this post was submitted on 18 Aug 2026
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Telemetry? Oh God. Why Samsung? And why end users are you connecting your microwave to the internet?
Either way, it is kinda funny like seeing a random Win2000 in the Steam surveys.
The worst part is that Samsung stuff can have a smart Wi-Fi or Bluetooth thing and even if you never use it the second someone with a Samsung phone walks by it will instantly send a push notice and try to aggressively connect with it.
I moved into a house with a smart fridge. I connected it to the Internet because I thought the idea of a smart fridge was funny. It can send push notifications if the door is left open, that's realistically the only useful feature I think.
I'm still mad after reading a few weeks ago about someone had to power-cycle the fridge. I can't recall ever having to do that for a motor or compressor or any fridge.
The computer in the fridge was faulted. So either pull the fridge out to unplug it or find the breaker, there's no power switch on refrigerators.
I would like the ability to set what time of day it does a defrost cycle.
For ToU pricing on power, or for operating on solar power, it would be nice to be able to say "Hey you know when you draw twice as much power than usual? Do that at midnight when the power is cheaper, or 3PM when the sun is most directly shining on the panels."
Another feature that would be nice is to communicate with all the other appliances (or better just have a server manage them all) to keep them from cycling on at the same time to spread those energy spikes out.
I have a circuit that includes a freezer, convection toaster oven, and my PC. If my PC is in (especially if I'm gaming) and both the freezer and oven cycle on at the same time, it trips the breaker. If they are slightly staggered, like the oven comes on and then the freezer comes on 4 second later, it's fine, but if they just happen to do it too close to each other I need to run to reset the breaker before my UPS runs out for my PC and then try to figure out how much more time the oven needed to finish cooking.
Also, it would be nice if my water using appliances could talk to my water softener and trigger a regeneration cycle if the softener would otherwise run out.
That's about it for the uses of smart appliances that I'm interested in that I've thought of so far. Instead they seem to mainly want to connect to apps (so they have an excuse to have a connection that can also be used to mine data).
I have multiple appliances designed to increase or decrease the heat in their interiors, and for some reason they aren't connected. I have a water heater that has nothing to do with my refrigerator, even though pumping heat out of one and into the other would be quite efficient, to say nothing of overall household HVAC.
What I don't need is to have any of this managed by a vendor's server somewhere out on the internet. That seems to be the main reason to sell products today, so.
Not to mention during winter, the outside is full of air that would be great for the freezer or fridge. Instead we keep that cold air out as much as possible, use energy to heat the inside, then use more energy to prevent that heat from getting into the food box (well, more accurately to pull the heat that does get in there back out).
In Winter, I do leave things like sodas out in the cold while I'm putting away other groceries.
It made some kind of sense in the 50's when you were trading in an ice box for a refrigerator, but...why can't my fridge also be a hot water heater for my dishwasher?
"Smart" appliances. I could see it with a thermostat. My current thermostat is just a step above a bimetallic strip; it has a few mode switches, a temperature sensor and a temperature setting. It turns one of two relays on if it's warmer than the setting if AC mode or colder than the setting if heat mode. It doesn't account for OAT, time of day, occupancy, or power concerns. Smart thermostats actually do some of that, plus allow for remote control, ie you can set your AC to run less and keep the house warmer while you're not in it and have it cool back down as you approach.
But what the fuck is a smart microwave for? Alec of Technology Connections showed off a microwave from the 90's that had a lot of built-in recipes you could select. The manufacturer figured out how to most ideally microwave artichokes so now it has an artichoke option in a very 90's menu system. That's all in ROM built into the device and it works to this day even though the manufacturer has long since stopped supporting it. Nowadays they'll put an ESP8266 in it, it'll connect to Chinese botnets and maybe also their recipe server which will be shut down in 11 months. I genuinely can't imagine why you'd need to connect a dishwasher, toaster, coffee pot or blender to the internet. Meanwhile my water heater could probably use a few more transistors.
A smart fridge is the only one that tempts me a bit, but only if I could trust the OS, and there's no way I'm trusting any of the current major fridge makers.
But, there are some useful ideas. If it has a built-in scanner or camera, it could theoretically keep an inventory of what's inside, when it was bought, and if it's something like milk, when it expires. I'd love to get an alert that my milk was expiring soon rather than find out by accidentally drinking sour milk.
In theory, it could also pre-populate a grocery list for me, based on what I'm lacking.
I have a recipe app that I like called Paprika, that has the concept of a "pantry". If I'm looking at a recipe in there I can click a button to add all the ingredients in the recipe to a shopping list. When it does that, it checks what you have in your pantry, and doesn't add those items to the list. That way, you only buy the items you need for the recipe but don't currently have. But, the "pantry" in the app is something you have to add things to yourself. It doesn't know if that list is accurate, or if it was accurate but you recently ran out of something.
It would be great if Paprika could talk to the fridge and figure out "hmm, this recipe calls for butter, which is normally in your pantry, but you're currently low on butter, so I'll add it to the list" or "this recipe calls for milk, but your milk has expired, so I'll add it to the list". Or, the reverse, when you come home from shopping, you throw a bunch of things in the fridge and it updates what you currently have in your "pantry". Similarly, a smart "pantry" would also be useful for those same reasons. Probably even more than a fridge, because I see what's in my fridge (except the stuff at the back) nearly every day. I really forget what's at the back of the pantry.
It would also be nice if my fridge was "leftover aware". Like, if I put the rest of my casserole in the fridge on Monday, it would know about it. If it knew that casserole leftovers typically lasted 3 days it could alert me if I was about to lose those leftovers.
Really what I'd want though is a fridge that came with sensors (cameras, barcode scanners, spoilage smell sensors, temperature sensors, etc.) and and API for them. But, from that point on, it was an open platform where you could install your own apps. That way I'm not stuck with say Samsung's fridge software, which would no doubt be full of surveillance and ads. I'd want to run open source KFridge or something that might be a bit janky but that I could trust wasn't trying to gouge me for money, or show me ads, or sell my data, or whatever.
I bought the Samsung microwave specifically because it had wifi. (I'd have preferred ethernet but that doesn't seem to exist for any kitchen appliances)
AMA!
Genuinely curious, what benefit does having wifi in your microwave get you? You still have to put in and take out the food, and it's not like microwaves take all that long to cook food either. I also use maybe 2 buttons on my microwave (+30sec and cancel/stop), but maybe you can save particular power/time combos? Idk
I did like having a 'smart' washer/dryer in my previous apartment, as it would send me notifications about when the cycle was done and reminders if I let it sit for too long.
I'm obsessed with having everything monitored from Home Assistant. I can adjust lights or make announcements based on what's happening.
I assumed the clock would maintain itself automatically (wrongly..)
The only way to update the clock is to press Sync Clock button in the app. Fortunately there's a workaround from HA but even so - I won't buy another Samsung kitchen appliance. Bosch are the only good smart guys.
Lol fair enough, I'm teetering on the edge of falling down the HA rabbit hole. Crazy that an internet-connected appliance won't automatically update the time without your intervention, though.