26 ms·
My fridge has an RFID chip in the water filter, so a generic filter doesn't work
- gbrown 7y agoHey, at least it might alert people who've been buying counterfeits on Amazon. /s
- chrisseaton 7y agoI think their argument is usually that they shouldn't have to provide support for people putting consumables that they don't have any quality control over into their machines. Which seems reasonable to me? You could say that they should just invalidate the warranty, but can you invalidate a statutory warranty?
- cujo 7y agoI think their unpublished argument is that they can make money by forcing people to use their own filters by making the argument publicly that they shouldn't have to provide support for people putting consumables that they don't have any quality control over into their machines.
- chrisseaton 7y agoThat seems a little uncharitable.
- swsieber 7y agoIt seems about as charitable as a profit driven corporation, which was being evaluated. On a less snarky note: We've been repeatedly shown that companies act in their own self interest, and put out as cover reasons that are more socially acceptable. But also, I think "restricting consumer choice because their warranty wouldn't cover it" is a terrible reason, and shouldn't be socially acceptable.
- cujo 7y agoI have a hard time believing that GE has been dealing with a lot of warranty claims because people are using after market filters. Couple that with that a filter that runs more than 2x the off-brand one runs, and it looks a lot like a money grab.
- t34543 7y agoYou can’t even really get genuine warranty claims addressed. There’s always a catch: labor not included, part in order, no fridge for 4 days until tech can return.
- wlesieutre 7y agoImagine if you had to fill your car at a Toyota Certified gas station or it wouldn't run. Who knows what's in that gas? It could explode!
- chrisseaton 7y agoWell my car does specify a quality of fuel that I should use, but it's a standard with (I guess) precise chemical makeup that you can verify and an industry that cares about it. I'm not sure there are any standards for filter construction?
- young_blood 7y agoEven if there were, should it matter? You could fill your car with moonshine and attempt to run it. It might explode, sure, but the car doesn't detect that the fuel is not the specified quality and decide to not run entirely.
- harimau777 7y agoWhile certainly there will be extreams where the manufacturer shouldn't be liable for shoddy third party components, in general it seems to me that they should be liable if their product is so delicate that it cannot use an average third party component
- JohnFen 7y ago> Which seems reasonable to me? It doesn't seem reasonable to me at all, honestly. What sort of damage could a water filter do that would cost them so much? This looks purely like a move to take their customers for all they're worth.
- jhayward 7y ago> You could say that they should just invalidate the warranty, but can you invalidate a statutory warranty? In the US a manufacturer can not invalidate a warranty for arbitrary reasons, they must prove that the owner's use or modification was the primary cause of a failure.[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty_Act#Requirements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty...
- kevin_thibedeau 7y agoMagnusson-Moss Warranty Act prohibits this behavior. This is what allowed a competitive market for affordable replacement car parts to exist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson%E2%80%93Moss_Warranty...
- gwbas1c 7y agoRefrigerator filters have a giant markup. They're a textbook case of an overpriced, short-life consumable. You can buy much cheaper filters on Amazon that go on the water line, that last much longer.
- sparkywolf 7y agoWonder if you can get one official one and cut out the rfid chip, install it permanently in the fridge
- criddell 7y agoYou can order a bypass filter from GE (they are free). Cut the RFID from it and tape it to your fridge in the right spot and it will never complain about the filter again. The only downside is that when you dispense water it lights up a little sign that says "water is not filtered". I do this and buy cheap aftermarket filters from Amazon.
- blang 7y agohttps://www.groovypost.com/howto/hack-rwpfe-water-filters-ge-fridge/ https://www.groovypost.com/howto/hack-rwpfe-water-filters-ge...
- gwbas1c 7y agoI put a piece of black tape over the filter light on my refrigerator. (It's not a GE.) You can probably find some tape that matches the color nicely on Amazon for a very small amount of money.
- Loughla 7y agoI have a whole-home water filter, and fill up a jug from the tap that sits inside my fridge until I'm thirsty. I have never understood why people take extra steps, have extra inconvenience, and have more expensive, harder to replace items just for the sake of saving, what, fifteen seconds filling up a pitcher?
- Dylan16807 7y agoFifteen seconds 1500 times stops being negligible. And it is more convenient in multiple ways. Also you don't mess up the nice cold air in the fridge. It's a tradeoff but it's not a lopsided one.
- wayoutthere 7y agoI really don't understand this kind of behavior. In the real world, this means that there will be a bunch of GE fridges out there where the ice / water doesn't work and only the person who decides the filters are too expensive really knows why. That can't be a good look for the brand...
- basseq 7y agoI really liked this viewpoint. I feel like it's not uncommon to go over to someone's house and the ice maker or water has "broken". The good news for GE is I just say, "Oh, all fridges suck" and not "Wow, this is a GE fridge? They're unreliable." (Which, not for nothing, is harder given all the diffusion brands. For GE, that includes Monogram, Café, Profile, Haier, and Hotpoint.)
- ngneer 7y agoYou are dealing with two separate feedback mechanisms. One allows the creation of revenue via consumer purchases. That is the quantity companies hope to increase, and limiting a consumer to authorized components allows for higher margins by artificially limiting competition and increasing the revenue. Albeit inflationary, that works until a competitor figures out an effective forging method. The other is brand reputation, whereby future purchases are dependent on how a consumer feels about the brand. You state that such tactics cannot look good for the brand, but remember that there is a delay between the large bulk of appliance purchases and the time when consumers would be writing bad reviews, affecting future purchases. By the time this cause and effect chain concludes, most of the benefit for the first feedback mechanism has already realized, and the vendors can move on to the next deal. Keep in mind that consumers do not necessarily look at filter compatibility when making a purchase, and companies can capitalize on that. Both mechanisms contribute to stock value, but your surprise might stem from the fact that their contribution is uneven. In other words, short term monetary gains trump long term brand gains, because consumers have short memories.
- mark-r 7y agoI will never buy another GE appliance, based on my bad experiences across a range of them. I can't be the only one.
- SilasX 7y agoThe author, @ShaneMorris, says "Sound familiar?" and links to the Doctorow "Unauthorized Bread" short story[1]. But you don't need hypotheticals! The defunct Juicero required a wifi connection to "check the packet's expiration", but was enforcing use of their proprietary fruit packets. (Can't find an authoritative source atm but it was what everyone assumed and what their business model effectively required[2].) And IIRC Keurig seriously considered doing this or had already implemented it. [1] https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/ https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15154723 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15154723
- chipperyman573 7y agokeurig has been doing this for a long time
- donmcronald 7y agoThe CatGenie is even worse. https://jorgelo.co/the-future-a-cat-litter-and-drm-6dbda26428f8 https://jorgelo.co/the-future-a-cat-litter-and-drm-6dbda2642... The cartridge system adds a consumable part for the sake of having a consumable part. I'm sure it's only a matter of time until they try the same thing on dishwashers and washing machines. "The Wash Master 4000 is optimized to work with a range of certified detergents. The following cartridges are compatible with your new Wash Master 4000..."
- 7y ago
- anonymousiam 7y agoI am surprised that nobody has yet mentioned HP inkjet printers and the RFID chip embedded in the refill cartridges.
- gravy 7y agoIt has been https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22083121 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22083121
- rahimnathwani 7y agoWhy do they use RFID instead of exposing the contacts (like on a SIM card, or other ISO7816 card)?
- chrisseaton 7y agoPhysical contacts are usually the flimsiest part of a system aren't they? Probably costs more as well to have connections! RFID is so cheap they put them in paper clothes tags.
- SketchySeaBeast 7y ago> Physical contacts are usually the flimsiest part of a system aren't they? Sounds like a great way to sell some more ink or another printer early.
- mrb 7y agoNot necessarily. I used to always buy genuine HP cartridges, sold by Amazon (not a third-party seller,) with official packaging, non-tampered unbroken sticker on the box, and yet one day my printer reported a cartridge as "non-genuine" and absolutely refused to accept it. Maybe the chip malfunctioned. But since that day I have stopped buying genuine and I replaced them with recycled third party cartridges. A third of the cost. And they never caused this problem. A defective system caused HP to lose a customer.
- josephorjoe 7y agoThis seemingly constant ratcheting up of anti-customer behavior by product manufacturers is starting to feel more and more like symptoms of the end of an economic cycle where executives desperate for One More Good Bonus are willing to risk damaging the company's reputation to hit the next quarter's sales target.
- draw_down 7y agoI don’t think it’s the end of anything. This is just normal capitalism.
- pixl97 7y agoLate stage capitalism is where the majority of growth comes from anti-fearures instead of consumer desires.
- m-p-3 7y agoThis is why an increasing number of consumers go with the more is less when shopping for appliances. I don't need my fridge or washing machine to have all these bells and whistles. I just need it to do its main job, and do it well with a minimum of components that can fail, and make sure it's running reliably.
- blihp 7y agoI think you meant 'less is more'?
- vinaypai 7y agoI don't know which model this is, but my GE fridge (bought 1.5 years ago) works just fine with a third party filter, and they even include a bypass cap which is just a plastic piece that goes in place of the filter and lets it work without a filter.
- british_india 7y agoI would pry the RFID chip from the one you bought and transfer it to the new one.
- CharlesMerriam2 7y agoIf it is labelled clearly when you buy the fridge, its far. If it is hidden, then it is not. Perhaps Libertarians would jump in? Choice made with knowledge founds their original philosophy.
- stjohnswarts 7y agoOf course it's probably mentioned in the user manual and mentioned in the warranty if you use unapproved filters your warranty is null and void.
- stjohnswarts 7y agoOf course it's probably mentioned in the user manual and mentioned in the warranty if you use unapproved filters your warranty is null and void. However, those are almost never read by the buyers.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- pcurve 7y agoHrm.. sounds awfully like Juicera. Possibly worse. I wonder how these kinds of decisions are approved at the management level. Do they have their heads buried in sand? Is their appliance business so unprofitable that they're willing to take any risk?
- vearwhershuh 7y agoThe year is 2035. Your refrigerator refuses to work because of a comment overheard by your thermostat that was construed by AI as being insufficiently supportive of your countries corporate foreign policy objectives. If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- justAnotherNET 7y ago1984 imagined a horrific world where the government forced you to install listening devices in your home. Meanwhile in 2020 we purchase them ourselves because we don’t want to flip light switches.
- planetzero 7y agoThat's why the message from Fahrenheit 451 was more apt to 2020: It's not the government that creates a dystopian future, it's us.
- blaser-waffle 7y agoBrave New World is probably a better dystopian comparison than 1984. More "oppression-by-comfort" than "boot-on-face-forever".
- ghostcluster 7y agoEvery time Orwell's 1984 is mentioned on the Internet it gets this exact followup comment about Brave New World. Not saying it's wrong, but this is just some kind of law of internet discussions.
- heavymark 7y agoOur GE fridge allows third party filters like the very popular amazon one. Is this just in the very latest GE models perhaps?
- samfriedman 7y agoIt seems like the filter changed between models from type RPWF to type RPWFE, and the latter type is RFID-restricted.
- a3n 7y agoI wonder if a note to Consumer Reports would be more effective than a tweet.
- AWildC182 7y agoCoke has started doing this with their soda machines too. They found it's more profitable to put an RFID chip on the bottom of every paper cup and a sensor pad on the machines rather than just let people refill the cups. I came across one in the wild when I made the mistake of visiting Universal Studios Orlando recently :/
- kevin_thibedeau 7y agoYet another peripheral for the underpowered freestyle hardware to poll with 1000ms latency.
- 52-6F-62 7y agoThat is unreal. Fountain soda/pop is already dirt cheap for vendors.
- jdmichal 7y agoIt's not about cost, it's about profit. It doesn't matter that it's dirt cheap, it matters that they can sell it for >>>dirt cheap.
- rainyMammoth 7y agoyou don't seem to understand the concept of opportunity cost. In this case what is the optimal maximum they can extract for this product. The production cost is almost irrelevant.
- 52-6F-62 7y agoNo I understand perfectly well. What I find amazing is the dedication to extracting potentially a little more money from people who may buy one extra cola rather than allowing a refill when the production cost is next to 0, but leaves a more satisfied, and likely return, customer. Practices like this are likely to turn people off. The fact that they think they can do something like this just displays how much of a monopoly/duopoly this company actually knows it enjoys. Where else will their customers turn? There's nowhere to turn. So gouge them.
- momentmaker 7y agoInteresting fact about Gillette from Peter Drucker. Gillette sold their razors at 1/4 of the manufacturer's cost but they had a patent on the razor itself which will only take Gillette's razor blades. Those razor blades are markup 400% - 1 cent sold for 4 cents. The "innovation" was people are willing to pay per shave instead of paying upfront for a razor which was seen as an investment at the time.
- Lev1a 7y agoWhen those disposable multi-blades were getting too costly for my taste, I just got my father's old safety razor out of storage, purchased a packet of 10 Wilkinson blades for it at ~2-3€ and still haven't used those up today. Seriously men, do away with the cheaply made but expensive plastic trash and invest once in a nice safety razor. It's worth it.
- vkou 7y agoI've done just that, and as a result, every time I shave, it's a bloodbath. There's a reason people prefer the disposable multi-blade plastic crap. You don't need the hands of a surgeon to use them, without cutting yourself.
- blackearl 7y agoThat multi-blade crap tugs my beard hairs and give me irritation and ingrown hairs. I just use a trimmer now and don't bother with jobs that need me clean shaven.
- fyfy18 7y agoAre you talking about a safety razor[0] or a straight cut razor? I also switched, and find I cut myself a lot less than with a cartridge razor. If I do cut myself it is usually not so deep. The cartridge razor I used was Gillette Fusion, so not a cheap brand. [0] https://sharpologist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/34c.jpg https://sharpologist.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/34c.jpg
- buboard 7y agoThe Internet of Cringe
- JohnFen 7y agoThat is despicable. The next time I'm in the market for an appliance, I'll make sure it wasn't made by GE.
- m-p-3 7y agoIt sucks, this is becoming a trend and my list of blacklisted company is growing, including this recent Logitech dick-move https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22126021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22126021 Stop trying to penny-pinch your customers that way, a reputation is hard to build and so easy to lose.
- jiveturkey 7y agoTitle should be updated to better match article. The fridge continues to work, except for the water/ice dispensing function.
- reaperducer 7y agoHaven't we been though all of this with Lexmark printer ink and Keurig coffee pods? Do companies never learn from each other?
- pier25 7y agoWe have one of those fridges. We do not use tap water to feed it so the filter doesn't really filter anything. And yet, after 6 months of use the fridge starts blinking a red LED that the filter needs replacing. We changed the filter once because we thought the filter might be defective... never again.
- Can_Not 7y ago(not actually a qualified filter expert) actually I think bacteria will infect opened, even unused, filters over time. So just wait until you actually use it to replace it.
- miguelmota 7y agoThe shelf life of a water filter can last years if never used or wet. Since you installed it and ran water through it before then it's possible bacterial growth is accumulating there by now since bacteria can grow in carbon.
- LargoLasskhyfv 7y agoShould speak to [1] https://shincera.co.jp/english/earth-plus/ https://shincera.co.jp/english/earth-plus/ (Not you, the filter makers...)
- beerandt 7y agoMost things with a change light are based off a timer (or maybe a counter) and nothing more. There's no mini-lab or sensor in your fridge actually testing if the water filter is working. And even ones that claim to measure how much volume is dispensed are just counting how long the water valve is open and assuming a flow rate. That said, the filters do go bad, and sometimes even provide media for stuff to grow on, once the contents become chemically and physically inert. If you don't want to change the filter, get a "blank" to plug in. Don't just leave an old filter in.
- pier25 7y agoThanks for the idea of the "blank filter". I found out it's called a "bypass plug" and apparently it should have come with my fridge.
- continuations 7y agoGE fridges also refuse to work unless the orange juice you put in it is GE Orange Juice (TM)
- jerkstate 7y agoI have one of these, it's trivial to cut the RFID off of the "passthrough" plug and use non-branded filters. Honestly it's hard for me to get too worked up about easily circumvented rent seeking like this. I would probably return the fridge if it wasn't possible though.
- bronco21016 7y agoI bought one of these as part of an appliance packaged when I remodeled my kitchen. 6 months later I learned about all of this and did the filter bypass ‘hack’ mentioned elsewhere. This single act of stupidity by GE has solidified I will never buy an appliance from them ever again. This act of requiring ‘authentic’ filters is intentionally and without question anti-consumer to chase a few dollars but as long as the others don’t follow suit they’re shooting themselves in the foot because consumers will flee. How long before we see an article about consumers repairing and chasing down ancient refrigerators that are sadly inefficient but at least repairable?
- linuxftw 7y ago> sadly inefficient but at least repairable? Wait until you hear about cars! Fortunately for the big corporations, most people lack even the most basic mechanical skills and are totally reliant upon others to do even trivial maintenance. Thus almost everything is becoming disposable because it's cheaper to throw something away than it is to pay a technician to fix it, parts notwithstanding. Car makers are really hoping the EV thing sticks so they can force you to buy a brand new car every 5-6 years once the battery is toast.
- bronco21016 7y agoStill driving my bought and paid for 2011 Ford. It’s borderline unrepairable on some stuff but FORSCAN gives capabilities to access most ECUs so barring any major failure I should drive it until it rusts out. But unfortunately you’re right. It’s probably the single biggest thing keeping me from pulling the trigger on a Tesla.
- outworlder 7y agoYou think Tesla will force you to buy a new car? https://www.tesla.com/support/vehicle-warranty https://www.tesla.com/support/vehicle-warranty > Model 3 - 8 years or 100,000 miles, whichever comes first, with minimum 70% retention of Battery capacity over the warranty period. But that's warranty. https://electrek.co/2018/04/14/tesla-battery-degradation-data/ https://electrek.co/2018/04/14/tesla-battery-degradation-dat... Some forum discussion: https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/cost-battery-pack-10-years-now https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/cost-battery-pack-10-y... Keep your car if it works for you. Financially that's the sensible choice regardless of technology. But you should expect to have less maintenance work if/when you switch to an EV.
- mycall 7y agoSounds like a quick fix from hackaday.com
- jl2718 7y agoSeems to me that there is a huge opportunity in open source programmable home appliances. I only want the hardware from the manufacturer, and I’d be willing to pay a lot more if it could run open source software. It seems theres no way a monolithic supplier could compete, but why don’t we see anything like this?
- JohnFen 7y agoI would actually prefer appliances that didn't require software at all.
- bluGill 7y agoSoftware is everywhere and can do things that cannot be done without it. However the software needed is hard real time embedded and shouldn't run on the same CPU as the stuff we are complaining about.
- JohnFen 7y ago> Software is everywhere and can do things that cannot be done without it. Yes, I know (I am a software engineer with a large amount of embedded work in my resume), and I don't mind it at all when the software is actually doing useful things that can't be done well otherwise. But there's a lot of things that are being computerized where there's no actual user benefit to doing that. All that does is increase the number of points of potential failure.
- Nasrudith 7y agoSadly we are the niche generally - if an appliance has its firmware done right usually there is no need for another software package and few wish to program for such packages. An open source hardware very standardized and modular serviceable model would probably be a decent analog to the domain - it would commoditise the parts and help counter the nicheness in terms of economies of scale. The rarity of people who know enough to roll their own appliance design is probably one of the biggest obstacles. It isn't like 3D printing currently. Apparently even manufacturers who are advantaged by logistical simplicity apparently already regularly tweak the yearly designs based upon cost advantages. I suspect that ironically technological advancement could eventually make fridges better that way - thermocouple based copling has had a slow but steady upward trend line. If it keeps up then a bunch of cooling thermocouples, electronic thermoneters, a power supply, and a few microcontrollers/a Raspberry Pi descendant in an insulated box could put it in more traditional "hacker" skillsets.
- gwbas1c 7y agoEasy fix: Someone buys used filters and turns them into bypass filters. Then use a filter on the water line. The water line filters last for years.
- Animats 7y agoI recently sent the following message to Fiat Chrysler Automotive's privacy group: I was considering purchasing a 2020 Jeep Wrangler, but after reading the terms of service for your "UConnect" monitoring system, I no longer want to. I will consider it if I receive satisfactory answers to these questions: Can a Jeep Wrangler with advanced safety be purchased without Uconnect? If not, is FCA willing to state in writing under penalty of perjury that "Opt Out for Privacy Reasons" causes all data communication between the vehicle and any other party to cease? Actual severing of communications, not some weak claim that you will not use the data. Currently the owner of an older Jeep Wrangler. I have not yet received a reply.
- supernova87a 7y agoDo you intend for them to be able to reply, when you threaten them with legal action if they do?
- cdolan 7y agoWas thinking the same thing. OP sounds like a real gem for the front line customer service person to interact with.
- supernova87a 7y agoAnd by the way, it's a little bit of puffery and arrogance to think that you can make some state something "under penalty of perjury". You're not a court of law.
- jacquesm 7y agoIt helps to establish that if you get lied to that they will have a hard time in court to explain to the judge why your five figure purchase should not be annulled. Think of it as saying: assuming that you are telling the truth will get me to for over my cash, if it turns out you did not tell the truth you will have an appointment with a judge and this will be entered into evidence as though you swore an oath that it was true. It probably reduces the chances of an answer to nil unless they have the ability to deliver what you ask for. But the idea that a giant like FCA is going to bend over for you to disable some feature that is standard on their car is a non-starter, there simply is no process for a thing like that. But at least their marketing&sales department is informed that they could have sold one more vehicle but did not, which given the fact that the OP is anything but stupid is probably what he was going for anyway.
- Shivetya 7y agoOn a side note, people really need to replace the filters more often. The number of people I have run into who never have replaced any filters in their kitchen disappoints me.
- bluGill 7y agoThe tap water in my current house is perfectly fine, so why should I even have a filter? My previous house the water wasn't perfectly fine (I forget what was in it, but the lab failed it) so I had a separate filter rated to take out the bad things in my water - again why replace the fridge filter that wasn't as good.
- redbeard0x0a 7y agoEither replace the filters or use the bypass cartridge. You don't want to leave a filter in forever so you don't get bacteria growing in your drinking water.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y agoGiven all the people that don't replace their filters, they're kind of an anti-pattern.
- catalogia 7y agoI drink water straight out of my sink. If you live in a developed country that has safe water, why bother with filters?
- kalleboo 7y agoMy wife doesn't like thr taste straight out of the tap, so she uses a Brita filter. Personally I can't tell the difference, but she swears it's different.
- sholladay 7y agoI wonder if this is why my fridge no longer dispenses water, as it happened around the time I ordered a new filter from Amazon. It is supposedly an official filter, and looks official as far as I can tell, but Amazon is notorious for fakes and I remember thinking it looked different than my previous filter. The only thing is, my fridge still dispenses ice, just not water.
- dwild 7y agoWhy not link the original twitter post[0] instead? That page add nothing but ads. [0] https://twitter.com/IamShaneMorris/status/1220367934947758080 https://twitter.com/IamShaneMorris/status/122036793494775808...
- dang 7y agoOk, we've changed to that from https://boingboing.net/2020/01/23/proprietary-carbon.html https://boingboing.net/2020/01/23/proprietary-carbon.html. Thanks!
- pjlegato 7y agoThe new title omits the interesting part, which is that the refrigerator refuses to use filters wihtout the RFID chip.
- dang 7y agoI would say that's implied, no? The overwhelming majority of IoT threads are about this kind of situation. For example, the inkjet cartridge thread linked elsewhere in this discussion.
- Wowfunhappy 7y agoI probably should have been able to guess, but it wasn't clear to me! I clicked this thread thinking "uh, that's weird, what does the chip actually do?"
- dang 7y agoOk, since there are two of you there are probably a lot of you, so I've added the extra phrase above. Thanks!
- __s 7y agoEspecially great is GE's response https://twitter.com/GE_Appliances/status/1220372879306522633 https://twitter.com/GE_Appliances/status/1220372879306522633 > Hello Shane, we appreciate your feedback and certainly understand your concerns. We will forward your feedback to the appropriate team. -BL Where someone responds about how inane their response is, to which they direct that person to privately message for support. The person wasn't asking for support
- aSplash0fDerp 7y agoBottom-feeding upsells (after the sell) need a better analogy for the consumer to visualize. We'll see if automation leads to an open-source era for appliances. The hype about robots building robots should start seeding more projects this decade to "cut the cord" from obsolete business models.
- eqdw 7y agoCouldn't you just graft the old water filter's RFID chip onto whatever new filter you wanted?
- rpdillon 7y agoIt keeps a database of all the filter IDs it's ever seen and won't allow one ID to be in use for more than a certain period (6 months?) The reason folks use the bypass RFID chip is that it's the only chip that can remain intstalled "forever".
- rsync 7y agoSetting aside this abhorrent behavior and the entire question of "smart" appliances and anti-consumer behaviors, I would like to point out: It would be trivially easy - as in, as easy as Legos - to use push fittings (such as sharkbites) and a short, extra length of hose and cheap in-line filter to insert a pre-filter just before the refrigerator. You would then gain the ability to change the filter with any you like, anytime you like, and the interior filter of the refrigerator would last, basically, forever. Seriously - no plumbing involved - you are putting together 2-3 pieces from the hardware store, like Legos.
- mdesq 7y agoI'm fairly certain GE also builds timers into the system to "expire" filters on either water volume or time (e.g., six months).
- rpdillon 7y agoGE offers a bypass filter that has a chip that lasts forever for exactly this use case.
- LeoPanthera 7y agoHow much does the "bypass filter" cost?
- adrianmonk 7y agoThey sell external filters meant for refrigerators that don't have an internal water filter. You can use those for this purpose too. They are meant to install in the water line and are compatible with the connectors commonly used. Search the web for "5-year inline refrigerator water filter" to find some of them.
- Yhippa 7y agoPlease drink a verification can: https://i.imgur.com/dgGvgKF.png https://i.imgur.com/dgGvgKF.png
- mfer 7y agoWhat happens in 20 years when GE stops making water filters for it? Maybe as an attempt to push people to buy a new frig. How ecological is that? I know of refrigerators in use today that are more than 40 years old.
- bargle0 7y agoNothing built today is going to last 40 years. Value engineering has ensured that it's going to fail eventually one way or another.
- tw04 7y agoEveryone complains about Amazon selling counterfeit goods - so GE comes up with something like this so you know you've got legitimate filters. I love the concept, the execution is horrible. Give me a button to enable or disable filter verification. If I want to spend money on an official GE filter, I'd love for them to verify I got what I paid for. If I want to buy third party, you shouldn't be stopping me...
- frgtpsswrdlame 7y agoI think you're attributing a motive to GE that you shouldn't be.
- metalliqaz 7y agoBecause they aren't doing it to stop just counterfeit filters, but any other filters that they haven't made. We've already been through this with printer cartridges, and how did that turn out?
- marcosdumay 7y agoThis is one place you don't need a switch. Put the sensor there, make it always on. If the filter is not official, display it to the owner somewhere. Done. A device you paid for refusing to work for just any reason is absurd.
- catalogia 7y ago> Everyone complains about Amazon selling counterfeit goods - so GE comes up with something like this so you know you've got legitimate filters. You're being naive if you attribute actions like this to altruism from corporations.
- mr_toad 7y agoThat doesn’t stop people selling counterfeit goods, it just stops you using them.
- yitchelle 7y agoWait a minute. This is not a question of counterfeiting. This is case of jailing the fridge user to use GE filters. If the 3rd party are selling their cartridges with GE branding without GE's consent, that would be counterfeiting. GE could easily allow other cartridge manufacturers to build and to supplier. Look at the CO2 cartridges used in the Sodastream machines.
- xhrpost 7y agoAs many are aware, this sort of "manufacturer parts only" tech is everywhere. First printers, then k-cups, now water filters and I'm sure the list goes on. While, initially I share the outrage at massive upcharges on parts that should be super cheap, there's another problem they're fighting. The consumer will often buy the cheapest appliance regardless of continued cost down in the future. If you can offset that loss in profit with something else that's less prevalent on consumer's minds, you can compete with other sellers. Best Buy has to sell a TV for a couple bucks profit margin but then ask $50 for an HDMI cable to make up the profit. Why? Because if WalMart has the same TV for $40 less, the customer will go there to buy. If given the option, I bet most customers would not pay an extra $200 for a fridge even if you told them the filters are $35 cheaper. I state the above not to give these companies an easy excuse out, I still think this is not the ideal solution. But what should they do instead? I witnessed this first hand years ago when I worked retail, people would come in and ask me questions about a printer and then drive to WalMart and buy the same printer for $15 less.
- Diederich 7y agoRight. After having nothing but small and relatively low tech TVs over the years, we bought a nice, expensive 1080p projector in 2009. It looked great, worked great, we were quite happy with it. But a few months later, it told us that its bulb needed to be replaced soon. And the replacement was going to cost a couple hundred bucks. I knew that projectors needed bulb replacements from time to time, but I didn't think it would be that frequent. We just let it complain until the projector refused to work because of an 'expired' bulb. I got online and bought a super cheap 'clone' for the bulb from China. After installing it, all was well. That same bulb was working fine from 2009 until we got rid of that projector in 2018.
- stan_rogers 7y agoThe bulb thing is about colour changes over time - which, admittedly, you may not notice, or may not notice enough for it to bother you at all. (As an old-timey film photographer, I dealt with bulbs both as light sources for shooting and as enlarger light sources. A 100° colour temperature shift isn't all that visible to the unaided eye, but it does make a huge difference where colour criticality matters. My bulbs tended to be good for 10 to 50 hours before they really needed to be swapped, even though they were still clearly bright enough.)
- jayd16 7y agoI'm kind of curious about the RFID in question. Does it make sense to buy an RFID writer instead of pulling it out of the bypass filter?
- SergeAx 7y agoWon't be surprised if the fridge also checks how long the filter is in use and will stop producing water and ice after six months. Unbelievably greedy bastards.
- aurizon 7y agoWell, the Mars mission was sponsored by Disney and you had refillable air-pacs for $200, good for a day. 1 hour before they expired they nagged you. Then the belters started to sell bootleg air-pacs - Disney shit the bed and implemented uncrackable DRM, we lost 230 settlers - before the revolution...
- nameistaken 7y agoI'm conflicted, because I'm tangentially in this space. While I completely understand the whole DRM bullshit for certain things, this is in another category (for me at least) There is a huge problem with knockoffs and "off brand" items, most are harmless. Since this is something you put in your body there is reasonable concern that there is opportunity for unsavory or unscrupulous actors to make an <appliance brand> water filter that makes you sick, because it has some shitty chemical or compound in it. The genuine filters are indistinguishable from the knock offs. So when there's lead or something terrible coming out of your refrigerator your going to blame the brand. Even if the blame gets redirected, consumers will be upset the brand didn't do more to protect them. Maybe I drank the koolaid on this, but there are a number of other accessories for products up and down the line that I staunchly oppose this scheme for. I don't necessarily buy the "control the experience" bit. I think it applies sparingly but a "works best with our brand's stuff" sticker is generally sufficient.
- ashtonian 7y agoRight cause knock offs can't fake rfid. Problem with this argument is yielding liberty.. It doesn't work.
- j_z_reeves 7y agoIt is definitely good to have a choice between OEM and aftermarket parts. That is important! I am willing to bet that if GE allowed aftermarket replacements, the majority of customers would have still chosen OEM replacement parts. For example, if my Nintendo Switch controller breaks, I will not even hesitate to get an official Nintendo controller. However, it would be nice to have aftermarket controllers work. However, if for example my IPhone earbuds fail, I would hate to not be able to use spare earbuds I have lying around. If my Macbooks trackpad fails, and I see the choice between using a compatible aftermarket trackpad or a genuine Apple trackpad, I would get a genuine Apple trackpad. That is my choice. Someone else would want a cheaper option, and that is fine. Now, I could see the angle of wanting to force customers to choose GE replacement parts. Less support. They will be able to diagnose or troubleshoot issues without considering aftermarket compatibility issues. Also, yes, they will have another potential recurring revenue stream!
- cryptonector 7y agoJust like inkjet printers. Is this disclosed when you buy the fridge?
- toolslive 7y agobut the economic theory of complementary goods tells us they should not do this?