Technology

Why the fuck would you buy a smart fridge.

I see a bright future for "low tech" tech companies soon.

"Here's our new fridge.

- What does it does?

- It cools your food.

- And?

- That's it."

When I was at Home Depot, I absolutely refused to sell Samsung appliances. They’re garbage. They’re expensive garbage, to be more precise.

The average failure rate for a Samsung refrigerator is that around three years. The condensers are garbage. Washer/dryer? Average around five years before they break. I know, because I keep people coming back in to buy replacement appliances for their Samsung garbage.

"Innovation" used to mean better prices and/or better products. Adding adverts to a product you already own isn't innovation.

Let me guess! If you try to use PiHole or some other network Adblocking mechanism, the Fridge will either brick itself OR will fail to start the compressor. Right? It's not like that didn't happen before, when Google Calendar went down. We all know this is going to happen, and Samsung is going to push this wide scale. The extra revenue from ad space is too irresistible to avoid doing the sensible thing.

The smartest any of my Fridges ever became was having a small computer on the front panel to record voice messages, which also doubled as the Water/Ice dispenser function selector, and to have a timer on the dispenser light so it could turn on and off automatically. That was an Amana fridge I had back in 2002, which lasted until 2019. My current fridge has a basic computer inside of it to monitor and control the interior climate, to save energy by recirculating cold air from the freezer into the Fridge, and to beep loudly if there's a problem.

Anyone who fell into the trap of buying a fridge with a screen in it kind of deserves this.

if you bought a smart fridge, you get what you deserve

This would already be illegal if we didn't live in corporate dictatorships.

I think that people who would buy a fridge like that deserve to watch ads.

Don't connect your devices to the Internet if they worked before without the Internet.

call me old-fashioned, but you don't need a fridge with a fucking screen in it.

If consumers stopped being stupid we would not have issues like this.

It's a fucking box that makes things cold. Humanity is cooked if we can't bring ourselves to look away from a screen for all the time it takes to get a slice of cheese out of the fridge

It was bad enough getting ads at the gas pump

Will they come and collect it for a refund if you don't agree with the new TOS?

Just duct tape an iPad to the refrigerator door. It’s cheaper and it works better.

Something's wrong with Skynet, why doesn't it just kill us?

News widget on the fridge! So now you have to have your mandatory propaganda slop whenever you get hungry.

In my very limited knowledge of the household appliance market, Samsung has been a no-go for a long time. Like, the most expensive but also the most disposable.

And that's before we even get to the enshittification and ad invasion.

It's incredible to think about trying to explain the problem to my younger self 30 years ago...

"Yeah, computer hardware continued to scale pretty well so now even this refrigerator here has a computer inside it, a high resolution flat panel monitor, and even multiple ways to connect to the internet for remote control and feature updates."

"wow, that's amazing!"

"Yeah but nobody uses it. At least, nobody who understands tech and reads the news. You don't even connect it to the internet in the first place. "

"What!? That seems totally backwards. What's the problem for educated users? Are there hackers everywhere just waiting to connect to this iffy computer embedded in your home?"

"Oh no, it is much worse. The company that made the fridge could connect to it like they designed it to do!!! And to make it even more frightening, they usually have the infrastructure to be able to connect to EVERYBODY'S fridge at the same time!"

(begins playing spooky halloween music)