16 ms·

Samsung makes ads on smart fridges official with upcoming software update

629 points by stalfosknight 1y ago

AnimalMuppet 1y ago
So I recently (last two years or so) bought a (non-Samsung, non-smart) fridge. It's a very nice fridge. It cost, IIRC, about $1000-1500. No internet connection, no ads, no screen to play them on. Why would I pay $2000 more for a more annoying fridge?
- yumraj 1y ago
  which one?
  - AnimalMuppet 1y ago
    Don't recall, sorry. I'm at work, so I can't check right now.
whatarethembits 1y ago
I’m in the market for buying two new fridges for our new house; this post reminded me to filter out Samsung immediately. I LOATHE ads.
fxtentacle 1y ago
Yay to living in the EU! Since I would be allowed to get a full purchase-price refund if they'd try to pull this shit in the Europe, they limited the new "Cover-Screen-Widget" to only activate within the US. I know, I know, I suffer daily from government overreach ;) But have you tried lobbying for your fellow humans?
- antegamisou 1y ago
  Europoors seething they can't afford ad-ridden fridges. /s
triceratops 1y ago
To be fair if you're gonna advertise to someone, people who buy $3500 fridges are ideal
nemo44x 1y ago
Samsung makes bad fridges. I bought a Sub-Zero. It has 2 compressors (1 for fridge and 1 for freezer), is made of high quality parts so will last 20+ years, has excellent service guarantees, and is made in America. Highly recommended.
- gpm 1y ago
  > It has 2 compressors (1 for fridge and 1 for freezer) Is this a feature? It seems like making more parts to break. Surely there's a better way to get independent cooling control. E.g. one compressor with valves to control which side(s) the coolant flows to?
  - The_President 1y ago
    [dead]
  - HFguy 1y ago
    It allows the refrigerator to run two different zones in terms of humidity. Evidently, it really does keep fruits and vegetables lasting longer.
  - supportengineer 1y ago
    There is a better way... and stop calling me Shirley.
  - nemo44x 1y ago
    Different humidities and it makes a big difference. Also less stress on each component and they have very long warranty’s so if they break it’s on them.
hermitcrab 1y ago
Its only a matter of time until your toilet starts telling you where to get high fibre cereal at 20% off.
- busymom0 1y ago
  Wasn't there a post last week about this company wanting to install cameras in your toilet?
- AlexandrB 1y ago
  Truly, life imitates art: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ
  - hermitcrab 1y ago
    LOL. But I'm sure I've seen worse things on 'Dragon's Den' (UK equivalent to 'Shark Tank').
nerdsniper 1y ago
There's a $30,000 bounty set up for anyone who can patch the firmware to eliminate the ads. Please consider contributing additional donations against the matching funds. https://bounties.fulu.org/bounties/samsung-familyhub-refrigerators https://bounties.fulu.org/bounties/samsung-familyhub-refrige...
- wmeredith 1y ago
  I lieu of a donation I'll continue to not pay for ad-laden garbage.
- martinky24 1y ago
  That website has never once paid out a bounty? hmm...
  - simoncion 1y ago
    It looks to be a very new program. While the fulu.org domain has been around for a long time, archive.org's oldest snapshot of bounties.fulu.org is from late last week. This press release from Oct. 23rd agrees with archive.org's snapshot history: <https://fulu-foundation.ghost.io/repair-bounty-program/ https://fulu-foundation.ghost.io/repair-bounty-program/>. Given the complexity of the tasks on offer, I'm unsurprised that zero of them have been completed in three days. Give those boffins some time, yeah?
    - ehnto 1y ago
      I think the bounty aspect of it is incredibly new, the operator only released an announcement video a week or less ago.
- commandersaki 1y ago
  I recall Louis saying that some (or all?) solutions to these bounties cannot be revealed to the public due to being liable under DMCA circumvention measures. IANAL.
  - 1y ago
daveguy 1y ago
Just replaced a Samsung fridge. It was the worst I have ever had, and it wasn't even kludged up with smart-ai-internet-advertisement bullshit yet. The compressor went out after about 12 years (which is apparently good for current refrigerator manufacturing - yikes). But the ice maker and operation panel had been on the fritz for at least 4 years before that. I went with a Frigidaire + 5 year extended warranty. Much better use of internal space, nothing smart, dual ice makers. Only negative is it's kinda noisy and runs often due to the compressor being sized for "efficiency". Fingers crossed.
schaefer 1y ago
boycotted for life. All products.
Dan4ik_Owl 1y ago
Where is Gilfoyle when we need him so much?
klysm 1y ago
The backlash from this doesn’t show up on a spreadsheet so here we go!
Beijinger 1y ago
FYI: Out of curiosity, just googled it "No, Samsung fridges do not run on webOS; they use Samsung's own Tizen operating system. LG is the brand that uses webOS in its smart refrigerators. "
ge96 1y ago
Recently saw this clip about a public bathroom where the toilet paper dispenser had a screen on it/qr code you had to scan, watch an ad to get the TP... interesting if true.
- bschwindHN 1y ago
  You know, ads printed on toilet paper would be entertaining.
kavenkanum 1y ago
One needs to be rally dumb to buy a smart fridge
JuniperMesos 1y ago
I've never purchased a refrigerator in my life - every place I've lived in my adult life has been a rental where I wasn't the one picking the appliances. What happens when I'm looking for a place to live, and I find somewhere that meets my requirements, except that the landlord has this Samsung smart fridge in the kitchen - maybe they thought this was a selling point, like the landlord I had who put the fact that they had a Google Nest thermostat proudly in the apartment ad (I deliberately never gave it my WiFi password)?
atum47 1y ago
Galaxy S2 was the best phone I ever had. I think it was pure Android, if not, you had some minor apps from Samsung that you could've delete. I think I left the Samsung train right about S5 (which was supposed water proof, but it wasn't). It was just down fall from there. Samsung account, locked phone full with shitty apps that you couldn't remove (without rooting)... I don't think I'll ever have anything from Samsung in the near future
- askvictor 1y ago
  I had the original Galaxy S, and that was very much not pure Android, and no other Galaxy I've had has been (so presume the S2 wasn't either). Prior to Android, they had their own OS, and wanted to continue the UI/UX rather than changing to Android.
neilv 1y ago
A lot of outrage in HN comments, but it's kinda ironic, because if you had to point at the single biggest concentration of people who built out surveillance capitalism and other facets of our digital dystopian future... Maybe the people complaining are the ones whose employers don't even sell out people with third-party trackers on their Web site. But I see more than 3 people complaining.
prawn 1y ago
Can't stand behaviour like this. I pay for Spotify and the app now shows paid suggestions (cough ads), to paying users. When you tap the ellipsis and choose "Not interested", it doesn't respond with "OK, we'll stop" but something like 'We'll show less of this'. No, don't show less, I want you to not show it at all.
- smoe 1y ago
  I switched away from Spotify a couple of years ago because of this, after having been a paying customer for around 10 years. But I fear all such services will eventually succumb to this, given just how much more lucrative ads can be compared to subscriptions.
  - qwerpy 1y ago
    I did the same, and switched to Apple Music. Soon after that, Apple Music started injecting their F1 movie soundtrack into suggested music for me. There really is no escape from this. They haven't done it since, so at least it's not as bad as what Spotify does. If I come across a good offline music player for iOS I will probably cancel my Apple Music subscription.
    - MangoToupe 1y ago
      Is suggested music not already an ad? Why not just listen to your library?
    - RamblingCTO 1y ago
      That's not an ad and sounds like a you problem. I've never had the F1 soundtrack being played on radio/random and I do listen to a lot of soundtracks.
  - hdgvhicv 1y ago
    Last time I checked the sky tv financials, subscription revenue outweighed advertising revenue about 10:1, is for every £30 subscription they took £3 in adverts.
- 1y ago
jmward01 1y ago
This is why I have so few 'smart' devices in my life. It is obvious that all of these devices are predatory. They start off 'helpful' and 'useful' and then turn malicious when you can't easily replace them. Lock-in bait and switch should be illegal.
- nicbou 1y ago
  Or they are neutered by a software update, or stop working when the company shuts down the servers that make them work.
luxuryballs 1y ago
Samsung SSDs I remember, do they still make good ones? I won’t buy the washer and dryer from them again, and probably not the dishwasher even though for the price it has been good.
nicbou 1y ago
Samsung is one of these companies that are so consistently scummy that I outright refuse to buy any of their products. They are forever blacklisted.
platevoltage 1y ago
"You're going to have to PI-hole your refrigerator" wasn't on my 2025 bingo card.
gus_massa 1y ago
I bought a Samsung notebook in ~2008. No crapware! Nice and small, it survived long beyond the guaranty date. My cellphone decided to die last month. It was near retirement, but still working until it didn't. I bought a Samsung phone. First it asked twice if I wanted to share all my life with Google (using some dark patterns) and then it asked twice if I wanted to share all my life with Samsung (using more dark patterns). (After that, I installed WhatsApp, so I'm not sure I bothered.) Next the phone offered to install the app from my carrier, TikTok and a ¿third? app-store. I didn't want them so in the screen with the offer I disabled the first and the other two were disabled by default. Anyway, I got TikTok and the other app for some reason! (I uninstalled them inmediately.) I still get random notifications, like complaining that I'm using the phone too much. Or a notification that they upgraded something, restarted the phone and all apps notifications were disabled until I unlock it. (Lucky, I didn't miss any important urgent message.)
- estimator7292 1y ago
  I quit buying Samsung when my phone rebooted into a forced update while I was using it with a customer and then fucking bricked itself. Not to mention a new notification to accept the new Samsung terms and conditions every two weeks.
aj_icracked 1y ago
I have the Samsung Frame TV (great TV btw) and decided I didn't want to pay the $5 / month to have curated art in the room and when Superman the movie came out a few months ago it was only displaying Superman comics on the screen. Was super annoying bc was subtle but not subtle enough. I uploaded family pics instead so I don't have that anymore but it was still pretty annoying. I have samsung washers / dryers / dishwasher etc all connected to the internet and I love the notifications when a load is done but I don't know how useful the data is... I assume data brokers are like, "Oh Aj uses his washing machine 7 times a month let's hit him with Tide ads", but I assume everyone uses the machine that much. I'm fine having my machines tell Samsung use bc it's normal usage (i think?)
- move-on-by 1y ago
  If you are thinking of data - you have to think of meta data. Instead of how often you do laundry think more: * number of adults in the house hold (people who have access to the account) * when you are home * opening fridge/doing laundry/etc. I have no idea if their app has an excuse to ask for location- but app location tracking would be the most valuable data * even if you don’t share location- these things are on your network and any regular and simple network scanning would show when certain devices are home and we they are not home and what schedules they follow This isn’t even very imaginative, just the basics really. I would not be surprised if you could guess the household size solely based on the number of times a fridge is opened in a day. You could at least determine between a person without a family vs. family- that’s useful for ads. Are these the fridges that have cameras in them ‘so you can see what you have while at the grocery store’? Throw some image detection in there and you now know brand targeting and if they cook regularly or eat out. A goldmine of data really.
- dmoreno 1y ago
  I use home assistant and a smart plug to get notifications when the socket has less than 1w load for 5 mins -> washing machine finished. Maybe one of the best automations I have. And all local.
- pndy 1y ago
  I've bought Frame as well because our 10 years old Philips tv got a nasty dead pixels bar mid screen that made watching tv really annoying - prob moisture got inside. I was curious how Samsung's ecosystem looks like in comparison to Apple's and tbh, I didn't expect the main hub app asking for location access way before even looking up for the devices. But that was a hard no for me. I just left all of that alone - we have a ISP set-top box that comes with FTTH tv and few services so I don't need to log in anywhere else. Mother has a hearing aid and she wanted to try Bluetooth connection - devices paired without mobile app but she couldn't lower volume down on tv nor on her device, even with aid's own app. It still wasn't as bad as expected. I read some of the experiences people had where they couldn't even get into the home screen of tv before agreeing for network connection or login to some cloud services. Fiends got some 4k Samsung for their new house - it comes with some AI features because of course it does. They said that they couldn't easily find picture controls and every show was automatically adjusted on brightness, saturation etc., making anything pain to watch. They also got washing machine/dryer combo from Samsung as well - weeks after someone posted on our discord server video from Polish store where bunch of guys "hacked" similar smart-enabled machine and launched... youtube with that dancing "6 grams" cow clip. What a time to be alive.
shreddit 1y ago
It’s so sad. Smart devices were meant to make life easier. Now all they do is to be another platform for ads. AI is going the same way. In the end it’s always going to be ads. Is just sad.
- hdgvhicv 1y ago
  Adverts are a cancer. They infect and destroy everything. HN loves them as the majority work or want to work for advertising firms.
ReptileMan 1y ago
Okay - so fridge is something that you buy, you put it on 3 degrees Celsius and you forget about it for the next 12 years. What exactly smartness gives?
crm9125 1y ago
As a human, I'm FUCKING TIRED OF ADS.
jimjimjim 1y ago
Once they have paved the way and built the infrastructure, most fridges will come with some sort of display. Probably just a small status display. But these fridges will be much cheaper, subsidized by the Ad opportunities. It happened with most mainstream TVs making people expect cheap TVs to the point where they will dismiss a TV with "normal" price.
pclowes 1y ago
Honestly, stuff like this makes me want to leave my smart phone in the garage when I get home and have a single desktop linux box that is in a “computer room” hardwired and the house has no wifi or smart anything and every other screen goes into the trash.
dramm 1y ago
Zero chance I'll purchasing any household device from Samsung. Not with all the crapware and spyware they pile onto their systems. Zero chance I'd purchase a household appliance with a large screen. WTF would I want that for. More garbage annoying crap and more to go wrong. The never ending chimes about everything on our Mellie clothes dryer was annoying enough... (and oh it wants to connect to the WiFi? Good luck with that. Terrible menu UI. I'll never buy one of those again either). I like to think in future there migh be Harry Tuttle like appliance repair vigilantes that come out and remove all this crap from home appliances. :-)
- technion 1y ago
  I want to agree with you. But we said this about TVs and a bit later you couldn't buy a TV that wasn't giving you a "recommendations" feed or whatever.
  - dramm 1y ago
    Yes, it's just evil. I sure would not buy a Samsung TV laden with crap, I just will not do it. I run an old high-end commercial plasma display and otherwise watch video on dumb computer monitors or iPads. And yes I know, an iPad is far from a dumb device.
- pndy 1y ago
  > The never ending chimes Have you ever heard Samsung washing machine doing Franz Schubert's The Trout at the end of cycle? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TpRsLdKVAg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TpRsLdKVAg
  - dramm 1y ago
    I had an old Samsung washing machine and it was annoying with chimes, maybe it was not Schubert or I never realized it.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
bitwize 1y ago
Next up is the update that makes the refrigerator refuse to cool your food without an annual subscription. Oh, and the ads don't go away.
dineol 1y ago
next step is they're gonna make ad-free version with an additional monthly fee
fud101 1y ago
I upgraded my Samsung phone to the latest One Ui version and i've been having a frustrating time with it. Turns out months later I discovered they have changed the behaviour to work best for Right Handed users. I found a setting that allowed me to flip that and now i'm able to use my phone again.
mixxit 1y ago
Sometimes I wonder if developers are exempt from responsibility much like a soldier for following orders
dawnerd 1y ago
Of course they would do this. They did this with their top of the line 4k tvs when they first came out. Everything was great, their OS and such worked wonderfully then they started to inject ads for gamefly into notifications and it went downhill from there. Ads in a 200 dollar tv I understand. Ads on a 5 thousand dollar tv? Absolutely unacceptable.
- ehnto 1y ago
  I know it's not your intention, but it does illustrate another divide between rich and poor. I guess some would say they'd rather a cheap TV with ads over no TV, but I imagine TV companies could still make an affordable TV without ads if mandated to remove ads. They just choose the ad route for more profit.
  - hdgvhicv 1y ago
    Paying more doesn’t guarentee cutting out the adverts.
BLKNSLVR 1y ago
Off-topic-ish: I've got a TCL Smart TV that, by default, runs Google TV (which, to my understanding, is a rebranded newer version of Android TV). The default launcher / interface, which contains ads and has only minimal customisation options, can only be changed by installing an alternative launcher disabling some permissions via adb. Having followed the instructions to do it, it's much nicer having beautiful background images (rather than ads for crappy TV shows and movies) and a cleaner interface with at least one less click required to get to the apps I want (ie. a better UX). TCL TVs are not a particularly premium product, so I'm not too annoyed about having to go this little bit of effort to make it nicer. However, a $3,500 fridge seems like a premium-ish price, and so to also have ads on that feels incredibly tacky to the point it cheapens the product and the brand overall.
- yosame 1y ago
  Could you share a guide for how you did this? I've got a TCL TV, and it's constantly frustrating how it shows laggy ads.
  - BLKNSLVR 1y ago
    I'll have to get back to you. I had to go through the process three or four times to get it to stick across reboots and not leave me with a useless TV just showing a black screen (I had a panic moment when that happened). You can ask Perplexity, but this doesn't give the adb commands to disable the default launcher (which you need to do so that it doesn't override what the user has chosen upon reboot): https://www.perplexity.ai/search/how-do-i-install-project-ivy-a-HbWLPhILQFyDjwVxjQxrNg https://www.perplexity.ai/search/how-do-i-install-project-iv... I should also mention: This may render some of the TV remote shortcut buttons useless. There's an app that's meant to help with this, but I've found it unreliable. I'll find my notes tonight...
  - gblargg 1y ago
    Disable Internet access. An Internet-connected smart TV is one update away from a bricked device.
  - aix1 1y ago
bgwalter 1y ago
They also offer Jian Yang's "AI" fridge from the Silicon Valley comedy show: https://www.samsung.com/us/home-appliances/refrigerators/bespoke/bespoke-29-cu-ft-4-door-french-door-refrigerator-with-ai-family-hub-ai-vision-inside-in-charcoal-glass-and-stainless-steel-rf90f29aecraa/ https://www.samsung.com/us/home-appliances/refrigerators/bes...
sidewndr46 1y ago
Finally, manufacturer's can be liberated from the opressive existence of a world without advertising revenue
Havoc 1y ago
Are there any other fridge brands up to such nonsense? About to buy one. Guessing anything without screen is reasonably safe
puppycodes 1y ago
Samsung products are shipping with what feels dangerously close to malware these days
lostlogin 1y ago
Wonder if you could stop this with Pihole? I had to go to contortions with a tv from Samsung, but did manage to force all port 53 traffic to go via Pihole. I believe this method may have been broken by Samsung/Google et al somehow though?
- hdgvhicv 1y ago
  The world’s largest advertising company pushed DoH to get around pi holes.
- pndy 1y ago
  Not sure if that still even a thing but I remember reading here about plans of companies to include SIM module so "smart" devices could connect to the Internet without need for home network access. That would of course bypass solutions like Pi-hole
2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago
I disconnected the wifi from my fridge. Opened the back and unplugged it from the board
nyell 1y ago
Never bought a Samsung phone, TV or Fridge. Smart is now translating into "Ad-injection" in various appliances and I hope this backfires!
jp0d 1y ago
Soon there will be a subscription model to use certain features in the fridge! Spherical ice and fast cooling will cost $9.99 per month!
- petepete 1y ago
  With the $15.00 per month Pro Chef subscription you can enable the freezer compartment.
cutler 1y ago
Smart fridge. Get a life.
7373737373 1y ago
Does a website exist that lists products only by companies who respect their customers?
- hollow-moe 1y ago
  about:blank
jesse_dot_id 1y ago
Neat, another brand I don't have to consider when purchasing appliances in the future. Saves me time at a glance!
not4uffin 1y ago
Bound to happen eventually...
chrisweekly 1y ago
Their unbelievably poorly-designed icemakers are already a reason I'll never buy another Samsung fridge. Now this? Yikes.
userbinator 1y ago
integrated 21.5- or 32-inch (depending on the model) screen I don't want a fridge with a screen or any connections except power. All it needs to do is keep my food cold. I've had others very surprised to see my house containing mostly mid-century dumb appliances. I deal with enough problems caused by software at work, to know better than to bring that hassle home.
sussmannbaka 1y ago
Every frog will be boiled. Remember this when you argue “oh but it will still be possible to sideload via adb” “oh but you can turn it off” “oh but you only need it on the first run” “at least they don’t…” You won’t be able to. It will be mandatory. They will do it. If you give these companies an inch, they’ll take a mile. The moment they don’t actively work entirely aligned with your interests, they work against you.
aanet 1y ago
There IS a market for non-internet-connected devices: - fridges - toasters - TVs - home appliances - what-have-you Whoever makes those, take my $€£¥ For everything else, there are crappier alternatives from all the consumer electronics OEMs
Hansenq 1y ago
Everyone here seems to hate on the idea of seeing ads on an appliance you purchased. I hate ads too! But, let's consider the counterfactual. What if Samsung offered you a new fridge for free, as long as you were ok with passive ads? I hate ads, but I'm not sure I would pass up a free fridge...those things are expensive! (this is not even that unrealistic. Let's say you have a household of 3 and a fridge lasts 10 years. Meta makes about $200 per year per user solely from showing ads; that's $6000 over 10 years. If Samsung got as good as Meta is (which they likely won't), 6k is more than enough to cover the cost of giving a fridge away for free)
- lifter3101 1y ago
  Are they going to lock the fridge for 30 seconds each time you want to open it so that they make sure you finish watching the ad?
- pndy 1y ago
  > What if Samsung offered you a new fridge for free, as long as you were ok with passive ads? I'd still buy a normal fridge from a different vendor. There's absolutely no reason why fridge needs a display screen nor any "smart" features. And no ad deal would convince me because next thing that would come after this would be the obvious "watch ads to unlock the fridge". Household appliances are meant to work for years - sure, now lifespan is way shorter than used to be but these aren't phones we're replacing every 3 years or so. The fridge we once had lasted 25 up until cooling unit failed and there was no way to replace it or fix. I hope you rolled some really low bait here because if you really think like that then... I sincerely feel sorry for you.
- g-b-r 1y ago
  Did they do it? Did we get free TVs, free cars and free phones?
KnuthIsGod 1y ago
SO glad that I avoided buying that nice looking Samsung fridge.
johngossman 1y ago
Iirc, Chris Whittle proposed this idea of refrigerator advertising in the 1980s. Seemed dystopian then. Ugh.
jimbohn 1y ago
Your smart appliances are my opportunity
MangoToupe 1y ago
Why on earth does a fridge have a screen in the first place?
- TheChaplain 1y ago
  To change settings, others also have a camera inside the fridge so you can see on screen the contents without opening it.
  - MangoToupe 1y ago
    How did we manage to figure out a less convenient interface than a door and dial?
    - wiseowise 1y ago
      What do you mean? It was always inconvenient for the manufacturer. How do you show ads on a dial anyway?
  - draven 1y ago
    Why don't they make part of the door with that magical see-through material my windows are made of ?
    - PetitPrince 1y ago
      Glass is not a good thermal insulator, and is more expensive than plastic.
      - draven 1y ago
        My windows are insulated. Is it more expensive than a screen/camera/electronics ?
        PetitPrince 1y ago
        I see that a insulated (triple layer) window around 100 euros [ https://www.leroymerlin.fr/produits/bauplaza-fenetre-en-pvc-blanc-double-vitrage-4-24-4-lxh-40-x-50-cm-ouverture-droite-toutes-les-tailles-400-x-500-mm-oscillo-battant-93385062.html https://www.leroymerlin.fr/produits/bauplaza-fenetre-en-pvc-... ]. Let's assume this retailer makes a 2x margin, so real cost is 50 euro. A webcam on Aliexpress is around 5 euros. Throw in a microcontroller that's like 2 euros on aliexpress, a 10 euro screen and you still have a 30-ish euro budget for the actual door that's probably plastic (acrylic and something like PE ?). So yeah, probably more expensive. But that doesn't means that doesn't exists ! We can see that all the time in supermarket, but I guess their needs are different.
Aslima 1y ago
[flagged]
curvaturearth 1y ago
Nope nope nope
aszantu 1y ago
Stopped buying Samsung phone because I couldn't disable some stupid assistant button with ai subscription on the last one. I'm really sad because Samsung was always a good brand to me
taegee 1y ago
Who needs a smart fridge anyway? It cools, and annoys as hell when you leave it open.
YcYc10 1y ago
Who will buy this? This is insane.
dominicrose 1y ago
I actually checked the date to see if we were April first. Turns out it's pretty far away!
assimpleaspossi 1y ago
>>The box will change what it displays “every 10 seconds,” the publication said. OT - This reminds me of the digital billboards on the highway that change before one has the chance to understand what it's advertising. I don't even have the chance to count the seconds before the ad changes much less see what it's advertising.
wvh 1y ago
Richard Stallman was onto something.
npteljes 1y ago
Funny that they do that after the purchases have been made. Goes to show how much bundled services upset the user-manufacturer relationship, to the detriment of the user. Using a service is an ongoing relationship, and relationships change over time, sometimes for the worse. This needs to be factored in as risk, every time someone makes a purchase that includes a service.
geroff 1y ago
Obviously, this is not a change aimed at enticing customers but instead expanding revenue streams. And its obvious that all western governments hand-wringing over green and efficient energy usage falls apart as long manufacturers like Samsung, AWS, Sony are allowed to waste network bandwidth and chew up consumer and industry energy supply on superfluous pointless fluff like adverts where they are not needed or welcome. It is proof again that Advertising is really about pushing messaging at people rather than selling anything. Samsung already lost me with removing expandable storage in premium phones. Now they have reached levels of avoid that will push me to any alternative that respects the customer's usage needs.
HeavyStorm 1y ago
Enshitfication at its best.
joshstrange 1y ago
The idea of paying for a $2k fridge that has a $30* android board running a large screen is just absurd to me. Not only was this kind of enshittification almost a given, but we all know how well manufacturers update devices like this. Security issues aside, you just know that the software is going to slowly rot (Think: Widget to show tweets before Twitter closed the API down). If you feel so inclined to have a touch screen on your fridge then you'd be better off getting some random tablet and sticking it to the fridge. I _love_ my home automation/smart house devices but I wouldn't touch one of these with a 10ft pole. * That might be a bit high
lunias 1y ago
I worry about the thought process of the average consumer. Who exactly is buying these? How have smart fridges not been a colossal failure?
verdverm 1y ago
Hopefully DNS level ad blocking will help here, and even more hopefully consumers will reject smart appliances. I'd never buy one
- OptionOfT 1y ago
  It's probably work like IMDb does on your phone. All ads are piped through the same domain as useful data.
- ebbi 1y ago
  Neither. In a world where everyone is trying to be more eco conscious, it seems like a joke that manufacturers are slapping screens on the most menial of things.
- teeray 1y ago
  “Looks like you have an ad-blocker. Disable it to reactivate cooling.”
- annoyingnoob 1y ago
  I'll never ever buy a 'smart' appliance. I'll go caveman first. Keeping food cold and/or cooking it does not require the Internet.
  - Ballas 1y ago
    Even the unnecessary microcontrollers in modern devices irk me. A fridge does not need a microcontroller. (My issue is primarily repairability - discrete components can be sourced and replaced, microcontrollers with the correct programming usually cannot.)
  - verdverm 1y ago
    Or import one yourself
- thesuitonym 1y ago
  They won't. Smart devices tend to be cheap because the manufacturer is double-dipping by selling telemetry and advertising.
philips 1y ago
Why is this the best business model we can collectively execute on? Whether it is AI, home cameras, or fridges it seems to just come back to, welp, lets slap an ad on it.
- notatoad 1y ago
  because it's essentially free money with no consequences.
- mrguyorama 1y ago
  The line must go up. By a percentage every year. Compounding. This was always an obvious outcome. What the outcome actually happening is indicative of however is that consumers are very very very bad at their job (consuming the best products) and do not have enough rights. If a customer was entitled to a working product without this kind of deficiency, and we had courts that actually applied punishments to large corporations (instead of unilaterally and without justification, significantly reducing fines to nothing) we wouldn't have this problem. It wouldn't be possible to profit off of this kind of advertising because you would be too busy signing court documents about how you suck at building stuff. There's only so many human beings who can buy your fridge. There's only so cheap you can build your fridge. There's only so much you can charge for your fridge. But line must go up. This is simply what it looks like when the people with money and resources decide that a stable and reliable profit is a Failed business.
- keybored 1y ago
  Why do you address us as if we collectively went down to the town center and three dozen times in a row and decided on the same thing by consensus? For most of us this was shoved down our throats by sheer force of violence. And why always this oh shucks apologia about the “business model” that they are supposedly forced to adapt? No, this fridge already costs a lot of money. The ads don’t have to be recouping losses. They could just be for more profit.
- wiseowise 1y ago
  Who said anything about the best? It’s the strategy that makes most revenue in the shortest amount of time. The execs will receive their bonuses in two years and then move to the next company to grift again, and again, until they retire.
bmau5 1y ago
I'd understand if the ads were subsidizing the purchase price significantly, but this still seems to be in line with their highest pricing.
pavel_lishin 1y ago
> Samsung also said that its fridges will only show contextualized ads, instead of personalized ads, which rely on collecting data on users. What is a contextualized ad?
- Fwirt 1y ago
  Probably ads for things that you would think of buying when you're standing near the fridge in the kitchen. So not Clash of Clans but La Croix.
  - mrweasel 1y ago
    Well, they probably won't be able to sell enough ad space to supermarkets, so people will get ads for "World of Tanks" and sports betting.
- immibis 1y ago
  Personalized ads are based on your user profile (ads for motorbikes because you're tagged as someone who loves motorbikes). Contextualized ads are based on where and when they're being displayed (ads for food delivery on the fridge late at night) but not on your user profile. This is the advertising industry, so they're probably lying, or they're not lying yet but they plan to add personalized ads later.
- jandrese 1y ago
  Ads for things it overheard you talking about recently.
- r0ckarong 1y ago
  Don't some of these have "smart" features to detect what is actually in your fridge and tell you if you run out? I would think removing the last piece of butter could trigger an ad for whatever cow-milk-fat substitute won the highest bid on the brainfuck raffle that day would be shown to you.
  - abdullahkhalids 1y ago
liendolucas 1y ago
You do not buy a smart appliance. Period. A fridge, oven, toaster, washing machine, bed do not need to be smart. Smart is the consumer that is able to spot all this BS ideas that are putting in front of us and avoids it as much as it can.
- MattPalmer1086 1y ago
  I don't buy smart devices, unless they work fine without the smart stuff and it's a good buy. I have a "smart" TV because it's a great TV, but it only has HDMI cables plugged into it and no internet connection.
- seanmcdirmid 1y ago
  I bought a vented Samsung washer/dryer combo recently. I have to say I like it a lot, probably because its a combo and I no longer have to transfer clothes from washer to dryer. The fact that is Samsung definitely makes me feel nervous however (how long will it last?). Unfortunately, they were the only one to make a vented combo so far (I should have waited for more options, but I'm still OK with it). We have a frame TV also and it worked nice for the very narrow use case we had.
- drdaeman 1y ago
  Disagree. Smart can be good, if you're actually in full control (whenever you contract the implementation to a company or own it). The real problem is, there's not much on the market that respects the consumers in this regard. Ask for an SLA on a smart fridge functionality and you'll be met with a confusion and possibly a revelation there's nothing of a kind. It's all ignored because most consumers don't ask questions about reliability, functionality, security and control - they don't think of those. And it's not a matter of technical or specialized knowledge, I'm sure even a caveman can understand "will this work tomorrow the exact same way it works today?" or "what happens to my fridge if you go out of business?" - it's a matter of awareness. People simply don't know yet how those new things can fail them. Eventually people will learn about the issues, and start asking maker companies those questions. But it's all too new today.
  - 1y ago
perihelions 1y ago
> "Didn't you have ads in the 20th century?" > "Well, sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games, and on buses, and milk cartons, and T-shirts, and bananas, and written on the sky... But not in dreams."
- joshstrange 1y ago
  Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPGgTy5YJ-g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPGgTy5YJ-g
- Forgeties79 1y ago
  Futurama right? When fry buys that underwear?
  - messe 1y ago
    More than technically correct—the best kind of correct—you are plain correct. (I've used em-dashes since before LLMs and I'm not fucking stopping now) EDIT: s,',,
    - Forgeties79 1y ago
      I feel you on the em dashes lol
      - messe 1y ago
        My proudest typographical accomplishment is that use of em-dashes once got me a tinder date. ...it didn't go anywhere after that date. But I still have the anecdote.
        Forgeties79 1y ago
        win’s a win
    - VladVladikoff 1y ago
djoldman 1y ago
> Samsung fridge owners can also opt to avoid the latest software update altogether. However, they would miss out on other features included in the software update, such as a UI refresh and the ability for the internal camera inside some fridges to identify more fruits and vegetables inside the fridge. The level of absurdity here with respect to "miss[ing] out on other features" strains credulity.
- jandrese 1y ago
  Well, I wouldn't say I was missing them. I don't know why I would connect a fridge to the Internet at all. Maybe there is a use case where you can get a picture of the contents of your fridge on your phone when you are out and about? Like you're at the grocery store and can't remember if you need to pick up milk or not?
  - JonChesterfield 1y ago
    I could come around to a fridge that keeps track of the contents, including use by dates, prompts me to throw away things that are going bad and adds replacements to a periodic supermarket order.
  - grebc 1y ago
    Buy the milk anyway, worst case so you’ve got 1L extra.
kstrauser 1y ago
This guarantees I'll never buy a Samsung appliance. If they're this willing to screw with their customers today, they'll do it again tomorrow. Sadly, I'm including their TVs in this. I have one today, displaying the output of an Apple TV and not directly connected to the Internet because hah, no way, but I'll be shopping around when it comes time to replace it. Pity. They make nice stuff. Not nice enough that I'm willing to tolerate their anti-customer shenanigans, but otherwise decent quality.
- FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
  My house came with all Samsung appliances and I can't wait for all fo them to die. The dryer already went (8 years old). I've been replacing with mid-range LG on advice of the local repair company and been happy so far. Quirky and very few features but seems well built. Can't wait to replace the massive refrigerator and swap the gas range for inductive. Fridge is slowly going (cracked and leaking ice maker, condensation problem with deli drawer). I now know how my mom could justify the ridiculous expense of a Subzero refrigerator (around $6k back in 2000). That thing has only needed a couple of tune ups and no parts replacements in 20 years.
  - Beijinger 1y ago
    8 years is pretty good. I personally like Bosch. Is a fridge with an icemaker not always problematic? How about biofilm? What is the advantage of an inductive stove? Will they even work in the US? I think in Europe they work with 360 V if I remember right. I realized two things: 1. You can cook nearly everything with a ricecooker. Just throw everything inside. Yes, even the minced meat on top. 2. An airfrier is better and faster than a shitty oven.
    - southwindcg 1y ago
      Only eight years for a dryer is definitely not pretty good in my mind. It's barely acceptable unless you have a huge family and are doing laundry daily. I had a low-end Capri (Sears house brand) that was 21 years old and still going strong when I moved away. It was serviced once, by me, to replace a fuse. If I'd paid twice as much and gotten only eight years out of one, I'd be furious.
christkv 1y ago
I got smart appliances not a single one is connected to the internet and never will.
baggachipz 1y ago
Way to punish your customers for paying you more. I know it's a trope, but this is the absolute textbook definition of enshittification.
tonyedgecombe 1y ago
I’ve seen enough of these stories to know that I will never buy any Samsung product. They are a repeat offender.
noir_lord 1y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3pYZwol6Dc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3pYZwol6Dc Silicon Valley parodied smart fridges nearly a decade ago.
dsign 1y ago
Samsung does make really great ad-free computer displays... that's as much as I'm willing to buy from them.
- elAhmo 1y ago
  It is kinda ridiculous to see this written "add-free computer display".
fourseventy 1y ago
I would rather go without household refrigeration than have the refrigerator that I own play ads in my house.
- linsomniac 1y ago
  I'd rather put foil tape over the display than go without refrigeration.
  - aziaziazi 1y ago
    Does the door unlock if if the in-display camera can’t recognize your face though?
    - fwip 1y ago
      I didn't think that these fridges locked the door. Is that a "child proofing" feature you can enable or something?
  - cik 1y ago
    Until it streams audio
    - linsomniac 1y ago
      Out comes the screwdriver...
rcarmo 1y ago
I've managed to mostly excise Samsung from my digital life (except for phones that family buys without my knowledge and that I have to troubleshoot), and I have been happier for it for many decades now. (This was after direct exposure to their Tizen engineering team back in the early 2000s) I stayed away from their phones, SmartTVs, everything.
- cma 1y ago
  They were caught uploading screenshots from content played on smart TVs. Ostensibly to sell ad tracking info like a Nielsen TV, but I'm pretty sure it meant they were capturing people's desktops with confidential corporate info etc. if you used the TV as a monitor. https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/samsung-smart-tvs-are-set-to-upload-screenshots-of-what-youre-watching/ https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/samsung-smart-tvs...
  - nomel 1y ago
    This isn't just Samsung! Nearly all of them use ACR [1]. [1] https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/how-to-turn-off-smart-tv-snooping-features-a4840102036 https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/how-to-t...
- hn_acc1 1y ago
  What phones do you recommend? I have an S21 FE I got free from Metro PCS (I got laid off, had to return company S20 phone). Others in the family have Pixel / moto. I get the feeling the later galaxy phones are much worse than the S21?
  - TylerE 1y ago
    iPhone. Android is so crap laden.
    - stOneskull 1y ago
      i've been using android since the iphone 4s (i had one of those and thought it was very cool). i wanted freedom. but these days i'm thinking of changing up, back to iphone, and getting a mac laptop to replace this old thinkpad ashtray. i won't ash on the mac, at least not to start with. i'm tired of the crap. ubuntu is crap. why am i using a janky kde connect? i'd like to try xcode and other apple stuff. seriously, i think apple is going to start getting more marketshare in both phones and computers. i think people are tired of google and microsoft, and linux desktop distros. ps. i'm too old to care about pc gaming. i have a playstation for that.
steve_avery 1y ago
Why would I ever connect my fridge to the internet? I cannot fathom any feature on a fridge that would incline me towards giving it the wifi credentials.
- fwip 1y ago
  I don't think it's worth it myself, but here are some of the features of the Samsung Bespoke fridge that use wifi: Notifications and Alerts: If the door is left open, or the fridge temperature is leaving safe temps, or the water filter needs changing, it can send a push notification to your phone. (Useful if something fails; or if a kid/guest leaves the fridge open by mistake). Remote control and monitoring: You can use the camera to see the contents of the fridge. You can also adjust the temperature remotely. (Useful if you're at the grocery store and can't remember if you have milk?) It looks like they also have "AI" try to categorize these for you. Built-in tablet: The touchscreen is basically a builtin tablet. You can use it to display photos (pulled from your online albums), show the weather, or control "smart home" stuff like playing some music on your speakers. I imagine you could also try to put recipes or cooking videos on there. You can also easily order groceries from it or add to your shopping list (with your voice). I'd rather have a separate device for most of this, but I can understand the appeal, especially if you're not privacy-conscious.
- maerF0x0 1y ago
  What if your fridge could do an AI thing and the groceries to refill itself would just arrive? Could be a fantastic way to control your diet by only buying foods that satiated/goal oriented you approved (as opposed to hungry you walking down aisles of product placements in the grocery store)
  - triceratops 1y ago
    Why do you need a fridge to do that? An AI agent with access to your Instacart account could do it. If you only buy groceries with that it knows roughly how many calories it purchased and you should've consumed since the last order.
    - 1y ago
xaedes 1y ago
In my opinion it is plain fraud: intentional deception to deprive a victim of a legal right or to gain from a victim unlawfully or unfairly.
stevepotter 1y ago
This ad nonsense aside, don't buy Samsung refrigerators. They are so awfully made and difficult to service that almost no appliance repair companies will touch them. I got suckered into buying one a few years back and it was awful. The ice maker didn't work, every few weeks I would sop up a gallon of condensation at the bottom of the cheese drawer, and eventually it just died. I went to a local appliance store and they chuckled when I told them. They would never carry that brand. Just fridges, don't want to talk about other appliances.
t1234s 1y ago
Is there an alternative OS scene for these types of appliances?
- ReptileMan 1y ago
  Yesterday I was seriously thinking about aftermarket control boards startup for some of my appliances (mostly the AC that has disgustingly low performance because of eco modes). Seems that there will be one for fridges too.
- embedding-shape 1y ago
  Not yet it seems, but if history is any good indication of the future, someone at one point will have their "You won't give me API access to my own goddamn fridge?!" moment and GNU.V2 will be born.
xoxxala 1y ago
This annoyed so much I actually wrote them a physical letter denouncing the practice and mailed it to their US corporate HQ. I haven't mailed a letter in years. Feels odd.
ratelimitsteve 1y ago
I have a samsung fridge, and that's enough for them to already be on my shit list. if you put a screen in my kitchen and force me to watch ads I'm going to physically shatter the screen, I don't care what other functionality it may have.
ChrisArchitect 1y ago
Previous outrages: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45291107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45291107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45262808 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45262808 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45292666 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45292666
andreldm 1y ago
After not having a Samsung device for many years, I reluctantly bought a fridge from them (price was the decisive factor). Anyway, almost immediate regret, it features an always-on wifi network begging to be connected to the web, the only way to turn it off is to disconnect a cable from a circuit board, unbelievable.
- hansvm 1y ago
  It sounds defective. Return it.
pryelluw 1y ago
Can’t wait until I get those Lightspeed briefs adverts transmitted into my sleep.
daft_pink 1y ago
The headline is so insane. I’m not very interested in Samsung in general, because I use apple products and they don’t offer Dolby Vision on their TV’s, but the headline lol.
ath3nd 1y ago
[dead]
sylvainr65 1y ago
Apparently, you can turn off ads quite simply. * How to turn off ads on your Family Hub The widget will appear by default on the fridges as part of the software update. However, Samsung is giving users the option to turn off ads. To do this, go to the Settings page on the fridge, scroll to Advertisements, select it, and you’ll be taken to a screen where you can toggle off ads. This will remove the widget entirely. If you think you might actually like the widget’s other features (calendar, weather, and news), you can “X” out a particular ad, and it won’t pop up again. But then you’ll get another ad.
- pavel_lishin 1y ago
  I wonder how many ads are coming down the pipeline; can I remove all of them if I sit in front of my fridge for 15 minutes?
  - dmitrygr 1y ago
    Cmon. You know better than that.
- ncr100 1y ago
  I would call that flow "complex." So, I disagree with you. Simple would be for the "X" button to offer to turn off Ads completely, do you disagree? (Disclaimer: I'm a pro / lifelong tech and both are "simple" to me. And to clarify my opinion, my Mom, who is a pro musician, would NOT discover / know how to find that option.)
- beerandt 1y ago
  Samsung marketplace on the phone used to have this- now it's just 'don't show this again today' button.
- driverdan 1y ago
  The simplest way is to not connect a refrigerator to the internet.
- roskelld 1y ago
  That button will soon become "Show fewer ads" if it doesn't just get removed at all. Just like how Youtube won't let you switch off Shorts, but will let you click "Show fewer" which lasts for a few weeks.
nailer 1y ago
They’ve been doing this for years. The Galaxy S III (yes three) shipped with an indelible Pizza Hut bookmark.
throwacct 1y ago
This is stupid. Companies are really trying to get people to hate everything tech related. From "smart" beds, to "smart" fridges, and with the "looming" job displacement due to "AI" and robotics, I could see how a "human-centric" economy or new wave of businesses and startups with a "human-centric" approach could develop in few years.
microflash 1y ago
At this point, anything from Samsung is a vehicle for ads, and anything with the word “smart” from Samsung is most likely a spyware. The amount of garbage I had to remove from a recently encountered Galaxy phone is on par with Windows 11 levels and some. Unfortunately, the entire industry is racing toward this behavior. Recent LGs have also started slapping “AI” stickers on their products. I’ve been visiting Rossman’s Consumer Wiki[1] more often than I’d like before making a purchase. [1]: https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Main_Page https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Main_Page
1970-01-01 1y ago
So a digital calendar with ads seems reasonable. What they don't mention is how much work they plan on putting into the maintenance. A $3k fridge should last decades, including the screen, software, and WiFi connection.
- tandr 1y ago
  Last decades? wipes the tear You surely forgot /s at end, I hope. The evil incarnation what is called "Samsung fridge" that I have in my kitchen required repairman's attention just 3 months after the purchase. And then every 3 months after. And children sacrifices, sorry - steam baths, for the ice maker every month or so. Samsung appliances - never again. PS. Repairman told me that Samsung have fixed already one of the problems my fridge has by the time he looked at it, kind of hidden recall and fix. Fridge's version (yes, they have versions) have advanced like 7 iterations already from the time I bought it. That means there were at least 7 serious design/manufacturing problems that they had to fix.
  - hn_acc1 1y ago
    I mean.. that's based on the assumption that they actually care about delivering a working appliance.. As long as the spyware works, they don't really care about the "cooling food" part..
Nifty3929 1y ago
Horribly bad, and also bad precedent, but: "The ads experience, though, seems to have improved somewhat from the earlier pilot testing in that users can use their fridge’s settings menu to opt out of seeing ads. If users set their Cover Screen to show integrated Art or Album themes, then the display won’t show ads." So at least for now tech savvy, aware users can opt out. But I don't like where this is going. Maybe we can tape cardboard over the screens?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

629 points by stalfosknight 1y ago

So I recently (last two years or so) bought a (non-Samsung, non-smart) fridge. It's a very nice fridge. It cost, IIRC, about $1000-1500. No internet connection, no ads, no screen to play them on. Why would I pay $2000 more for a more annoying fridge?

yumraj 1y ago
which one?
- AnimalMuppet 1y ago
  Don't recall, sorry. I'm at work, so I can't check right now.

whatarethembits 1y ago

I’m in the market for buying two new fridges for our new house; this post reminded me to filter out Samsung immediately. I LOATHE ads.

fxtentacle 1y ago

Yay to living in the EU! Since I would be allowed to get a full purchase-price refund if they'd try to pull this shit in the Europe, they limited the new "Cover-Screen-Widget" to only activate within the US. I know, I know, I suffer daily from government overreach ;) But have you tried lobbying for your fellow humans?

antegamisou 1y ago
Europoors seething they can't afford ad-ridden fridges. /s

triceratops 1y ago

To be fair if you're gonna advertise to someone, people who buy $3500 fridges are ideal

nemo44x 1y ago

Samsung makes bad fridges. I bought a Sub-Zero. It has 2 compressors (1 for fridge and 1 for freezer), is made of high quality parts so will last 20+ years, has excellent service guarantees, and is made in America. Highly recommended.

gpm 1y ago
> It has 2 compressors (1 for fridge and 1 for freezer) Is this a feature? It seems like making more parts to break. Surely there's a better way to get independent cooling control. E.g. one compressor with valves to control which side(s) the coolant flows to?
- The_President 1y ago
  [dead]
- HFguy 1y ago
  It allows the refrigerator to run two different zones in terms of humidity. Evidently, it really does keep fruits and vegetables lasting longer.
- supportengineer 1y ago
  There is a better way... and stop calling me Shirley.
- nemo44x 1y ago
  Different humidities and it makes a big difference. Also less stress on each component and they have very long warranty’s so if they break it’s on them.

hermitcrab 1y ago

Its only a matter of time until your toilet starts telling you where to get high fibre cereal at 20% off.

busymom0 1y ago
Wasn't there a post last week about this company wanting to install cameras in your toilet?
AlexandrB 1y ago
Truly, life imitates art: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJklHwoYgBQ
- hermitcrab 1y ago
  LOL. But I'm sure I've seen worse things on 'Dragon's Den' (UK equivalent to 'Shark Tank').

nerdsniper 1y ago

There's a $30,000 bounty set up for anyone who can patch the firmware to eliminate the ads. Please consider contributing additional donations against the matching funds. https://bounties.fulu.org/bounties/samsung-familyhub-refrigerators https://bounties.fulu.org/bounties/samsung-familyhub-refrige...

wmeredith 1y ago
I lieu of a donation I'll continue to not pay for ad-laden garbage.
martinky24 1y ago
That website has never once paid out a bounty? hmm...
- simoncion 1y ago
  It looks to be a very new program. While the fulu.org domain has been around for a long time, archive.org's oldest snapshot of bounties.fulu.org is from late last week. This press release from Oct. 23rd agrees with archive.org's snapshot history: <https://fulu-foundation.ghost.io/repair-bounty-program/ https://fulu-foundation.ghost.io/repair-bounty-program/>. Given the complexity of the tasks on offer, I'm unsurprised that zero of them have been completed in three days. Give those boffins some time, yeah?
  - ehnto 1y ago
    I think the bounty aspect of it is incredibly new, the operator only released an announcement video a week or less ago.
commandersaki 1y ago
I recall Louis saying that some (or all?) solutions to these bounties cannot be revealed to the public due to being liable under DMCA circumvention measures. IANAL.
- 1y ago

daveguy 1y ago

Just replaced a Samsung fridge. It was the worst I have ever had, and it wasn't even kludged up with smart-ai-internet-advertisement bullshit yet. The compressor went out after about 12 years (which is apparently good for current refrigerator manufacturing - yikes). But the ice maker and operation panel had been on the fritz for at least 4 years before that. I went with a Frigidaire + 5 year extended warranty. Much better use of internal space, nothing smart, dual ice makers. Only negative is it's kinda noisy and runs often due to the compressor being sized for "efficiency". Fingers crossed.

schaefer 1y ago

boycotted for life. All products.

Dan4ik_Owl 1y ago

Where is Gilfoyle when we need him so much?

klysm 1y ago

The backlash from this doesn’t show up on a spreadsheet so here we go!

Beijinger 1y ago

FYI: Out of curiosity, just googled it "No, Samsung fridges do not run on webOS; they use Samsung's own Tizen operating system. LG is the brand that uses webOS in its smart refrigerators. "

ge96 1y ago

Recently saw this clip about a public bathroom where the toilet paper dispenser had a screen on it/qr code you had to scan, watch an ad to get the TP... interesting if true.

bschwindHN 1y ago
You know, ads printed on toilet paper would be entertaining.

kavenkanum 1y ago

One needs to be rally dumb to buy a smart fridge

JuniperMesos 1y ago

I've never purchased a refrigerator in my life - every place I've lived in my adult life has been a rental where I wasn't the one picking the appliances. What happens when I'm looking for a place to live, and I find somewhere that meets my requirements, except that the landlord has this Samsung smart fridge in the kitchen - maybe they thought this was a selling point, like the landlord I had who put the fact that they had a Google Nest thermostat proudly in the apartment ad (I deliberately never gave it my WiFi password)?

atum47 1y ago

Galaxy S2 was the best phone I ever had. I think it was pure Android, if not, you had some minor apps from Samsung that you could've delete. I think I left the Samsung train right about S5 (which was supposed water proof, but it wasn't). It was just down fall from there. Samsung account, locked phone full with shitty apps that you couldn't remove (without rooting)... I don't think I'll ever have anything from Samsung in the near future

askvictor 1y ago
I had the original Galaxy S, and that was very much not pure Android, and no other Galaxy I've had has been (so presume the S2 wasn't either). Prior to Android, they had their own OS, and wanted to continue the UI/UX rather than changing to Android.

neilv 1y ago

A lot of outrage in HN comments, but it's kinda ironic, because if you had to point at the single biggest concentration of people who built out surveillance capitalism and other facets of our digital dystopian future... Maybe the people complaining are the ones whose employers don't even sell out people with third-party trackers on their Web site. But I see more than 3 people complaining.

prawn 1y ago

Can't stand behaviour like this. I pay for Spotify and the app now shows paid suggestions (cough ads), to paying users. When you tap the ellipsis and choose "Not interested", it doesn't respond with "OK, we'll stop" but something like 'We'll show less of this'. No, don't show less, I want you to not show it at all.

smoe 1y ago
I switched away from Spotify a couple of years ago because of this, after having been a paying customer for around 10 years. But I fear all such services will eventually succumb to this, given just how much more lucrative ads can be compared to subscriptions.
- qwerpy 1y ago
  I did the same, and switched to Apple Music. Soon after that, Apple Music started injecting their F1 movie soundtrack into suggested music for me. There really is no escape from this. They haven't done it since, so at least it's not as bad as what Spotify does. If I come across a good offline music player for iOS I will probably cancel my Apple Music subscription.
  - MangoToupe 1y ago
    Is suggested music not already an ad? Why not just listen to your library?
  - RamblingCTO 1y ago
    That's not an ad and sounds like a you problem. I've never had the F1 soundtrack being played on radio/random and I do listen to a lot of soundtracks.
- hdgvhicv 1y ago
  Last time I checked the sky tv financials, subscription revenue outweighed advertising revenue about 10:1, is for every £30 subscription they took £3 in adverts.
1y ago

jmward01 1y ago

This is why I have so few 'smart' devices in my life. It is obvious that all of these devices are predatory. They start off 'helpful' and 'useful' and then turn malicious when you can't easily replace them. Lock-in bait and switch should be illegal.

nicbou 1y ago
Or they are neutered by a software update, or stop working when the company shuts down the servers that make them work.

luxuryballs 1y ago

Samsung SSDs I remember, do they still make good ones? I won’t buy the washer and dryer from them again, and probably not the dishwasher even though for the price it has been good.

nicbou 1y ago

Samsung is one of these companies that are so consistently scummy that I outright refuse to buy any of their products. They are forever blacklisted.

platevoltage 1y ago

"You're going to have to PI-hole your refrigerator" wasn't on my 2025 bingo card.

gus_massa 1y ago

I bought a Samsung notebook in ~2008. No crapware! Nice and small, it survived long beyond the guaranty date. My cellphone decided to die last month. It was near retirement, but still working until it didn't. I bought a Samsung phone. First it asked twice if I wanted to share all my life with Google (using some dark patterns) and then it asked twice if I wanted to share all my life with Samsung (using more dark patterns). (After that, I installed WhatsApp, so I'm not sure I bothered.) Next the phone offered to install the app from my carrier, TikTok and a ¿third? app-store. I didn't want them so in the screen with the offer I disabled the first and the other two were disabled by default. Anyway, I got TikTok and the other app for some reason! (I uninstalled them inmediately.) I still get random notifications, like complaining that I'm using the phone too much. Or a notification that they upgraded something, restarted the phone and all apps notifications were disabled until I unlock it. (Lucky, I didn't miss any important urgent message.)

estimator7292 1y ago
I quit buying Samsung when my phone rebooted into a forced update while I was using it with a customer and then fucking bricked itself. Not to mention a new notification to accept the new Samsung terms and conditions every two weeks.

aj_icracked 1y ago

I have the Samsung Frame TV (great TV btw) and decided I didn't want to pay the $5 / month to have curated art in the room and when Superman the movie came out a few months ago it was only displaying Superman comics on the screen. Was super annoying bc was subtle but not subtle enough. I uploaded family pics instead so I don't have that anymore but it was still pretty annoying. I have samsung washers / dryers / dishwasher etc all connected to the internet and I love the notifications when a load is done but I don't know how useful the data is... I assume data brokers are like, "Oh Aj uses his washing machine 7 times a month let's hit him with Tide ads", but I assume everyone uses the machine that much. I'm fine having my machines tell Samsung use bc it's normal usage (i think?)

move-on-by 1y ago
If you are thinking of data - you have to think of meta data. Instead of how often you do laundry think more: * number of adults in the house hold (people who have access to the account) * when you are home * opening fridge/doing laundry/etc. I have no idea if their app has an excuse to ask for location- but app location tracking would be the most valuable data * even if you don’t share location- these things are on your network and any regular and simple network scanning would show when certain devices are home and we they are not home and what schedules they follow This isn’t even very imaginative, just the basics really. I would not be surprised if you could guess the household size solely based on the number of times a fridge is opened in a day. You could at least determine between a person without a family vs. family- that’s useful for ads. Are these the fridges that have cameras in them ‘so you can see what you have while at the grocery store’? Throw some image detection in there and you now know brand targeting and if they cook regularly or eat out. A goldmine of data really.
dmoreno 1y ago
I use home assistant and a smart plug to get notifications when the socket has less than 1w load for 5 mins -> washing machine finished. Maybe one of the best automations I have. And all local.
pndy 1y ago
I've bought Frame as well because our 10 years old Philips tv got a nasty dead pixels bar mid screen that made watching tv really annoying - prob moisture got inside. I was curious how Samsung's ecosystem looks like in comparison to Apple's and tbh, I didn't expect the main hub app asking for location access way before even looking up for the devices. But that was a hard no for me. I just left all of that alone - we have a ISP set-top box that comes with FTTH tv and few services so I don't need to log in anywhere else. Mother has a hearing aid and she wanted to try Bluetooth connection - devices paired without mobile app but she couldn't lower volume down on tv nor on her device, even with aid's own app. It still wasn't as bad as expected. I read some of the experiences people had where they couldn't even get into the home screen of tv before agreeing for network connection or login to some cloud services. Fiends got some 4k Samsung for their new house - it comes with some AI features because of course it does. They said that they couldn't easily find picture controls and every show was automatically adjusted on brightness, saturation etc., making anything pain to watch. They also got washing machine/dryer combo from Samsung as well - weeks after someone posted on our discord server video from Polish store where bunch of guys "hacked" similar smart-enabled machine and launched... youtube with that dancing "6 grams" cow clip. What a time to be alive.

shreddit 1y ago

It’s so sad. Smart devices were meant to make life easier. Now all they do is to be another platform for ads. AI is going the same way. In the end it’s always going to be ads. Is just sad.

hdgvhicv 1y ago
Adverts are a cancer. They infect and destroy everything. HN loves them as the majority work or want to work for advertising firms.

ReptileMan 1y ago

Okay - so fridge is something that you buy, you put it on 3 degrees Celsius and you forget about it for the next 12 years. What exactly smartness gives?

crm9125 1y ago

As a human, I'm FUCKING TIRED OF ADS.

jimjimjim 1y ago

Once they have paved the way and built the infrastructure, most fridges will come with some sort of display. Probably just a small status display. But these fridges will be much cheaper, subsidized by the Ad opportunities. It happened with most mainstream TVs making people expect cheap TVs to the point where they will dismiss a TV with "normal" price.

pclowes 1y ago

Honestly, stuff like this makes me want to leave my smart phone in the garage when I get home and have a single desktop linux box that is in a “computer room” hardwired and the house has no wifi or smart anything and every other screen goes into the trash.

dramm 1y ago

Zero chance I'll purchasing any household device from Samsung. Not with all the crapware and spyware they pile onto their systems. Zero chance I'd purchase a household appliance with a large screen. WTF would I want that for. More garbage annoying crap and more to go wrong. The never ending chimes about everything on our Mellie clothes dryer was annoying enough... (and oh it wants to connect to the WiFi? Good luck with that. Terrible menu UI. I'll never buy one of those again either). I like to think in future there migh be Harry Tuttle like appliance repair vigilantes that come out and remove all this crap from home appliances. :-)

technion 1y ago
I want to agree with you. But we said this about TVs and a bit later you couldn't buy a TV that wasn't giving you a "recommendations" feed or whatever.
- dramm 1y ago
  Yes, it's just evil. I sure would not buy a Samsung TV laden with crap, I just will not do it. I run an old high-end commercial plasma display and otherwise watch video on dumb computer monitors or iPads. And yes I know, an iPad is far from a dumb device.
pndy 1y ago
> The never ending chimes Have you ever heard Samsung washing machine doing Franz Schubert's The Trout at the end of cycle? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TpRsLdKVAg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TpRsLdKVAg
- dramm 1y ago
  I had an old Samsung washing machine and it was annoying with chimes, maybe it was not Schubert or I never realized it.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

bitwize 1y ago

Next up is the update that makes the refrigerator refuse to cool your food without an annual subscription. Oh, and the ads don't go away.

dineol 1y ago

next step is they're gonna make ad-free version with an additional monthly fee

fud101 1y ago

I upgraded my Samsung phone to the latest One Ui version and i've been having a frustrating time with it. Turns out months later I discovered they have changed the behaviour to work best for Right Handed users. I found a setting that allowed me to flip that and now i'm able to use my phone again.

mixxit 1y ago

Sometimes I wonder if developers are exempt from responsibility much like a soldier for following orders

dawnerd 1y ago

Of course they would do this. They did this with their top of the line 4k tvs when they first came out. Everything was great, their OS and such worked wonderfully then they started to inject ads for gamefly into notifications and it went downhill from there. Ads in a 200 dollar tv I understand. Ads on a 5 thousand dollar tv? Absolutely unacceptable.

ehnto 1y ago
I know it's not your intention, but it does illustrate another divide between rich and poor. I guess some would say they'd rather a cheap TV with ads over no TV, but I imagine TV companies could still make an affordable TV without ads if mandated to remove ads. They just choose the ad route for more profit.
- hdgvhicv 1y ago
  Paying more doesn’t guarentee cutting out the adverts.

BLKNSLVR 1y ago

Off-topic-ish: I've got a TCL Smart TV that, by default, runs Google TV (which, to my understanding, is a rebranded newer version of Android TV). The default launcher / interface, which contains ads and has only minimal customisation options, can only be changed by installing an alternative launcher disabling some permissions via adb. Having followed the instructions to do it, it's much nicer having beautiful background images (rather than ads for crappy TV shows and movies) and a cleaner interface with at least one less click required to get to the apps I want (ie. a better UX). TCL TVs are not a particularly premium product, so I'm not too annoyed about having to go this little bit of effort to make it nicer. However, a $3,500 fridge seems like a premium-ish price, and so to also have ads on that feels incredibly tacky to the point it cheapens the product and the brand overall.

yosame 1y ago
Could you share a guide for how you did this? I've got a TCL TV, and it's constantly frustrating how it shows laggy ads.
- BLKNSLVR 1y ago
  I'll have to get back to you. I had to go through the process three or four times to get it to stick across reboots and not leave me with a useless TV just showing a black screen (I had a panic moment when that happened). You can ask Perplexity, but this doesn't give the adb commands to disable the default launcher (which you need to do so that it doesn't override what the user has chosen upon reboot): https://www.perplexity.ai/search/how-do-i-install-project-ivy-a-HbWLPhILQFyDjwVxjQxrNg https://www.perplexity.ai/search/how-do-i-install-project-iv... I should also mention: This may render some of the TV remote shortcut buttons useless. There's an app that's meant to help with this, but I've found it unreliable. I'll find my notes tonight...
- gblargg 1y ago
  Disable Internet access. An Internet-connected smart TV is one update away from a bricked device.
- aix1 1y ago

bgwalter 1y ago

They also offer Jian Yang's "AI" fridge from the Silicon Valley comedy show: https://www.samsung.com/us/home-appliances/refrigerators/bespoke/bespoke-29-cu-ft-4-door-french-door-refrigerator-with-ai-family-hub-ai-vision-inside-in-charcoal-glass-and-stainless-steel-rf90f29aecraa/ https://www.samsung.com/us/home-appliances/refrigerators/bes...

sidewndr46 1y ago

Finally, manufacturer's can be liberated from the opressive existence of a world without advertising revenue

Havoc 1y ago

Are there any other fridge brands up to such nonsense? About to buy one. Guessing anything without screen is reasonably safe

puppycodes 1y ago

Samsung products are shipping with what feels dangerously close to malware these days

lostlogin 1y ago

Wonder if you could stop this with Pihole? I had to go to contortions with a tv from Samsung, but did manage to force all port 53 traffic to go via Pihole. I believe this method may have been broken by Samsung/Google et al somehow though?

hdgvhicv 1y ago
The world’s largest advertising company pushed DoH to get around pi holes.
pndy 1y ago
Not sure if that still even a thing but I remember reading here about plans of companies to include SIM module so "smart" devices could connect to the Internet without need for home network access. That would of course bypass solutions like Pi-hole

2OEH8eoCRo0 1y ago

I disconnected the wifi from my fridge. Opened the back and unplugged it from the board

nyell 1y ago

Never bought a Samsung phone, TV or Fridge. Smart is now translating into "Ad-injection" in various appliances and I hope this backfires!

jp0d 1y ago

Soon there will be a subscription model to use certain features in the fridge! Spherical ice and fast cooling will cost $9.99 per month!

petepete 1y ago
With the $15.00 per month Pro Chef subscription you can enable the freezer compartment.

cutler 1y ago

Smart fridge. Get a life.

7373737373 1y ago

Does a website exist that lists products only by companies who respect their customers?

hollow-moe 1y ago
about:blank

jesse_dot_id 1y ago

Neat, another brand I don't have to consider when purchasing appliances in the future. Saves me time at a glance!

not4uffin 1y ago

Bound to happen eventually...

chrisweekly 1y ago

Their unbelievably poorly-designed icemakers are already a reason I'll never buy another Samsung fridge. Now this? Yikes.

userbinator 1y ago

integrated 21.5- or 32-inch (depending on the model) screen I don't want a fridge with a screen or any connections except power. All it needs to do is keep my food cold. I've had others very surprised to see my house containing mostly mid-century dumb appliances. I deal with enough problems caused by software at work, to know better than to bring that hassle home.

sussmannbaka 1y ago

Every frog will be boiled. Remember this when you argue “oh but it will still be possible to sideload via adb” “oh but you can turn it off” “oh but you only need it on the first run” “at least they don’t…” You won’t be able to. It will be mandatory. They will do it. If you give these companies an inch, they’ll take a mile. The moment they don’t actively work entirely aligned with your interests, they work against you.

aanet 1y ago

There IS a market for non-internet-connected devices: - fridges - toasters - TVs - home appliances - what-have-you Whoever makes those, take my $€£¥ For everything else, there are crappier alternatives from all the consumer electronics OEMs

Hansenq 1y ago

Everyone here seems to hate on the idea of seeing ads on an appliance you purchased. I hate ads too! But, let's consider the counterfactual. What if Samsung offered you a new fridge for free, as long as you were ok with passive ads? I hate ads, but I'm not sure I would pass up a free fridge...those things are expensive! (this is not even that unrealistic. Let's say you have a household of 3 and a fridge lasts 10 years. Meta makes about $200 per year per user solely from showing ads; that's $6000 over 10 years. If Samsung got as good as Meta is (which they likely won't), 6k is more than enough to cover the cost of giving a fridge away for free)

lifter3101 1y ago
Are they going to lock the fridge for 30 seconds each time you want to open it so that they make sure you finish watching the ad?
pndy 1y ago
> What if Samsung offered you a new fridge for free, as long as you were ok with passive ads? I'd still buy a normal fridge from a different vendor. There's absolutely no reason why fridge needs a display screen nor any "smart" features. And no ad deal would convince me because next thing that would come after this would be the obvious "watch ads to unlock the fridge". Household appliances are meant to work for years - sure, now lifespan is way shorter than used to be but these aren't phones we're replacing every 3 years or so. The fridge we once had lasted 25 up until cooling unit failed and there was no way to replace it or fix. I hope you rolled some really low bait here because if you really think like that then... I sincerely feel sorry for you.
g-b-r 1y ago
Did they do it? Did we get free TVs, free cars and free phones?

KnuthIsGod 1y ago

SO glad that I avoided buying that nice looking Samsung fridge.

johngossman 1y ago

Iirc, Chris Whittle proposed this idea of refrigerator advertising in the 1980s. Seemed dystopian then. Ugh.

jimbohn 1y ago

Your smart appliances are my opportunity

MangoToupe 1y ago

Why on earth does a fridge have a screen in the first place?

TheChaplain 1y ago
To change settings, others also have a camera inside the fridge so you can see on screen the contents without opening it.
- MangoToupe 1y ago
  How did we manage to figure out a less convenient interface than a door and dial?
  - wiseowise 1y ago
    What do you mean? It was always inconvenient for the manufacturer. How do you show ads on a dial anyway?
- draven 1y ago
  Why don't they make part of the door with that magical see-through material my windows are made of ?
  - PetitPrince 1y ago
    Glass is not a good thermal insulator, and is more expensive than plastic.
    - draven 1y ago
      My windows are insulated. Is it more expensive than a screen/camera/electronics ?
      - PetitPrince 1y ago
        I see that a insulated (triple layer) window around 100 euros [ https://www.leroymerlin.fr/produits/bauplaza-fenetre-en-pvc-blanc-double-vitrage-4-24-4-lxh-40-x-50-cm-ouverture-droite-toutes-les-tailles-400-x-500-mm-oscillo-battant-93385062.html https://www.leroymerlin.fr/produits/bauplaza-fenetre-en-pvc-... ]. Let's assume this retailer makes a 2x margin, so real cost is 50 euro. A webcam on Aliexpress is around 5 euros. Throw in a microcontroller that's like 2 euros on aliexpress, a 10 euro screen and you still have a 30-ish euro budget for the actual door that's probably plastic (acrylic and something like PE ?). So yeah, probably more expensive. But that doesn't means that doesn't exists ! We can see that all the time in supermarket, but I guess their needs are different.

Aslima 1y ago

[flagged]

curvaturearth 1y ago

Nope nope nope

aszantu 1y ago

Stopped buying Samsung phone because I couldn't disable some stupid assistant button with ai subscription on the last one. I'm really sad because Samsung was always a good brand to me

taegee 1y ago

Who needs a smart fridge anyway? It cools, and annoys as hell when you leave it open.

YcYc10 1y ago

Who will buy this? This is insane.

dominicrose 1y ago

I actually checked the date to see if we were April first. Turns out it's pretty far away!

assimpleaspossi 1y ago

>>The box will change what it displays “every 10 seconds,” the publication said. OT - This reminds me of the digital billboards on the highway that change before one has the chance to understand what it's advertising. I don't even have the chance to count the seconds before the ad changes much less see what it's advertising.

wvh 1y ago

Richard Stallman was onto something.

npteljes 1y ago

Funny that they do that after the purchases have been made. Goes to show how much bundled services upset the user-manufacturer relationship, to the detriment of the user. Using a service is an ongoing relationship, and relationships change over time, sometimes for the worse. This needs to be factored in as risk, every time someone makes a purchase that includes a service.

geroff 1y ago

Obviously, this is not a change aimed at enticing customers but instead expanding revenue streams. And its obvious that all western governments hand-wringing over green and efficient energy usage falls apart as long manufacturers like Samsung, AWS, Sony are allowed to waste network bandwidth and chew up consumer and industry energy supply on superfluous pointless fluff like adverts where they are not needed or welcome. It is proof again that Advertising is really about pushing messaging at people rather than selling anything. Samsung already lost me with removing expandable storage in premium phones. Now they have reached levels of avoid that will push me to any alternative that respects the customer's usage needs.

HeavyStorm 1y ago

Enshitfication at its best.

joshstrange 1y ago

The idea of paying for a $2k fridge that has a $30* android board running a large screen is just absurd to me. Not only was this kind of enshittification almost a given, but we all know how well manufacturers update devices like this. Security issues aside, you just know that the software is going to slowly rot (Think: Widget to show tweets before Twitter closed the API down). If you feel so inclined to have a touch screen on your fridge then you'd be better off getting some random tablet and sticking it to the fridge. I _love_ my home automation/smart house devices but I wouldn't touch one of these with a 10ft pole. * That might be a bit high

lunias 1y ago

I worry about the thought process of the average consumer. Who exactly is buying these? How have smart fridges not been a colossal failure?

verdverm 1y ago

Hopefully DNS level ad blocking will help here, and even more hopefully consumers will reject smart appliances. I'd never buy one

OptionOfT 1y ago
It's probably work like IMDb does on your phone. All ads are piped through the same domain as useful data.
ebbi 1y ago
Neither. In a world where everyone is trying to be more eco conscious, it seems like a joke that manufacturers are slapping screens on the most menial of things.
teeray 1y ago
“Looks like you have an ad-blocker. Disable it to reactivate cooling.”
annoyingnoob 1y ago
I'll never ever buy a 'smart' appliance. I'll go caveman first. Keeping food cold and/or cooking it does not require the Internet.
- Ballas 1y ago
  Even the unnecessary microcontrollers in modern devices irk me. A fridge does not need a microcontroller. (My issue is primarily repairability - discrete components can be sourced and replaced, microcontrollers with the correct programming usually cannot.)
- verdverm 1y ago
  Or import one yourself
thesuitonym 1y ago
They won't. Smart devices tend to be cheap because the manufacturer is double-dipping by selling telemetry and advertising.

philips 1y ago

Why is this the best business model we can collectively execute on? Whether it is AI, home cameras, or fridges it seems to just come back to, welp, lets slap an ad on it.

notatoad 1y ago
because it's essentially free money with no consequences.
mrguyorama 1y ago
The line must go up. By a percentage every year. Compounding. This was always an obvious outcome. What the outcome actually happening is indicative of however is that consumers are very very very bad at their job (consuming the best products) and do not have enough rights. If a customer was entitled to a working product without this kind of deficiency, and we had courts that actually applied punishments to large corporations (instead of unilaterally and without justification, significantly reducing fines to nothing) we wouldn't have this problem. It wouldn't be possible to profit off of this kind of advertising because you would be too busy signing court documents about how you suck at building stuff. There's only so many human beings who can buy your fridge. There's only so cheap you can build your fridge. There's only so much you can charge for your fridge. But line must go up. This is simply what it looks like when the people with money and resources decide that a stable and reliable profit is a Failed business.
keybored 1y ago
Why do you address us as if we collectively went down to the town center and three dozen times in a row and decided on the same thing by consensus? For most of us this was shoved down our throats by sheer force of violence. And why always this oh shucks apologia about the “business model” that they are supposedly forced to adapt? No, this fridge already costs a lot of money. The ads don’t have to be recouping losses. They could just be for more profit.
wiseowise 1y ago
Who said anything about the best? It’s the strategy that makes most revenue in the shortest amount of time. The execs will receive their bonuses in two years and then move to the next company to grift again, and again, until they retire.

bmau5 1y ago

I'd understand if the ads were subsidizing the purchase price significantly, but this still seems to be in line with their highest pricing.

pavel_lishin 1y ago

> Samsung also said that its fridges will only show contextualized ads, instead of personalized ads, which rely on collecting data on users. What is a contextualized ad?

Fwirt 1y ago
Probably ads for things that you would think of buying when you're standing near the fridge in the kitchen. So not Clash of Clans but La Croix.
- mrweasel 1y ago
  Well, they probably won't be able to sell enough ad space to supermarkets, so people will get ads for "World of Tanks" and sports betting.
immibis 1y ago
Personalized ads are based on your user profile (ads for motorbikes because you're tagged as someone who loves motorbikes). Contextualized ads are based on where and when they're being displayed (ads for food delivery on the fridge late at night) but not on your user profile. This is the advertising industry, so they're probably lying, or they're not lying yet but they plan to add personalized ads later.
jandrese 1y ago
Ads for things it overheard you talking about recently.
r0ckarong 1y ago
Don't some of these have "smart" features to detect what is actually in your fridge and tell you if you run out? I would think removing the last piece of butter could trigger an ad for whatever cow-milk-fat substitute won the highest bid on the brainfuck raffle that day would be shown to you.
- abdullahkhalids 1y ago

liendolucas 1y ago

You do not buy a smart appliance. Period. A fridge, oven, toaster, washing machine, bed do not need to be smart. Smart is the consumer that is able to spot all this BS ideas that are putting in front of us and avoids it as much as it can.

MattPalmer1086 1y ago
I don't buy smart devices, unless they work fine without the smart stuff and it's a good buy. I have a "smart" TV because it's a great TV, but it only has HDMI cables plugged into it and no internet connection.
seanmcdirmid 1y ago
I bought a vented Samsung washer/dryer combo recently. I have to say I like it a lot, probably because its a combo and I no longer have to transfer clothes from washer to dryer. The fact that is Samsung definitely makes me feel nervous however (how long will it last?). Unfortunately, they were the only one to make a vented combo so far (I should have waited for more options, but I'm still OK with it). We have a frame TV also and it worked nice for the very narrow use case we had.
drdaeman 1y ago
Disagree. Smart can be good, if you're actually in full control (whenever you contract the implementation to a company or own it). The real problem is, there's not much on the market that respects the consumers in this regard. Ask for an SLA on a smart fridge functionality and you'll be met with a confusion and possibly a revelation there's nothing of a kind. It's all ignored because most consumers don't ask questions about reliability, functionality, security and control - they don't think of those. And it's not a matter of technical or specialized knowledge, I'm sure even a caveman can understand "will this work tomorrow the exact same way it works today?" or "what happens to my fridge if you go out of business?" - it's a matter of awareness. People simply don't know yet how those new things can fail them. Eventually people will learn about the issues, and start asking maker companies those questions. But it's all too new today.
- 1y ago

perihelions 1y ago

> "Didn't you have ads in the 20th century?" > "Well, sure, but not in our dreams. Only on TV and radio, and in magazines, and movies, and at ball games, and on buses, and milk cartons, and T-shirts, and bananas, and written on the sky... But not in dreams."

joshstrange 1y ago
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPGgTy5YJ-g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPGgTy5YJ-g
Forgeties79 1y ago
Futurama right? When fry buys that underwear?
- messe 1y ago
  More than technically correct—the best kind of correct—you are plain correct. (I've used em-dashes since before LLMs and I'm not fucking stopping now) EDIT: s,',,
  - Forgeties79 1y ago
    I feel you on the em dashes lol
    - messe 1y ago
      My proudest typographical accomplishment is that use of em-dashes once got me a tinder date. ...it didn't go anywhere after that date. But I still have the anecdote.
      - Forgeties79 1y ago
        win’s a win
  - VladVladikoff 1y ago

djoldman 1y ago

> Samsung fridge owners can also opt to avoid the latest software update altogether. However, they would miss out on other features included in the software update, such as a UI refresh and the ability for the internal camera inside some fridges to identify more fruits and vegetables inside the fridge. The level of absurdity here with respect to "miss[ing] out on other features" strains credulity.

jandrese 1y ago
Well, I wouldn't say I was missing them. I don't know why I would connect a fridge to the Internet at all. Maybe there is a use case where you can get a picture of the contents of your fridge on your phone when you are out and about? Like you're at the grocery store and can't remember if you need to pick up milk or not?
- JonChesterfield 1y ago
  I could come around to a fridge that keeps track of the contents, including use by dates, prompts me to throw away things that are going bad and adds replacements to a periodic supermarket order.
- grebc 1y ago
  Buy the milk anyway, worst case so you’ve got 1L extra.

kstrauser 1y ago

This guarantees I'll never buy a Samsung appliance. If they're this willing to screw with their customers today, they'll do it again tomorrow. Sadly, I'm including their TVs in this. I have one today, displaying the output of an Apple TV and not directly connected to the Internet because hah, no way, but I'll be shopping around when it comes time to replace it. Pity. They make nice stuff. Not nice enough that I'm willing to tolerate their anti-customer shenanigans, but otherwise decent quality.

FuriouslyAdrift 1y ago
My house came with all Samsung appliances and I can't wait for all fo them to die. The dryer already went (8 years old). I've been replacing with mid-range LG on advice of the local repair company and been happy so far. Quirky and very few features but seems well built. Can't wait to replace the massive refrigerator and swap the gas range for inductive. Fridge is slowly going (cracked and leaking ice maker, condensation problem with deli drawer). I now know how my mom could justify the ridiculous expense of a Subzero refrigerator (around $6k back in 2000). That thing has only needed a couple of tune ups and no parts replacements in 20 years.
- Beijinger 1y ago
  8 years is pretty good. I personally like Bosch. Is a fridge with an icemaker not always problematic? How about biofilm? What is the advantage of an inductive stove? Will they even work in the US? I think in Europe they work with 360 V if I remember right. I realized two things: 1. You can cook nearly everything with a ricecooker. Just throw everything inside. Yes, even the minced meat on top. 2. An airfrier is better and faster than a shitty oven.
  - southwindcg 1y ago
    Only eight years for a dryer is definitely not pretty good in my mind. It's barely acceptable unless you have a huge family and are doing laundry daily. I had a low-end Capri (Sears house brand) that was 21 years old and still going strong when I moved away. It was serviced once, by me, to replace a fuse. If I'd paid twice as much and gotten only eight years out of one, I'd be furious.

christkv 1y ago

I got smart appliances not a single one is connected to the internet and never will.

baggachipz 1y ago

Way to punish your customers for paying you more. I know it's a trope, but this is the absolute textbook definition of enshittification.

tonyedgecombe 1y ago

I’ve seen enough of these stories to know that I will never buy any Samsung product. They are a repeat offender.

noir_lord 1y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3pYZwol6Dc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3pYZwol6Dc Silicon Valley parodied smart fridges nearly a decade ago.

dsign 1y ago

Samsung does make really great ad-free computer displays... that's as much as I'm willing to buy from them.

elAhmo 1y ago
It is kinda ridiculous to see this written "add-free computer display".

fourseventy 1y ago

I would rather go without household refrigeration than have the refrigerator that I own play ads in my house.

linsomniac 1y ago
I'd rather put foil tape over the display than go without refrigeration.
- aziaziazi 1y ago
  Does the door unlock if if the in-display camera can’t recognize your face though?
  - fwip 1y ago
    I didn't think that these fridges locked the door. Is that a "child proofing" feature you can enable or something?
- cik 1y ago
  Until it streams audio
  - linsomniac 1y ago
    Out comes the screwdriver...

rcarmo 1y ago

I've managed to mostly excise Samsung from my digital life (except for phones that family buys without my knowledge and that I have to troubleshoot), and I have been happier for it for many decades now. (This was after direct exposure to their Tizen engineering team back in the early 2000s) I stayed away from their phones, SmartTVs, everything.

cma 1y ago
They were caught uploading screenshots from content played on smart TVs. Ostensibly to sell ad tracking info like a Nielsen TV, but I'm pretty sure it meant they were capturing people's desktops with confidential corporate info etc. if you used the TV as a monitor. https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/samsung-smart-tvs-are-set-to-upload-screenshots-of-what-youre-watching/ https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/blog/samsung-smart-tvs...
- nomel 1y ago
  This isn't just Samsung! Nearly all of them use ACR [1]. [1] https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/how-to-turn-off-smart-tv-snooping-features-a4840102036 https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/how-to-t...
hn_acc1 1y ago
What phones do you recommend? I have an S21 FE I got free from Metro PCS (I got laid off, had to return company S20 phone). Others in the family have Pixel / moto. I get the feeling the later galaxy phones are much worse than the S21?
- TylerE 1y ago
  iPhone. Android is so crap laden.
  - stOneskull 1y ago
    i've been using android since the iphone 4s (i had one of those and thought it was very cool). i wanted freedom. but these days i'm thinking of changing up, back to iphone, and getting a mac laptop to replace this old thinkpad ashtray. i won't ash on the mac, at least not to start with. i'm tired of the crap. ubuntu is crap. why am i using a janky kde connect? i'd like to try xcode and other apple stuff. seriously, i think apple is going to start getting more marketshare in both phones and computers. i think people are tired of google and microsoft, and linux desktop distros. ps. i'm too old to care about pc gaming. i have a playstation for that.

steve_avery 1y ago

Why would I ever connect my fridge to the internet? I cannot fathom any feature on a fridge that would incline me towards giving it the wifi credentials.

fwip 1y ago
I don't think it's worth it myself, but here are some of the features of the Samsung Bespoke fridge that use wifi: Notifications and Alerts: If the door is left open, or the fridge temperature is leaving safe temps, or the water filter needs changing, it can send a push notification to your phone. (Useful if something fails; or if a kid/guest leaves the fridge open by mistake). Remote control and monitoring: You can use the camera to see the contents of the fridge. You can also adjust the temperature remotely. (Useful if you're at the grocery store and can't remember if you have milk?) It looks like they also have "AI" try to categorize these for you. Built-in tablet: The touchscreen is basically a builtin tablet. You can use it to display photos (pulled from your online albums), show the weather, or control "smart home" stuff like playing some music on your speakers. I imagine you could also try to put recipes or cooking videos on there. You can also easily order groceries from it or add to your shopping list (with your voice). I'd rather have a separate device for most of this, but I can understand the appeal, especially if you're not privacy-conscious.
maerF0x0 1y ago
What if your fridge could do an AI thing and the groceries to refill itself would just arrive? Could be a fantastic way to control your diet by only buying foods that satiated/goal oriented you approved (as opposed to hungry you walking down aisles of product placements in the grocery store)
- triceratops 1y ago
  Why do you need a fridge to do that? An AI agent with access to your Instacart account could do it. If you only buy groceries with that it knows roughly how many calories it purchased and you should've consumed since the last order.
  - 1y ago

xaedes 1y ago

In my opinion it is plain fraud: intentional deception to deprive a victim of a legal right or to gain from a victim unlawfully or unfairly.

stevepotter 1y ago

This ad nonsense aside, don't buy Samsung refrigerators. They are so awfully made and difficult to service that almost no appliance repair companies will touch them. I got suckered into buying one a few years back and it was awful. The ice maker didn't work, every few weeks I would sop up a gallon of condensation at the bottom of the cheese drawer, and eventually it just died. I went to a local appliance store and they chuckled when I told them. They would never carry that brand. Just fridges, don't want to talk about other appliances.

t1234s 1y ago

Is there an alternative OS scene for these types of appliances?

ReptileMan 1y ago
Yesterday I was seriously thinking about aftermarket control boards startup for some of my appliances (mostly the AC that has disgustingly low performance because of eco modes). Seems that there will be one for fridges too.
embedding-shape 1y ago
Not yet it seems, but if history is any good indication of the future, someone at one point will have their "You won't give me API access to my own goddamn fridge?!" moment and GNU.V2 will be born.

xoxxala 1y ago

This annoyed so much I actually wrote them a physical letter denouncing the practice and mailed it to their US corporate HQ. I haven't mailed a letter in years. Feels odd.

ratelimitsteve 1y ago

I have a samsung fridge, and that's enough for them to already be on my shit list. if you put a screen in my kitchen and force me to watch ads I'm going to physically shatter the screen, I don't care what other functionality it may have.

ChrisArchitect 1y ago

Previous outrages: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45291107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45291107 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45262808 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45262808 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45292666 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45292666

andreldm 1y ago

After not having a Samsung device for many years, I reluctantly bought a fridge from them (price was the decisive factor). Anyway, almost immediate regret, it features an always-on wifi network begging to be connected to the web, the only way to turn it off is to disconnect a cable from a circuit board, unbelievable.

hansvm 1y ago
It sounds defective. Return it.

pryelluw 1y ago

Can’t wait until I get those Lightspeed briefs adverts transmitted into my sleep.

daft_pink 1y ago

The headline is so insane. I’m not very interested in Samsung in general, because I use apple products and they don’t offer Dolby Vision on their TV’s, but the headline lol.

ath3nd 1y ago

[dead]

sylvainr65 1y ago

Apparently, you can turn off ads quite simply. * How to turn off ads on your Family Hub The widget will appear by default on the fridges as part of the software update. However, Samsung is giving users the option to turn off ads. To do this, go to the Settings page on the fridge, scroll to Advertisements, select it, and you’ll be taken to a screen where you can toggle off ads. This will remove the widget entirely. If you think you might actually like the widget’s other features (calendar, weather, and news), you can “X” out a particular ad, and it won’t pop up again. But then you’ll get another ad.

pavel_lishin 1y ago
I wonder how many ads are coming down the pipeline; can I remove all of them if I sit in front of my fridge for 15 minutes?
- dmitrygr 1y ago
  Cmon. You know better than that.
ncr100 1y ago
I would call that flow "complex." So, I disagree with you. Simple would be for the "X" button to offer to turn off Ads completely, do you disagree? (Disclaimer: I'm a pro / lifelong tech and both are "simple" to me. And to clarify my opinion, my Mom, who is a pro musician, would NOT discover / know how to find that option.)
beerandt 1y ago
Samsung marketplace on the phone used to have this- now it's just 'don't show this again today' button.
driverdan 1y ago
The simplest way is to not connect a refrigerator to the internet.
roskelld 1y ago
That button will soon become "Show fewer ads" if it doesn't just get removed at all. Just like how Youtube won't let you switch off Shorts, but will let you click "Show fewer" which lasts for a few weeks.

nailer 1y ago

They’ve been doing this for years. The Galaxy S III (yes three) shipped with an indelible Pizza Hut bookmark.

throwacct 1y ago

This is stupid. Companies are really trying to get people to hate everything tech related. From "smart" beds, to "smart" fridges, and with the "looming" job displacement due to "AI" and robotics, I could see how a "human-centric" economy or new wave of businesses and startups with a "human-centric" approach could develop in few years.

microflash 1y ago

At this point, anything from Samsung is a vehicle for ads, and anything with the word “smart” from Samsung is most likely a spyware. The amount of garbage I had to remove from a recently encountered Galaxy phone is on par with Windows 11 levels and some. Unfortunately, the entire industry is racing toward this behavior. Recent LGs have also started slapping “AI” stickers on their products. I’ve been visiting Rossman’s Consumer Wiki[1] more often than I’d like before making a purchase. [1]: https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Main_Page https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Main_Page

1970-01-01 1y ago

So a digital calendar with ads seems reasonable. What they don't mention is how much work they plan on putting into the maintenance. A $3k fridge should last decades, including the screen, software, and WiFi connection.

tandr 1y ago
Last decades? wipes the tear You surely forgot /s at end, I hope. The evil incarnation what is called "Samsung fridge" that I have in my kitchen required repairman's attention just 3 months after the purchase. And then every 3 months after. And children sacrifices, sorry - steam baths, for the ice maker every month or so. Samsung appliances - never again. PS. Repairman told me that Samsung have fixed already one of the problems my fridge has by the time he looked at it, kind of hidden recall and fix. Fridge's version (yes, they have versions) have advanced like 7 iterations already from the time I bought it. That means there were at least 7 serious design/manufacturing problems that they had to fix.
- hn_acc1 1y ago
  I mean.. that's based on the assumption that they actually care about delivering a working appliance.. As long as the spyware works, they don't really care about the "cooling food" part..

Nifty3929 1y ago

Horribly bad, and also bad precedent, but: "The ads experience, though, seems to have improved somewhat from the earlier pilot testing in that users can use their fridge’s settings menu to opt out of seeing ads. If users set their Cover Screen to show integrated Art or Album themes, then the display won’t show ads." So at least for now tech savvy, aware users can opt out. But I don't like where this is going. Maybe we can tape cardboard over the screens?

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