5 ms·

Yes, but how often do you experience power outages or other things that lead to weird temperature changes? I think in the last 15 years it only happened to me o

by arter4 3y ago

Yes, but how often do you experience power outages or other things that lead to weird temperature changes? I think in the last 15 years it only happened to me once. And how often does a fridge door open on its own? Most people don't need other people (or things) to remind them that they should tie their shoes before getting out. If you don't need that, I assume you know you should close the fridge door.

darreninthenet 3y ago
Probably a tiny handful of times? And would it have been useful? Yes of course it's useful to get a warning when you're not at home or upstairs in bed. I didn't say it was a life changing critical feature, I said "handy". We had a freezer door pop open overnight once... it was because one of the drawers wasn't quite shut properly, all was good for hours after closing it and then suddenly it popped open when we were in bed and we came down to the food at the front of the drawers defrosted. When you use something day in day out for 40+ years you occasionally have an accidental bad interaction. Sometimes you press the wrong button on the TV remote, sometimes one of the drawers in the freezer is further forward by half an inch on one side and you didn't notice, it happens. Most people, especially on HN, don't need to be reminded to think critically about how real world interactions actually might occur before posting poorly thought out responses for the sake of evangelically pushing a point, but here we are
- arter4 3y ago
  I'm not saying it is not useful, nor am I making a point about "survival" (also because people have survived long before fridges were even a thing). I'm saying it can be useful, but only very rarely.
  - thfuran 3y ago
    Features that are useful but only rarely are great. Designing only for the happy path is terrible.
    - arter4 3y ago
      only if the downsides are less significant. If dealing with an ugly path means streaming data all the time to the Internet and potentially decreasing the reliability of the whole thing, just because once every 5 or 10 years stuff defrosts...
q1w2 3y ago
> how often does a fridge door open on its own? No, it's for when the kids leave the door open or just don't close it properly - which is VERY frequent. The door alarm goes off once per week here, at least.
- arter4 3y ago
  Yeah but kids can do all kinds of stuff. If your kids start drawing on the wall, do you have an alarm for that? Or for when they break a glass?
  - jairuhme 3y ago
    Kids can know to close the door, intend to close the door, but still fail to realize they didn't close the door. They're kids, it happens. And its a simple feature that can help realize the door is still open. It's not that deep..
  - naravara 3y ago
    My dog is my alarm for when the kid starts drawing on the walls or breaks something. He barks to let me know. It’s very convenient and I’m glad to have him. If it was practical to make a computer to do this I’m sure people would find it useful.
windock 3y ago
In Ukraine last year we had scheduled blackouts. Let me tell you about the joy of waking up every other night to reset temperature alarm of the fridge. It could not be disabled, and it would beep for hours. My neighbors were not pleased when I was not at home for a week.
- windock 3y ago
  And that cheap beeping sound of every appliance is just so obnoxious. You want to wash laundry overnight to lessen load on electricity generation during blackouts? It would beep for 30 minutes when it is done. No way to disable it but to wake up and turn the button. When everyone does it, the whole apartment complex is filled with beeping sounds all night. I prefer the sound of air alarm now.
inferiorhuman 3y ago
Yes, but how often do you experience power outages … I think in the last 15 years it only happened to me once. You must not live in Texas or California. or other things that lead to weird temperature changes? You're a lot more upbeat on current fridge reliability than I am. LG lost a class action suit regarding their junk "linear" compressors a few years ago, and despite multiple supposed revisions you can still find appliance repair folks badmouthing their current crop of linear compressors on youtube. To the best of my knowledge, my vile LG ex-fridge didn't have a linear compressor, but it did have a habit of icing up the evap coils until the fucking thing couldn't keep the temp down. LG sent a tech out twice, he couldn't figure it out. I got tired of throwing out food and tired of ice buildup hitting the fan and making an absolute cacophony in the middle of the night… so they finally bought it back. I've seen some grumblings that the switch (in the US) to R600 is killing durability, but I'm not sure I buy that. If you dig through some of the service literature out there you'll see that companies across the board are also cheapening the sealed systems (e.g. aluminum replacing copper). you know you should close the fridge door. A common complaint about my current fridge is that the doors do not close on their own. The detent is wicked strong. I suspect you'd have to tilt it back to an uncomfortable degree to overcome it. E.g. the door probably wouldn't stay open at all on its own.
- StillBored 3y ago
  Its not just their linear compressors, its the fact that they use very thin aluminum tubing on the high side, and apparently have had assembly issues where weld material has splattered on the tubes, which after a bit of thermal cycling (or maybe its just galvanic corrosion) they start leaking. I to had a LG refrigerator declared "unfixable" and bought back by LG, but I actually decided they were idiots and fixed it myself after having not only their local repair people fail to fix it, but the "expert" from LG's regional center come out and diagnose it. (It should be noted that he diagnosed the condenser, the only part not already replaced at that point, and that failed to fix it so, they declared it unfixable). Turns out in my case, the leak was in the yoder loop, a modern trick for increasing the efficiency of a refrigerator by running a high pressure refrigerant line around the doors to avoid needing electric defrost loops (what pretty much every fridge made pre ~2005 or so has). And since the yoder loop is embedded in the spray foam insulation between the exterior and interior of the fridge is is largely unrepairable because the insulation would have to be destroyed and somehow partially refilled, which wouldn't be possible without adding a bunch of access holes/etc to the exterior. So, I bypassed it, as a "research project" before buying another fridge, something the LG folks told me wouldn't work, and the tech refused to do. Which funny enough i'm an EPA certified small appliance repair tech (don't ask! lol) so, it apparently is just up my alley. And guess what 5 years later is still going. I've had to manually defrost the ice maker fan once in that timeframe and it does tend to get some condensation build up on the bottom of the french doors, but nothing that wipeing it away every few days doens't solve. As an additional bit of fun, this refrigerator has a steel condenser and both aluminum as well as copper tubing/fittings.

by arter4 3y ago

darreninthenet 3y ago

Probably a tiny handful of times? And would it have been useful? Yes of course it's useful to get a warning when you're not at home or upstairs in bed. I didn't say it was a life changing critical feature, I said "handy". We had a freezer door pop open overnight once... it was because one of the drawers wasn't quite shut properly, all was good for hours after closing it and then suddenly it popped open when we were in bed and we came down to the food at the front of the drawers defrosted. When you use something day in day out for 40+ years you occasionally have an accidental bad interaction. Sometimes you press the wrong button on the TV remote, sometimes one of the drawers in the freezer is further forward by half an inch on one side and you didn't notice, it happens. Most people, especially on HN, don't need to be reminded to think critically about how real world interactions actually might occur before posting poorly thought out responses for the sake of evangelically pushing a point, but here we are

arter4 3y ago
I'm not saying it is not useful, nor am I making a point about "survival" (also because people have survived long before fridges were even a thing). I'm saying it can be useful, but only very rarely.
- thfuran 3y ago
  Features that are useful but only rarely are great. Designing only for the happy path is terrible.
  - arter4 3y ago
    only if the downsides are less significant. If dealing with an ugly path means streaming data all the time to the Internet and potentially decreasing the reliability of the whole thing, just because once every 5 or 10 years stuff defrosts...

q1w2 3y ago

> how often does a fridge door open on its own? No, it's for when the kids leave the door open or just don't close it properly - which is VERY frequent. The door alarm goes off once per week here, at least.

arter4 3y ago
Yeah but kids can do all kinds of stuff. If your kids start drawing on the wall, do you have an alarm for that? Or for when they break a glass?
- jairuhme 3y ago
  Kids can know to close the door, intend to close the door, but still fail to realize they didn't close the door. They're kids, it happens. And its a simple feature that can help realize the door is still open. It's not that deep..
- naravara 3y ago
  My dog is my alarm for when the kid starts drawing on the walls or breaks something. He barks to let me know. It’s very convenient and I’m glad to have him. If it was practical to make a computer to do this I’m sure people would find it useful.

windock 3y ago

In Ukraine last year we had scheduled blackouts. Let me tell you about the joy of waking up every other night to reset temperature alarm of the fridge. It could not be disabled, and it would beep for hours. My neighbors were not pleased when I was not at home for a week.

windock 3y ago
And that cheap beeping sound of every appliance is just so obnoxious. You want to wash laundry overnight to lessen load on electricity generation during blackouts? It would beep for 30 minutes when it is done. No way to disable it but to wake up and turn the button. When everyone does it, the whole apartment complex is filled with beeping sounds all night. I prefer the sound of air alarm now.

inferiorhuman 3y ago

Yes, but how often do you experience power outages … I think in the last 15 years it only happened to me once. You must not live in Texas or California. or other things that lead to weird temperature changes? You're a lot more upbeat on current fridge reliability than I am. LG lost a class action suit regarding their junk "linear" compressors a few years ago, and despite multiple supposed revisions you can still find appliance repair folks badmouthing their current crop of linear compressors on youtube. To the best of my knowledge, my vile LG ex-fridge didn't have a linear compressor, but it did have a habit of icing up the evap coils until the fucking thing couldn't keep the temp down. LG sent a tech out twice, he couldn't figure it out. I got tired of throwing out food and tired of ice buildup hitting the fan and making an absolute cacophony in the middle of the night… so they finally bought it back. I've seen some grumblings that the switch (in the US) to R600 is killing durability, but I'm not sure I buy that. If you dig through some of the service literature out there you'll see that companies across the board are also cheapening the sealed systems (e.g. aluminum replacing copper). you know you should close the fridge door. A common complaint about my current fridge is that the doors do not close on their own. The detent is wicked strong. I suspect you'd have to tilt it back to an uncomfortable degree to overcome it. E.g. the door probably wouldn't stay open at all on its own.

StillBored 3y ago
Its not just their linear compressors, its the fact that they use very thin aluminum tubing on the high side, and apparently have had assembly issues where weld material has splattered on the tubes, which after a bit of thermal cycling (or maybe its just galvanic corrosion) they start leaking. I to had a LG refrigerator declared "unfixable" and bought back by LG, but I actually decided they were idiots and fixed it myself after having not only their local repair people fail to fix it, but the "expert" from LG's regional center come out and diagnose it. (It should be noted that he diagnosed the condenser, the only part not already replaced at that point, and that failed to fix it so, they declared it unfixable). Turns out in my case, the leak was in the yoder loop, a modern trick for increasing the efficiency of a refrigerator by running a high pressure refrigerant line around the doors to avoid needing electric defrost loops (what pretty much every fridge made pre ~2005 or so has). And since the yoder loop is embedded in the spray foam insulation between the exterior and interior of the fridge is is largely unrepairable because the insulation would have to be destroyed and somehow partially refilled, which wouldn't be possible without adding a bunch of access holes/etc to the exterior. So, I bypassed it, as a "research project" before buying another fridge, something the LG folks told me wouldn't work, and the tech refused to do. Which funny enough i'm an EPA certified small appliance repair tech (don't ask! lol) so, it apparently is just up my alley. And guess what 5 years later is still going. I've had to manually defrost the ice maker fan once in that timeframe and it does tend to get some condensation build up on the bottom of the french doors, but nothing that wipeing it away every few days doens't solve. As an additional bit of fun, this refrigerator has a steel condenser and both aluminum as well as copper tubing/fittings.