Don’t connect your fridge to the internet. Just don’t.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.”

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

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.

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.

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+.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

Seems like a lot more work than just remembering to make a list before you leave home.

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.

Don’t buy appliances with network capability at all.

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

I’m on solar and batteries. I haven’t had an electricity bill in years.

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

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.

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.)

But how else will it get important updates that protect it from the latest online threats?

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.

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.

I have a Samsung refrigerator that wants to connect to the Internet. Of course I don’t allow that.

rather than mourn, are they going after Samsung to replace said food? When I worked best buy our warranty covered food spoilage up to 2 years I believe (if it was the fridge/freezer’s fault, not just a random power outage or something). I’d expect Samsung to do the same.

During Chuseok, which is Korean Thanksgiving on Fri no less. Samsung must be grateful it’s a chaebol and controls at least half the country

Perfect timing

This is such a 2026 headline…just wow. There is no crying over spoiled [sic] milk

As long as they can play Doom, all good

no food sounds pretty doomy to me

Maybe eventually the moldy food in the back of the fridge will evolve into something complex enough to play Doom on?

Don’t buy a smart fridge, simple as.

At some point it will be impossible to buy one that isn’t.

This is why we shouldn’t buy them now. If they don’t sell well, they will follow a similar fate of 3D TVs.

I think a big difference is that many people (in the US, at least) don't choose their own fridge. Renters often have the fridge included with the home. There's far fewer people who could reasonably inflict such a boycott.

Landlords will be the last ones to buy premium appliances. Your average apartments are always gonna have the workhorse basic Frigidaire and Whirlpool type appliances.

Speaking of renters I’m looking at my whirlpool washer/dryer. Old ass dishwasher, stove, and fridge. Nothing smart and all knobs. The dryer is the newest because our old Kenmore finally died a couple of years ago, but all of the controls are mechanical.

Oh, man… That would be such a nightmare, moving into a new apartment and finding it full of smart appliances you’re not allowed to replace…

Oh someone else beat me to it nvm. If everyone buys the basic rectangle then they won’t sell “smart” crap is the only key point.

I guess SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world owns a smart fridge.

If there will be a sufficient request, someone will built them.

Surely there’ll be independent services for smart device lobotomy coming.

Sadly I can see a future where the non-smart option will no longer be available. Or very limited in choice for the consumer.

It’s already the case with TVs. The next logical step is to make it so it will refuse to work unless you connect it to the internet to “activate” it or even worse have it connect to the cellular network to be always on-line whether the owner of the device is aware of it or not. The vast majority of the consumers are still completely ignorant about this and buy this crap.

Fortunately appliances seem to still offer plenty of “non smart” options for now. But who knows what it will be in 10 years?

I feel like the difference is that basically everyone who is non-techy wants a smart TV, but practically nobody wants a smart fridge or toaster.

With tvs, The smart part has some use for most people. They want to connect to the internet and see their shows and movies. The data stealing, obsolescence, etc are things that most people fail to notice when buying, because they don’t have much knowledge on it. But smart fridges? They simply offer no benefit at all, and with a higher price. I find it very unlikely that they will become the norm on a global scale.

This.

An appliance should turn on when I turn it on, turn off when I turn it off, do the task I instruct it to when I instruct it to, and do nothing that I do not instruct it to. Its status should be clearly indicated to the user with a few LEDs, or a numerical display if needed. Its behavior should be entirely predictable at all times, until eventual mechanical failure due to wear.

If an appliance design fails any of these checks, it is a bad design.

If any function of the appliance is dependent on a network connection, it fails the checks because:

• it will do things that I did not instruct it to
• it might fail to do things that I instruct it to
• it might not fully turn off even though I’ve pushed the power button
• it might not fully turn on if it can’t find a network connection
• its status may be shown on a garbage-quality failure-prone LCD, in a UI designed by a CS intern with 3 months of classroom experience in Java (or worse, an LLM)
• it may behave unpredictably due to bad software design by said intern, and will typically be exposed by poorly designed network security, leading to behaviors controlled by malicious third parties
• it will fail early, if not because of the shoddy bottom-of-the-barrel electronics, then because the manufacturer decided they weren’t going to support the companion app anymore (6 months post-purchase) so fuck you, buy our new product that doesn’t actually have a complete companion app yet! (the intern is still working on it)

Don’t buy “smart” appliances. Ever.

Have the day you paid for!

Did you pay your $4.99 monthly subscription to remove ads from the fridge’s screen?

Did you pay your $4.99 monthly subscription to remove most of the ads from the fridge’s screen?

I’m guessing none of these idiots will learn their lesson either. The next appliance they buy will still have network connectivity and useless spyware.

Earn social credit while pouring juice

The usefulness of a smart fridge always seemed dubious to me, but why the hell is the refrigeration part managed by the smart part? It’s literally just a pump.

If the fridge operation depends on a simple thermostat and compressor, then it’s more reliable and can be repaired with lamp wire and a soldering iron if it does break. Samsung would rather have a system depending on a control board they build for $3 and sell you for $600 when it breaks.

They change the firmware and connectors every year or two to make sure no one can build a universal replacement

Yup. We used to have a fridge built in the early 80s (possibly late 70s) that lasted until 2015. Ugly ass harvest gold color and everything. Ran it continuously. Had to have it repaired maybe twice in all that time. We moved out and left it behind; for all I know it’s still going (though probably not because it was truly an eyesore).

The point is that a well built refrigerator can last decades, same as other major appliances like washing machines and dryers. No computerization necessary at all. Our fridge was not the most energy efficient by the end, obviously, but apart from that . . . why not build them to last?

Greed. Just overwhelming, all-consuming corporate greed.

Having a camera to check the inside when you are at the shop to remember something you forgot it’s nice but I wouldn’t trade that for enshitification when it can be achieved with a RPI.

One good function is cooling while no-one’s in the room, so that the fridge goes quiet when anyone is in hearing distance. Decibel limits for set times of day works about the same.

It’s not just a pump, it’s a linear compressor driven at any frequency or stroke length accoring to the situation, and there’s a variable speed fan with lots of valves for directing cold air to where warmth is detected. It’s hard to hear when the compressor starts because it slowly sneaks up to full speed and full stroke over a minute.

I still haven’t dared to give my LG fridge-freezer network access, but it may have already found its way out via a neighbour’s LG TV.

Almost all “smart devices” just make the product more temperamental and less in your control.

I’ve got a Samsung fridge. Don’t be me.

To use the buttons inside the fridge (for temp control, etc), you have to push the “unlock keys” button for 3 seconds. This isn’t a nuclear missile launcher, it’s a fridge. Idiots.

To clean the bottom shelves, you have to uninstall them… this is an absurdly difficult task. I had to look up how to do so online. It’s infuriating. It’s a shelf.

The ice maker has one vulnerability; ice. If the fridge temperature is too cold (under 38f) the ice machine doesn’t work.

Fortunately, I didn’t connect it to network. I hate it.

To use the buttons inside the fridge (for temp control, etc), you have to push the “unlock keys” button for 3 seconds. This isn’t a nuclear missile launcher, it’s a fridge. Idiots.

You’d appreciate that if you had dumb kids who enjoy nothing more than pushing buttons just to hear them beep. (And then you come back and wonder why your freezer is set at 60F and your fridge is set at -20F…) In theory, any kid smart enough to figure out the ‘unlock keys’ button should also be smart enough that you can instruct them to not fuck with the fridge controls.

Why would a "smart" fridge even have an option to not refrigerate?

Only thing I could think of is some sort of ‘moving house mode’ where it warms back up but dries everything out to prevent mold growth on the coils due to condensation.

That wouldn’t help with my gallon of milk 😂

A fridge shouldn’t require firmware.

What idiot thought it would be a good idea to connect the cooling mechanism to whatever smart bullshit screen is built into it?

If it's so "smart" why did it shut down??
"Dumb" fridges only do one thing, cool food.
Make the world dumb again.

“Owners” lol

Subscription to run a refrigerator 💀💀💀💀

you wouldn’t download a fridge

“WE OWN THE FRIDGE” - some data gathering company probably

Too obvious, we need to workshop that. How about “We own the ICE”. Also someone needs to implement the “partnered groceries” program so people stop pirating cold air. I am sick of people side loading food. Third party and homebrew food is a huge security risk after all.

in case you’re not aware, LG employees literally said “we own the glass” about the TVs and spying on what people were playing on it

I kind of want to buy one know and start sending invoices for storage of their equipment.

Oh man, maybe people should stop buying these. I bet they totally won’t though.

And that’s why the last time I went and bought appliances, I had to ask/look up if the item I was looking at required an app or firmware updates.

It was not exactly an ideal experience.

“Does this appliance have networking, require an app, or have a firmware update feature?” should not be a question required before the purchase of virtually anything, let alone something for the kitchen.

Unless you’re an influencer or deranged, in which case: carry on. I’m not going to kink shame you.

…a smart fridge should be smart enough to still act like a fridge when its 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).

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.

If an automated update bricks my fridge, warranty or not, you owe me a new fridge

If that is a problem, them maybe you shouldn’t have required OTA updates as a requirement for a fridge.

The problem would be solved by not buying a fridge that needs a goddamn firmware update to operate. Just buy a regular, standard fridge. the kind we’ve used for 70+ years. All that smart shit doesnt make your food colder, or last longer, all it is, is cheap slop garbage shoved into a device to turn a 200 dollar device into a 2200 dollar device at little extra cost to the maker.

Mind you, even relatively simple fridges can technically have firmware because these days the cheapest way to implement something like a defrost timer is with a microcontroller. Of course that firmware is so simple that it doesn’t need updates and definitely doesn’t need to be connected to the internet.

Other than that I don’t really see what a smart fridge can do that you can’t cover by sticking a cheap tablet on the fridge door. Sure, maybe a smart fridge can order butter from Amazon when it thinks that yours runs out but you can do the same with your phone and “buy it again” in seconds. Assuming that you even want to buy your groceries from an e-retailer.

It’s definitely a pointless price inflation device that makes the fridge less reliable to boot.

I’m honestly surprised that a smart fridge wasn’t basically that. That seems like the kind of lazy shortcut you’d expect to see, rather than everything being run off the one computer.

I think there’s gonna be a renaissance of manufacturers who can charge a slight premium for slightly updated 1950s designs. modern materials, like modern cfc alternatives, but built rock solid, -it just works- tech. knobs. switches.

I’d like to believe that, but I can’t see it happening.

Of course, there is a tractor company in Alberta, Canada that is making old school tractors without all the bells and whistles, and selling them for a fraction of what John Deere charges.

So maybe…

I can dream lol.

slate truck too.

that appeals to farmers who wont have to send their tracter 400 miles away to the nearest service center to get it fixed because they arent allowed to work on their own equipment anymore thanks to john deeres invasive DRM.

I’ve been hoping for the same for 20 years and smart bullshit just gets dumber and more plentiful every year.

its not exactly easy to spin up a factory making deshitified good… and things like fridges and stoves are not exactly something someone can make artisanally in their garage.

its not exactly easy to spin up a factory making deshitified good… and things like fridges and stoves are not exactly something someone can make artisanally in their garage.

yeah no shit sherlock. until there’s a profit to be had nothing gets made.

as consumers we have to make it known we’re done buying this enshittification

That is no excuse for the manufacturer not being on the hook for selling garbage, it pushes the work of QA to the consumer.

Only very large fines will end this endless streak of shit appliances. The only silver lining is that these products are targeted at people with more money to sue them.

IMHO, people who buy smart fridges from Samsung deserve this shit.

It’s extremelly hard to get a TV which isn’t smart nowadays, but that’s not the case (yet) for fridges.

yep.

Samsung has got to be the worst, most piece of shit manufacturer of appliances.

Literally ever. single. person. I know that has foolishly bought a samsung appliance, has gone on to very loudly regret it. The worst story I know, is someone who bought a samsung dishwasher and had to have a repair guy out at least once a month to fix whatever fresh hell was wrong with it, on samsungs dime thanks to warranty, before samsung said fuck it and just refunded them because it was cheaper than having what was almost a 24 hour on call service man for their house.

Samsung made their name on phones, and people assumed everything else would be just as good (when in fact even their phones are kinda shit now)

I have a Samsung tablet which I bought years ago. It’s was full of unremovable useless software and after a maybe 4 year of updates it was unusable because each version just took more and more space to the point that eventually it would fit maybe 2 or 3 applications on top of what came with it and nothing more.

To give it new life I had to install a non-official version of LineageOS compile by some random guy which has problems and will even crash once in a while, and even then it’s better than using the original Samsung version of Android in it.

More recent Samsung tablets and phones can’t even be bootloader unlocked to install an alternative to the Android they ship.

I’m not interest in from companies whose products are are activelly managed to force customers to buy replacements for perfectly good hardware.

They should stop mouring the food, and start suing for damages

Spend $10k to recover $700 of ruined food?

Suck. It. Jin-Yang.

“Smart” fridge.

Who could have possibly seen this coming

Can I ask one fucking question?

What is the advantage of a ‘smart’ fridge? No really. What does it do better? I saw a review of toasters from cheap toasters to crazy expensive toasters (that I believe were from a generation still not Internet connected) that did show that the really really expensive one did have better performance in getting the toast just perfect… But fridges? What do they do better?

I seriously doubt these fridges need to have any of that firmware added.

That’s exactly how I see it as well. What is the use of a firmware update for a fucking fridge, washing machine or dishwasher, if not to either brick it to meet the planned obsolescence phase or to grab your data in a more effective way for advertising?

Ok but was it still able to serve ads??

Of course. Its main function never stopped working

Or selling data about who is in that kitchen and when which it obtained using a mic and a speaker plus some basic echo-location tech or some other intrusive shit like that, or maybe just selling info on what you buy and when.

And this is why the only Samsung products I have are RAM and SSDs.

And the SSDs are backed up daily.

Samsung should not have gotten into appliances. They seem to be singularly terrible in that field. No-one else comes even close to their incompetence.

LG comes pretty close to their level of incompetence.

Our last LG set of washer+dryer lasted 14 years.

We got a new set when we moved into our current place 6 years ago.

Now granted I am not satisfied with the lack of control in our LG appliances, where certain settings seem to be locked to defaults. For example, I would love to see longer drying at lower temps, as the temps seem to be unmodifiable regardless of tumble profile. However, so far we are seeing sufficient performance and no flaws.

Our next set will be Huebsch, which is the Canadian re-badge of Speed Queen (something we only discovered in 2026), but we honestly don’t see a purchase within the next decade or more.

We had a set for close to 7 years, until the drum of the dryer broke, we reached out to LG to have it replaced, and they told us we could not just get the drum, that they only sold the whole motor and drum set. We were about to move to another house, so just threw the dryer away, gave the washer to someone, and marked LG on the list of ‘Companies that will never see our money again’. Thanks for the tip on Huebsch, I’ll certainly look into it since we’re almost done building our house now and it’s the best time to get all the appliances.

Why even design a fridge to stop cooling via an electronic switch? How is that in any way a desirable function? I don’t care what you put in the firmware, there should not be a physical switch that can turn off the cooling via software. That’s what the plug is for.

Because people want to set the fridge temperature precisely to 6C, and not turn a century old tech of a mechanical thermostat located inside it to an arbitrary setting between “off” and “three”.

And if you want to be able to do that, an electronic switch is literally the only way: you now have a computer that is responsible of doing “if current_temp > set_temp then compressor = on”. When that computer stops working, so does the fridge.

Not an issue if that’s the only thing that computer does. Probably an issue if it’s complicated enough to support Xbox live streaming so you can play Doom on it.

They could absolutely seperate the controls of the fridge to a nice physical dial that is an accurate thermostat and keep it separate from all the smart functions.

I can’t think of any reason for needing to remotely change the temperature

You don’t even need separate controls. Just have the compressor and temperature controlled by a simple microcontroller which gets commands from the touch screen. Thus if the touch screen crashes the microcontroller keeps the food cold.

That of course requires adding a microcontroller rather than just putting a couple of relays attached to the touch screen…

It doesn’t matter.

If they vibe code their software, even the most stupidly stable parts of the code that once made nobody should touch, ever, like say the part that decides when to turn on the compressor to reach the desired temperature, can be changed by the code generator everytime they decide to add a totally unrelated feature, and end up with bugs, possibly the stupidest shit imaginable of the “nobody would ever make this mistake” kind.

If they can push fresh firmware into it externally, they can fuck up ANYTHING at ANY TIME. It’s the ability of replacing the code in it at any time that’s the problem - if firmware can be updated by the manufactures at any time your food and your health (if you end up eating food that spoiled without you noticing) has a constantly active risk vector which is linked to the quality of the software development process of that manufacturer.

If shit isn’t exposed to the Net, shit doesn’t need firmware updates for security reasons and if a user wants to update the firmware to get some new feature then they will do it willingly in their own time, knowing that the firmware was updated and thus much more likely to notice things not working properly (and much less likely to keep on doing firmware updates in the future if the software development process of the device maker is shit and their firmware updates keep fucking up their devices).

Agree 100% on all.

There’s very basic, obvious, best-practices type stuff here that’s obviously not being done. Nothing wrong with vibe coding if you like unmaintainable spaghetti code, but whatever AI you use should have its access restricted to ONLY the part you’re modifying.

Firmware releases especially for something like a fridge should have a QC test (IE, automated unit tests) and an alpha/beta test program. That would have caught this.

USERS should be in control of software updates always. Even if the default is ‘keep my shit up to date’ user should have the ability to manually update, roll back, block updates, etc.

Plus which, to adapt an old quote-- having a refrigerator connected to the Internet say they’re adding security features is like a kid’s teacher saying they’ll now always wear a condom while educating students- strictly speaking it’s better than the alternative, but something is still horribly horribly wrong with this picture.

OK, following scenario: you forgot to drink the verification can for your heater, but you’re on vacation. So the house gets cold and your goldfish are about to die of cold.

You dial in your Smart Fish Feeder™ to increase their rations, so that they can build up some fat. But then they’re unhealthy, and your Smart Fish Feeder™ dropped its Wifi connection anyway.

Instead you dial in your Smart Fridge™ and lower its temperature, so that it functions as a space heater now. Your fish are safe now.

But now your Smart Lock™ opens for safety reasons, as it misinterprets the sudden rise in temperature as a house fire.

When you come home your goldfish left to buy some cigarettes but never came home.

So, a very crucial feature, I’d say.

The reason is that companies when they make “smart” products throw everything and the kitchen sink into it in order to justify the higher price of that version of their product - their remote control app needs to look like it does lots of things so that it feels like it’s actually worth it, hence it’s filled with needless crap just to make it look feature-rich.

It’s a business and marketing reason rather than a technical or user requirements reason.

If you have a microprocessor, you might as well use it to control the thermostat so the user can use software controls instead of a dial

The fridge itself only activates the compressor when it determines it needs it (typically based on a termostat and the temperature you chose for it) so in a digital fridge that would part of its software since the “desired temperature” setting is itself from some kind of digital input rather than a hardware knob, and in a “Smart” Fridge it makes sense that value can also come from the outside (likely a smart phone app).

I mean, setting the desired temperature ss a stupid near-zero-value feature (how often are you away from the fridge and actually need to change that setting), but designers of smart shit throw all kinds of meaningless crap into it in order to justify the higher price for “smarts” - feature-wise those things are a mile wide and an inch deep.

So it makes sense that a firmware update for the fridge would include the whole code, including the part that just decides when to activate the compressor and hence that even such basic functionality can be hit by a such a bug, even if only indirectly - in a properly managed code base, it’s perfectly possibly that the code that activates the compressor itself based on the temperature setting is stable as fuck and never gets updated but the code upstream that sets the target temp from commands sent from a smartphone has been changed and is setting a stupid value, whilst if the thing is vibe coded all bets are off and even the most stable “there have been no feature changes here in 2 decades” areas of the code which only an idiot would touch can very well be changed by the code generator and now have bugs.

Chaebol being chaebol. They’ll try selling anything with a short lifespan and lots of useless frills just for a little more profit.

The world running on Mega Man Battle Network logic is just as bad of an idea as I thought it was when I played those games as an 11 year old.

All my verification cans are warm 🤮

I wonder how many microphones they put in those smart fridges?

Of all the appliances that could be “smart”, I find the fridge the least exciting.

My heat pump has Wi-Fi. Cool, I can turn it on remotely so it starts heating or cooling my home.

Washing machine that tells you it’s finished and reports the ETA in the meantime - not an entirely unwanted feature, since the same program could take 1 hour or 5 depending on how much laundry I put in. Mine doesn’t have it and I don’t NEED it, but if I’m ever in the market again and two equivalent washing machines from a reputable brand (MAYBE I’d trust Miele. Definitely not Samsung, LG, most others) were priced roughly the same, I’d buy the one with it.

I just can’t think of a world where a smart fridge would work better for me than my dumb one though. I paid a bit extra to get one that had a better efficiency rating and a nearly silent compressor and that’s it. The only things I would find to be “upgrades” over this would be if it was a larger SBS one that made ice, but I decided not to triple the budget from ~600 to ~2000.

How is your laundry taking 5 hours? Just how much are you stuffing in those machines?

A washer that takes that long would be kind of insane, but a drying time in the 4+ hour range isn’t that wild, in my experience.

Thats a long time as well.

The all in ones tend to be heat pump condensor dryers. Which are great, way less power used, and genteler on clothes, BUT take way longer.

I got one, and I struggle to think I’d ever go back to moving laundry over between machines unless I had to, even if it means 2-3 hours for medium load of laundry. It does that in the background anyways.

And here the dumb washer/dryer at my place takes 45 mins to wash and 1 hr to dry, every time

I assume it’s got a pretty small capacity. Bigger capacity washers and dryers take about the same amount of time to wash four times as many clothes, but they take the same amount of time to dry as three or four loads–you just get them all during the same cycle, without having to move anything over.

If my fridge could tell me that my milk is about to expire or if I could query it for what is in it, I would want that. But I cannot really come up with anything that current “smart” appliances have that a fridge could use.

The only reason I can think of why a fridge should be connected to WiFi is to notify you if the door is left open, or the temperature is too high.

A smart refrigerator could cool down more when electricity is cheaper, for example when the sun is shining on my solar panels.

First you have to imagine that the data is 100% yours to control, and not going to be used for spying, advertising, etc.

Ok, with that in mind:

Have you ever gone to the fridge for something like milk or yogourt only to find out that it went bad and you didn’t know? I hate that. I’d love it if the fridge could warn me 2-3 days before something went bad so I could remember to use it. It could scan everything that went in and that should give it enough data to tell you when something was about to go bad.

What about going shopping and realizing that you didn’t check to see if you still had X at home, and whether X was still good. Like, I’m often buying green onions but I don’t use the whole bunch right away. Do I need to buy more? So, when I’m shopping I either overbuy just in case I don’t have enough, or I take a risk and maybe I don’t get green onions on my dish this time. It would be handy if I could ask the fridge whether I still had green onions.

Before a big shopping trip, I’ll almost always check in the fridge for what I currently have, then start on the list for things I need to buy. It would be handy if I could just hit a button and the fridge could auto-populate the start of the list based on what I currently have remaining, and what I’m low on, based on what I normally buy. I could always edit what the fridge suggested, but it would be nice not to have to manually go through and say “ok, milk, how much do I still have? Is it still good? Veggies, what do I have? What meats do I have…”

My fridge is old enough it can purchase alcohol in the US (21+ years old). It has an ice maker and water dispenser, both inside (nothing in the door, fewer things to break). The only tech I would want it to have is something like what you could get with an IoT smart plug - basic metrics like temperature, power draw, door open time, etc.

AFAIK the same model I have is still available in some form, and is still available without any wireless connection capabilities. I’ll probably buy it again.

How is a smart plug telling you temperature and door open.

I said like a smart plug. You could easily add those features to something relatively dumb like a smart plug instead of having some insane data collection computer in your fridge

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?

Sounds like experience and not reading knowledge.

LMGTFY …samsung.com/…/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.

It could definitely be implied by that passage.

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

Sorry boss gotta take the week off. I’m in mourning.

My eggs went bad, I can’t come in today

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.

It’s a fridge. It doesn’t even need an 8 bit microcontroller from the 1970s.

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.

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.

all that is regulated by a simple thermostat, since the 1960s.

more quiet or energy efficient at times when it’s not expecting the door to open for extended periods of time

This happens at night anyway, and the thermostat controlling the compressor only works when required. You think analog fridges just run constantly?

Consumers have a screen and fake tech fetish.

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)

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

1. We are awash in renewable electricity

2. 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.

3. 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.

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

And yet you still need to replace your gaskets when they’re failing, because the gaskets are also important to the function of the fridge.

Now, am I going to spend the $15 to get gaskets for my bosses fridge? No, that’s his problem, but I can still “A) keep it closed.”

A microcontroller is overkill. A 555 chip will do it.

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?

Microcontrollers are cheaper then analog clocks

Yes they are, but that wasn’t the point.

A 555 is $0.05

A NE555 runs out of sync very fast, so it is not that usable as a clock long term. If you want that you would need further components you don’t need for a paduk MCU which is like 3 cents

A 555 can keep time for the 1 minute needed before a fridge beeps that it has been left open. It’s not an alarm clock. It doesn’t matter if it is off by a few seconds.

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.

and why’d you do that when you can save money and get a microcontroller instead?

More reliable and the poster is wrong, it is cheaper.

That wasn’t the point. You said it cannot be done without microcontroller and I told you it can be done.

practically though, a microcontroller’d be better.

And you missed the point again. Congratulations.

nope… pretty sure they’re related.

A timer circuit is cheaper than a microcontroller.

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.

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.

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.

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.

GideonD

No, but it sits right next to a washing machine. I’m surprised it wasn’t stuck inside with its bottom sticking out.

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…

Sock puppet porn.

That’s where they’re disappearing to!

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.

If you are so lazy that you buy a smart fridge, you deserve what you get.

The crazy part about Al trading bots is that most people still don’t know about them. Mine has already generated 40k+ profit with lil capital in under 1 month message me HOW to get started

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.

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.

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.

“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: 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

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

Newer condensers and DC motors are more efficient.

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 !

A fridge doesn’t need AI. Or a firmware.

Or a firmware.

So are we moving back to bi-metallic thermostats?

Why not? I’m sure we can easily make good ones at this point.

Given the fact my fridge regularly freezes my water, I’m reasonably confident that the bimetallic strip would possibly do a better job.

Imagin not understanding material science and thinking it’s a sort of slam dunk.

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 (www.ti.com/lit/ds/symlink/lm555.pdf). Hobbyists and aspiring young engineers would buy books like this: (www.computinghistory.org.uk/…/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.

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.

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.

Aren’t most fridges still like that?

There’s even Samsung fridges still like that.

I think from context they mean auto pushing firmware over the Internet.

Imagin not understanding material science and thinking it’s a sort of slam dunk.

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?

The one that took my beloved living room streaming laptop 😭 fucking windows

if Linux was more accessible to someone like me, I’d do that shit in a heartbeat. (what I mean by that is I want to download a “Linux Wizard” program, that automatically saves all my shit, installs a super easy/stable Linux version, then deletes windows, then restarts my computer and BAM! you’re good to go!)

“automatically saves all my shit” - define “all”? If truly EVERYTHING, you would need at least as much free space as already used, + some for the OS

“installs” - well, that’s possible and has been done before, it’s just that nobody bothers anymore because it’s complicated, also because that implies automatic partitioning and bootloading which often sucks at least on Linux land

“easy/stable Linux” - well, if by “easy” you mean “it will never ever ever 4-th wall break and demonstrate that a computer isn’t a Netflix vending machine” then none. Unlike on Windows, the 4-th wall breaks are meaningful, however. On Windows it just tells you “lol this won’t work, you suck, go reinstall”.

OK so I have a nice External harddrive with enough terabytes of free space to save my stuff, then what do I do? Download a Linux installer, delete Windows (somehow), Load Bootscreen(assuming I still can after I delete Windows), and type in “Run Linux Installer?” is it that about the gist of it?

Start from the installation media and overwrite Windows. As far as I am aware, you can’t really “delete Windows”, not from itself at least. No idea what you meant by “bootscreen”.

If you want, I can hop on an instant messenger and (attempt to) help you.

Or Apple deliberately slowing down old iPhones to get people to buy new ones.

AI line of fridges

excuse me ?? smart fridge ?? AI ?? I don’t want to talk calories or nutrients, I just want a cold beer and fresh milk & vegetables. There will be a cold day in hell before I buy an AI capable fridge. I’ll go to a root cellar long before that! (i live in the woods, so yes, I CAN do that easilly)

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? 😏

So y’all need some privacy?

No, it’s ok. You can join :-)

🔒😫

I’d like you to try it

I have. Didn’t suit me.

show this to someone frm the 1950s

One day, transistors will cause this:

A thermostat, a compressor and two heat exchangers.

We solved this problem decades ago.

Had a freezer fixed on warranty recently. What needed replacing? An electric heater. Yes the freezer has a heater in it!

(It’s for the anti frost feature.)

Yea, actually quite important: need to make sure the cooling element doesn’t get covered in ice, which tanks performance.

Samsung should be responsible for reimbursing everyone for the value of their spoiled food.

Why are people still buying Samsung and LG appliances? After my 1st Samsung stove died just over a year, I learned my lesson. Wake up consumers and quit spending money on garbage!!

I had a Samsung fridge-freezer from around 2012, and it developed a fault where it would stop trying to be cold after two days. The engineer diagnosed a faulty motherboard and wanted about 1/3rd the cost of a new fridge to fit a new one, so instead I fixed it with a timer plug that switched it off and on again every day at 3:15am

The can perfectly design these devices to work even when the “smart” part is bricked.

This is just hostile design to steal your data, just keep this shit out of the house.