what consumers want. The general public does demand smart features and they want them to work well.
The sin here isn’t that the fridge is smart, the sin is that bad software was pushed out.
My particular refrigerator also has a purposefully limited set of features. You’ll notice that real luxury brands like Sub-Zero don’t pack their refrigerators with crazy feature lists and touch screens. Their smart apps are basic and focus on essentials like “door left open” or “change filter” notifications and remote temperature adjustment. They don’t have complicated features like craft cocktail ice and even basic stuff like water dispensing is an optional extra (since it’s assumed that luxury clients may have a separate dedicated reverse osmosis and sparkling water machine for that). They don’t push out frequent updates and they keep their smart functions as modular components since it’s assumed that the refrigerator will remain installed permanently for decades (e.g., you can add a newer control system with touch screen and WiFi to your older Sub-Zero fridge).
It would be nice if non-luxury brands followed some of these philosophies a little more.
I can't tell if you're serious or sarcastic, so I'll bite: why on Earth would you ever want to change the temperature settings of your fridge?
I think if you are the type who is interested in digging up comment history you’ll find plenty of comments from me that show that I’m pretty much a regular person who has respectful conversations.
I apologize if I didn’t follow the popular “corporation bad” narrative. Like, I do recognize that ink is grossly overpriced and all that. At the same time, I don’t really think we are held hostage by printer companies these days. I buy ink once a year or less and it’s not even a laser printer. It isn’t a significant expense or inconvenience.
...why do you need to change the fridge temperature remotely?
I could implement that in a weekend on an ESP board.
Kids/nanny/housekeeper changes the temperature against my wishes.
I’ve left the house for a long vacation with the fridge emptied and I’d like to change the temperature to consume less power while I’m gone, forgot to do it before I left.
And again it’s trivially simple functionality that costs almost no money or development effort to I implement.
The smart functions that have been very useful to me have been water filter reminders and door left open reminders.
In the case of one of the door open reminders the person who was at home didn’t realize the door was left open.
Because they are designed to be installed for decades, they also evolve at a slower pace than typical consumer appliances. If something breaks 15 years down the line, the manufacturer either still makes the same part or makes a compatible replacement. They are sold under the assumption that they are installed long-term.
Sub-Zero explicitly markets their refrigerators as being designed to last at least 25 years.
They have fewer features than Samsung feature checkbox fridges on purpose.
An automatic door close function would also be potentially dangerous with a built-in custom panel refrigerator like mine. My fridge has more pinch points than a normal fridge because the cabinetry is designed to be seamless.
A temperature control is a dead-simple and basic smart function that’s easy to implement. Automatic door closing would be a complicated mechanical mechanism prone to failure.
I will also note that I didn’t choose this fridge to be a snob, I chose it because my home already came with a custom panel refrigerator that needed to be replaced (a garbage piece of shit from Viking that wasn’t worth repairing, side note, I hate that company even more than Samsung). If I replaced my refrigerator with a normal one I would have had to do additional carpentry work on my house to avoid the area looking gutted so to speak, and I would also devalue my home since luxury built-in custom panel appliances are features that show up on real estate listings and they are a “luxury” indicator to buyers.
- Albert EinsteinBullshit. The ideal refrigerator temperature is already close enough to freezing that any small adjustment you could make is unlikely to do any good. If this was actually a good idea then by your logic (similar to odd love for printer manufacturers) the all wise manufacturers would have already incorporated this into their “smart” fridges.
That you can remotely control something isn’t “smart”
Do you think a $50,000 car that doesn’t have air conditioning is a good value?
Cars in the United States were sold with air conditioning as an optional feature until maybe 20 years ago
There are still regions of the world where air conditioning is an optional feature in automobiles.
Not saying it’s smart, just laying out a plausible sequence of events on how they reached that decision
Do they really? When replacing my 20 year old fridge (that had an actual mechanical temperature gauge) with a new one I specifically bought one that had a (now digital, of course) display for the current temperature.
It turned out that the temperature display is completely faked. It always shows exactly the set temperature, from the moment you power it on. I guess because of (actual or imagined) customers complaining why their fridge shows e.g. 7°C when they set it to 4°C.
Incidentally, my new smart AC does exactly the same thing. Subjectively it's worse than the old one at keeping the place not too cold and not too warm, but it makes damn sure to never show the actual measured temperature anywhere.
Everything is getting dumber.
Or are you saying old fridges didn't have a bang-bang controller and hence could have an honest thermometer built in?
Not doing that !
Who would design such a device without a failsafe mode that maintains the currently set temperatures until the smarts are restored?
While "technically" valid, this never happened with iPhones despite frequent travels.
Don't buy Samsung consumer devices.
https://www.getyarn.io/yarn-clip/0def6aed-0b5b-4856-874a-d97...
Any "centralization" is against humanity and nature.
https://www.roadandtrack.com/news/a69060884/jeep-wrangler-4x...
After that in Q4 2025 Jeep cars had a 4% increase in sales in US
This is the world we live in, no-one seems to really care