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100percentjake 16 hours ago [-]
Samsung smart appliances in general seem to occupy a similar place in the market to vehicles like the Chevy Traverse or Nissan Altima, where people with technical knowledge in that area know them to be absolute horrific maintenance and repair liabilities and yet the consumer base places them second to God.
Obviously the review of a brand-new device or vehicle with 100 miles on it is going to have a disconnect from the realities of 60k miles of rocky ownership but I remain baffled when people buy a 7 year old used V6 Traverse, a vehicle extremely well known for catastrophic engine failure, and if I question their decision I get a "the reviews were good!". It seems like journalistic malpractice to not retroactively update reviews with a warning when critical widespread shortcomings are found later in a products life.
torben-friis 16 hours ago [-]
People's algorithm for purchases is usually "what's the best bang for the buck where the name rings a bell".
I'm guilty of it as well, if forced to choose blindly I'd pick Sony over WMFSENSY. But I'm beggining to wonder, with the recent casualness with which brands lower quality, whether they'll be a generational change and people will start ignoring brands entirely.
I'm starting to change my mind myself. My last Nike shoes weren't even the same size/shape (apparently they make left and right shoes in different countries now). At that point might as well go for the knockoffs.
pjc50 16 hours ago [-]
> (apparently they make left and right shoes in different countries now)
This feels like a joke about just in time inventory and globalization, but I'm worried that it might be true.
torben-friis 15 hours ago [-]
I wish it was a joke, I was being serious. I guess it keeps them from the factory producing extra to sell as knockoffs, or the product being "lost in transit" or whatever.
inanutshellus 15 hours ago [-]
I'm curious of source on this being more than anecdotal?
The most natural way for shoe mismatches is from the showroom. Customer grabs 5 pairs, tries some on, they get mixed up when returning to stock. Same shoe and size (hopefully, lol), but different production number and different factory/origin.
wolrah 13 hours ago [-]
How often do you really expect a customer is grabbing multiple pairs of the same size/model/color of shoe to try on? Maybe it's just where I shop but it's rare that there's even more than one example of the size I need in the style/color I want to allow such a scenario to occur.
inanutshellus 12 hours ago [-]
I looked (briefly) online for evidence of the factory claim and found none.
GP didn't give enough context ("MY shoes are weird so I extrapolated" vs "I know this is true; here's proof."), but the casual one-off scenario is absolutely a showroom level of "random happens".
Babysitting all those individual shoes and styles and sizes seems ... expensive, logistically.
In fact, if this were a thing, I'd imagine they'd start offloading them as though it were a cool feature. "Want to mix-n-match shoes? buy just a left!"
yread 15 hours ago [-]
It probably significantly reduces theft by employees though
mlok 7 hours ago [-]
Wild guess : It might be to make it harder to steal a pair from the factory if you can only get half of it ?
gmjn 15 hours ago [-]
imagine the overhead of an extra location to box pairs of shoes. Where these employees steal these boxed pairs. good joke.
It’s really not that unusual to manufacture in bulk at one facility and package in another.
Also let’s multiple “competitors” consolidate packaging into one big operation. Or localized to destination. Also a space thing: can ship more in bulk and make it all fluffier closer to point of sale.
Shoeboxes, among other packages, are a lot of air, why fill your truck/container/aircraft “unit load device” with it.
100percentjake 14 hours ago [-]
I'm not immune. I recently bought some New Balance shoes from Sheels, figuring I'd be getting reasonable quality footwear. Both sets had hole damn near worn through the soles and delamination in multiple locations after ~6 months of wearing them as an office worker who does no abnormal amount of walking or exercise in them. Come to find out their "non flagship" models are cheaply made garbage as opposed to the quintessential white leather model that costs, iirc, the upper $300 range and is made in America.
steveBK123 9 hours ago [-]
There's so many companies reputation-tarnishing themselves by doing this "we sell a lesser line thats actually terrible" thing. Why do you think I will now trust you with more money for an upgraded model? You've just made me skeptical of your brand entirely.
I've sworn off Bosch appliances after a 2 year fiasco of service calls with one of their dishwashers. The thing was still about $900 plus install. At what price point am I to believe it's not the worse-on-purpose line, as they cheapen the product every year. They seem to have models from $700 to $2000.
A bad $900 model sours me on gambling that the $1200, $1500 or $2000 model is the good one this year.
sgarland 3 hours ago [-]
The Bosch 800 series dishwashers are god-tier, or at least they were as of 5 years ago, when I last bought one. I've had one in the last 3 houses, and went so far recently as to swap my new house's dishwasher (I think a Whirlpool something-or-other) with my old house's Bosch 800, because it was a cross-town move, and I could.
bombcar 8 hours ago [-]
“Selling the brand” or whatever it’s called. Lots of money to be made.
BobbyTables2 3 hours ago [-]
I don’t understand modern shoes.
Seems like almost everything moderately priced has soles made of a extremely
lightweight, squishy soft plastic that neither has much traction nor any toughness — worse than cheap flip-flop material.
Shoe companies should be embarrassed to put their name on such crap, yet they try to pass it off as premium.
2 hours ago [-]
tacon 14 hours ago [-]
A more likely scenario is that display shoes of the same nominal size/model can be made in different factories, and when they are reboxed to be sold, they end up in a box from the wrong factory. Different factories make the same model but can have differences in processes so the shoes are noticeably different. Having left and right made in separate factories, much less countries, would be a total nightmare of inventory management.
yonatan8070 5 hours ago [-]
> My last Nike shoes weren't even the same size/shape
This is something that frustrates me to no end. How are clothing item sizes not standardized yet?
For example, I recently went to buy new Jeans, so I went to the same store where I got my current Jeans, asked for a size 28, and tried it on. How is it possible that my size 28W Basic Straight Jeans from Fox fit me, while a pair that fits the exact same description is too small?
I later went to a different branch, and there I found another pair which fits the exact same description, and it did fit me!
I have encountered this type of thing inany places, like when buying shoes one of the employees at the store told me "We don't have this in size 42 in stock, but we do have 41 and our sizes are larger".
Imagine if you went to McMaster Carr and asked for an M3 screw, and being told "We are out of M3, but our M2.5 is larger so it should work for you"
necovek 1 hours ago [-]
Someone shopping for an M3 screw would not be interested it trying out a smaller one, but research has shown that people are interested in trying on a smaller size with clothes ;)
However, clothes are nearly impossible to simultaneously standardize and commoditize: people (and their feet) come in all shapes and sizes, so different brands in particular, but also different lines of those brands, will have different proportions.
As a tall guy, I hate that clothes keep growing in width with larger sizes, but rarely grow in length (pants/trousers included), but only because you can't get things without trying them on in multiple sizes.
If you do not understand why standardized sizes are not mandated or something similar, just look at any bespoke garment creation and all the variable measures being taken for a shirt, pants or jacket — just make realistic combination of all of them in different sizes, and you are looking at ~1000 "standard sizes" or more.
m463 11 hours ago [-]
> and people will start ignoring brands entirely
One problem is that business forces keep turning brands into rugpulls.
After enough of this nonsense, brands are less of a reliable indicator.
Amazon pushed that to its inevitable endgame, where each product is a unique look-at-reviews situation. (and coincidentally the amazon advertising business is there while you run the product choosing guantlet)
m4tthumphrey 14 hours ago [-]
Enshittification is only going to get worse just like everything else.
catlikesshrimp 11 hours ago [-]
Older brands have a motive to care for their reputation, because if people know *oldbrand* is bad. they will avoid *oldbrand* and it dies.
On the contrary, *insertanynonenglishnamebrand* (*newbrand*) doesn't need to have any care in the world. If the product is trash, they would replace the name next year, bonus points if they declare bankrupcy and don't pay their obligations.
pessimizer 15 hours ago [-]
> if forced to choose blindly I'd pick Sony over WMFSENSY.
Only at the same price. If there's a big discount, I'm going to prefer the random letter jumble from China because it's probably a standard design that a lot of factories are producing because it works well enough.
The only reason I lean towards Sony all things being equal is because I know that Sony gets sued when things go wrong, and won't just drop the brand and close up shop like the random letter jumble.
Also I would prefer Sony if lead would be a problem somewhere in the thing I'm buying.
Dan_- 15 hours ago [-]
And then you find you’re powering a residential proxy bot net.
Oh, definitely nothing that goes on the network whose firmware that I'm not in control of. But that goes double for Sony.
edit: I must add - except for this cheap Android phone from the carrier. But I head it off at the router.
nkrisc 15 hours ago [-]
You know that. Most people don’t.
bitwize 15 hours ago [-]
I bought a "mini retro TV" device from China. It's basically a cheap motherboard from an Android TV device MacGyvered into a case with its own small LCD display. It's got two old-timey toggle switches in the back: one for power and one for input select which doesn't work. I figured out what device it originally came from and put a build of Armbian for that device on it. I won't let its stock Android OS connect to the internet or my network for all the tea in—er, well...
dieselgate 15 hours ago [-]
To be fair mentioning Nike is kind of a straw man here — unless being explicit with the model/style. They manufacturer to many different price points, more than an auto maker.
pjc50 16 hours ago [-]
> extremely well known for catastrophic engine failure
The problem with this is it's a bit hard to put "well known" in a news article about a negative piece of news, because the manufacturers tend to threaten to sue you unless you have some kind of source or some kind of actual numbers. So this ends up just circulating as received wisdom within the car-knower community but not to the general public. Unless they get lucky with Reddit search results.
I noticed today that Autotrader.co.uk have recall warnings for certain cars, though.
100percentjake 14 hours ago [-]
This is fair. I should have been more explicit that my wonderment is how something that is gospel in the car guy/mechanic community has somehow completely avoided filtering into the greater consumer discussion with regards to catastrophic failure and reliability.
damowangcy 13 hours ago [-]
My guess is that the main culprit might be marketing. We underestimate how advertisement shown to us online can shape our reality.
Last I checked Samsung had the most engagement on Facebook just behind Netflix. This means that they are spending tons of money to put their products in front of their customers via social media marketing. Go out and ask any normies for the top 3 brands for electronics, especially that of home appliances, Samsung will definitely be up there somehow, because most people think that big brand = good. How do they know it's big? Well, you see them everywhere!
So I imagine that, "the reviews were good!" is just the surface. The truth is that they ignored all the writings on the wall. In the reality created by the constant exposure, the manufacturer is a big brand, thus they make good cars. Unless someone runs a counter advertisement to tell them about the critical problem the same amount of time or more than when they're shown the car whooshing through multiple scences sytlishly.
giantg2 14 hours ago [-]
Some of that might just be bleed over from their non-smart devices. My dumb Samsung washer, monitor, etc have been great. And yes, part of my decision involves the ratings/reviews. They are point-in-time and wont catch an issue 5 years from now, but they will help you avoid models that have immediate issues.
nunez 12 hours ago [-]
More like buying a Range Rover if you get a high-end Samsung/LG. Beautiful, packed with features, terrible reputation for reliability.
That doesn't seem very "clear" to me. The article you linked mentioned those were made to go into defrost mode (and it didn't mention any brand). Meanwhile the affected Samsung devices are located in Korea and Samsung admitted it was due to their firmware update.
Also I don't see how it's unfair to expect refrigerators that cost a grand to do their one job without firmware.
tclancy 4 hours ago [-]
Stay frosty, sheep. Or otherwise woolen mammal.
iam-TJ 12 hours ago [-]
Thank-you that link - it is very interesting. The cause I wonder about is another A.I. agent attack.
rurp 15 hours ago [-]
Interesting. I've never heard that about Altimas but I used to own one and it was hands down the worst vehicle I've ever owned. It had more issues in two years, including leaving me stranded multiple times in the middle of the night, than I've had in a decade with any other vehicles.
dominicrose 16 hours ago [-]
I bought a car that seemed cheap for what it was. Turns out is was unpopular because of the timing belt in oil. Can't say I've had any issue with it though (with basic maintenance) but it's only 8 years old.
rpcope1 47 minutes ago [-]
All I can imagine is they must be on massive amounts of drugs at Ford given the FCA level or worse crap to come out if there in recent history.
dieselgate 15 hours ago [-]
Can you possibly elaborate on the timing belt in oil? I’ve only known of dry timing belts or lubricated timing chains/gears
lelanthran 14 hours ago [-]
> Can you possibly elaborate on the timing belt in oil? I’ve only known of dry timing belts or lubricated timing chains/gears
Ford's recently designed engines were designed with a timing belt internally that operated in an oil bath.
They are currently walking that decision back and attempting to make it look as if it wasn't planned obsolescence (dry cambelt engines or proper timing chains means that the engine would last almost longer than the person who bought it if they did the regular maintenance. A cambelt that cannot be changed because its internal means that there is a limit to how long the engine would last.)
anakaine 9 hours ago [-]
Cheap and poor decision by a company not acting in good faith. Right up there with the globally popular Ford Ranger whose oil change needs to be completed in under 10 minutes because thats how long it takes the oil pump to drain residual oil and it has no self priming capability, so itll run dry and seize the engine despite the oil sump being full.
alexfoo 15 hours ago [-]
Certain models of the Mk3 Ford Focus (2011-2018) have a wet timing belt.
Needs changing at 100,000 to 150-000 miles or every 10 years.
Haha, so true, even when I was a kid I thought Samsung LCD monitors were a bit shiet compared to the alternatives.
Goes to show how long brand name goes, especially on appliances.
naasking 12 hours ago [-]
My Samsung 3D TV is still going strong after 13 years.
quickthrowman 16 hours ago [-]
> I remain baffled when people buy a 7 year old used V6 Traverse, a vehicle extremely well known for catastrophic engine failure
I’m puzzled as well, buying a car that depreciates 60-70% in 7 years seems like a horrible idea, you could spend roughly the same on a Toyota Highlander or Honda Pilot and only face 30-40% depreciation after 7 years. This information is freely available if you google “[vehicle model] depreciation curve”.
Nissan (and Stellantis, Mitsubishi) decided to stop making better cars and focus almost exclusively on subprime lending, the rest of the story tells itself once you have that information.
15 hours ago [-]
pessimizer 15 hours ago [-]
> This information is freely available if you google “[vehicle model] depreciation curve”.
That's just one of those secrets that you need to know, though. It's like knowing to ignore the unemployment rate (in the vast majority of cases) and instead to look at the prime-age employment rate. People rarely think of something like that without being told.
dam_jackalopes 14 hours ago [-]
Cars are also one of those things that can be an emotional purchase and people do weird things. I spent way more than I needed to in order to get the car I wanted and I wanted it because it's a cool vehicle that, when I squint, still fits my needs. It wasn't smart financially but I'm extremely happy I did it. My wife could not care less about a vehicle outside of it being ergonomic and not having a payment. We'll be looking at depreciation curves and the like during that exercise.
wizardforhire 14 hours ago [-]
I’ve taken to sharing this clip [1] with anybody expressing the kind consumer behavior you outline… once they’re done laughing I simply say “now replace wa’er with [insert item of debate]” if they’re still arguing with me I share this clip [2]…
Maybe cruel, but I haven't found a better way to get someone to realize the error of their ways… because logic has obviously failed them.
[1] "Video unavailable
It was blocked due to the claimed content by Zodiak Entertainment."
someone did not like you linking that!
engineer_22 16 hours ago [-]
> Nissan Altima
OK, that's a fair statement, but!
My 2017 Altima has been great. Comfortable to drive, bluetooth connection that doesn't drive me crazy, space for passengers and cargo, manageable maintenance, I even use it to tow a small trailer with lawn equipment, no issues! I'm up to 190,000 mi with only minor repairs that I could do myself. I got my money's worth out of this one.
That said... I do avoid smart appliances, especially LG and Samsung. The additional features do not seem to add enough value to overcome the potential problems.
100percentjake 14 hours ago [-]
Google "jatco CVT nissan altima" and realize how extremely lucky you have gotten.
joshheitzman 14 hours ago [-]
Must be the more recent models. My main complaint with my 2012 Altima is the sunroof drainage hoses leaking in the winter. I've had zero mechanical or electronics problems with it.
lelanthran 14 hours ago [-]
> My 2017 Altima has been great.
You don't have the CVT, do you?
engineer_22 12 hours ago [-]
yea, it's awesome, super smooth acceleration from stop to highway speed
seabird 2 hours ago [-]
Those CVTs were fucking terrible for years. They were so bad that loads of them ended up on buy-here-pay-here lots after the transmission blew and the Altima is now widely known as the highway missile of choice for drivers with a credit score in the 400s and no insurance. You lucked out.
steveBK123 16 hours ago [-]
This is the perfect story of 2020s era tech.
Just total engineering incompetence of forced updates with new features for no reason that degrade core workflows and introduce needless instability.
kjs3 12 hours ago [-]
I would guess it had new 'features'. Certainly nothing that improved things for the consumer since 'keep food cool' isn't something you need to periodically revise (or have an internet connection for). Probably some combination of "new ToS so we can collect more data about customer" and "collect more things about customer we can sell on the third parties".
steveBK123 10 hours ago [-]
Sure but the infotainment/smart BS should be firewall off from the "keep the food cold" life safety part of the appliance.
Even Tesla which plays fast & loose with some things.. the car does not come to a halt if the infotainment/GPS/etc tablet reboots. It's VERY disconcerting as you have no speedometer, the car is eerily silent, etc.. but the car still drives.
Just sloppy, cheap, lazy engineering.
kjs3 4 hours ago [-]
Telsa answers to the NTSB. There are rules. A fridge? As long as it doesn't catch fire when you plug it in, it's 'let the market decide' sloppy, cheap, lazy products.
db48x 10 minutes ago [-]
There are a lot more rules than that.
But it is true that the rules don’t anticipate a fridge that cannot refrigerate food if the advertisements aren’t playing properly.
kakacik 14 hours ago [-]
And the best part - nobody learns, and people in general won't change their buying habits much.
morkalork 7 hours ago [-]
And fail (food)unsafe design. What the hell.
9cb14c1ec0 16 hours ago [-]
Meanwhile, my non-smart fridge continues to run just fine. Why do we need smart fridges? That was always a bad idea.
Legend2440 16 hours ago [-]
The trouble is that 'smart fridges' turn out to be just a regular fridge with an android tablet on the front. Which is useless.
I would love a fridge with a camera inside and a smart enough AI to tell me (1. what's in the fridge (2. how long it's been there and (3. what I've eaten from it. Some companies have tried making this kind of fridge, but AFAIK they don't work very well.
crisnoble 16 hours ago [-]
Maybe some fridges have cameras with object detection and can tell you what % your milk remains, but this one does not do any of that.
Features that are smart listed on the product page[1]:
Family Hub™ 21.5”: Family Hub™ keeps your family connected from anywhere; search recipes, share pictures, stream music, access YouTube and control your smart devices all from your the fridge* (*A WiFi connection and Samsung account required)
SmartThings Energy: SmartThings lets you monitor and manage your smart refrigerator's power usage; get energy saving tips and alerts to help lower your electric bill all from your phone.
Now Brief: The Now Brief provides a daily overview of information including the weather, your schedule and latest health data on your Family Hub ™screen, when it's not in use; customize your Now Brief dashboard using your favorite apps and widgets to get a quick glance of what's relevant to you.
Extremely uncompelling stuff. Now add in that it is probably beaming your usage habits for your ad profile, always listening for voice commands, and apparently will break into freezing mode, and I cannot imagine why anyone would even consider this. If they were giving them out for free or paying people to put in their house, their existence would make sense tp me. Now I've learned that n>1 people paid multiple thousands of dollars for this and I assume it is not the only model out there.
bluGill 16 hours ago [-]
I'm not sure how any of that is actionable. I already know how to make my fridge more efficient - but if I knew how to get my kids to close the door instead of leaving it open while the pour their milk (on the other side of the kitchen) I'd do that.
I get mail from my utility that I use more electric than average. However that doesn't give me anything actionable to do about it. I don't need another nag about things I can't do anything about.
milesvp 13 hours ago [-]
I’m still on the fence about closing the door for a short task like pouring milk. My understanding from the physics of opening the door, you’re mostly already replacing all the air in the fridge with air from outside the fridge. So convection already did its job of robbing your fridge of cold. Closing the door to open it again a minute later just gives you a second convection inducing action for air that might have been trapped the first time.
I would love to see someone at the level of technology connections do a breakdown of the physics here, and where the likely crossover point point is for different kinds of fridges. My current (probably illformed) belief from the suction and imagined resulting air exchange of all the fridges I’ve lived with is that leaving the fridge open on the order of seconds is better than opening-closing-opening-closing in terms of cold loss.
Eisenstein 4 hours ago [-]
"In theory but the benefit would be pretty negligible i think. Let's say for argument that most food is water and your fridge is 25% food and 75% air. The specific heat of air is 1 kJ/kgK, specific heat of water is 4.2 kJ/kgK. But also the density of air is 1.2kg/m3 and the density of water 1000kg/m3. Assume 1 m3 volume. So that would be 250kg food and 0.9 kg air. To change temp by 1C would take .9kJ for the air and 1050kJ for the food. So the air in a fridge holds a fraction of a percent of the total thermal mass of the contents. Whether or not that air changes temperature by a few degrees won't change things much at all. You would spend far more on balloons that you would save on energy."
You’re only losing cold air, which has very little mass compared to what you’re actually storing in your fridge. The energy cost to re-chill the air in the unoccupied volume of your fridge can’t be that significant, I’d imagine.
It’s be an interesting experiment to put a temperature probe in something like a block of cheese, let it cool to the ambient fridge temperature, then open the fridge door for a few minutes and see if the temperature of the cheese even measurably changes over the next few hours or whatever amount of time.
crisnoble 15 hours ago [-]
its not
imglorp 13 hours ago [-]
A simple tablet holder on the fridge door would do this way better.
fhn 5 hours ago [-]
so these cameras can see thru milk cartons? Impressive
nunez 11 hours ago [-]
Good thing it's still very easy to buy simple fridges that come with none of that crap. (Oh, cool, another huge Android tablet that's several versions behind latest and is a cracked door for red team agents to hack my house with and adtech to slurp up all of my refrigeration habits. I'LL BUY TWO!)
I can see why customers might want something like this though. We have a Skylight calendar in our house. It's just a big ass calendar. The software and service that Skylight provides makes it a VERY GOOD big ass calendar, but I can see some people thinking "i use my fridge all the time; why not just have a self-updating calendar there?". (Magnetic calendars on fridges are very popular.)
But, no, Samsung and LG literally sell this concept as doomscrolling as a service. So dumb. They look super tacky also. EVERY ultra high end fridge is literally two solid doors or designed to disappear behind closet doors. Nobody's staring at their fridge while pulling out their eggs and bacon for breakfast lol
vel0city 14 hours ago [-]
> get energy saving tips
Here's a tip to save some electricity on the fridge: unplug all the smart stuff.
A fridge only uses a couple kWh a day and there's not much to optimize other than "keep the door closed" and "don't overfill it".
Just about the only thing I might want to see on a smart fridge door is maybe a shared family calendar that can sync with an external calendar provider, and that's not even listed as a feature.
steveBK123 9 hours ago [-]
> Just about the only thing I might want to see on a smart fridge door is maybe a shared family calendar that can sync with an external calendar provider, and that's not even listed as a feature.
Fundamentally due to product lifecycle expectations, I wouldn't even want that!
I hope a fridge will last 10+ years.
Unfortunately any SaaS/cloud-connected piece of hardware is going to have some combo of firmware/OS/security/app update deprecation well before 10 years is up. The last people I expect to maintain software that long is the maker of a fridge.
vel0city 8 hours ago [-]
CalDAV has been a standard for nearly 20 years. This feature could be done in a way that doesn't require to to talk to their servers, you could just put in the URL for whatever calendar you already have.
pjc50 16 hours ago [-]
> fridge with a camera inside
What they don't tell you: when the fridge door is closed the light turns off.
(yes HN this is a joke)
More seriously, in a previous job I did inventory/POS systems for pubs which would track the obvious things like "you got ten casks of beer delivered this morning and have sold 50 pints, at what point do you need to order more beer". It would genuinely be useful to have inventory tracking for fridges. At one point this would rely on barcodes, but machine vision should be good enough for now. The problem is, as with many smart things, it needs to be reliable and frictionless enough that it's better than just the Mark 1 Eyeball.
Also it's very difficult to trust if it might end up integrated into a purchase system. Does "you always have milk in the fridge" sound good? Yes. Is it going to be like "HP Instant Ink", a massive and slightly wasteful ripoff? Well, quite possibly.
dyzone 15 hours ago [-]
Well the camera only needs to work while the door is open. Stuff isn't going to magically appear/disappear while the door is closed.
m4rtink 14 hours ago [-]
Or turn the light on for a bit when the camera is checking things.
brnt 13 hours ago [-]
The state maybe change however. Would be nice to hear mold has grown on an item at the back of shelf 4.
anentropic 16 hours ago [-]
Why not just open the door and have a look in the fridge?
Systemerror7A69 16 hours ago [-]
Not the person you asked but I can answer that from my perspective:
I am always on the lookout to automatate as much boring, everyday tasks. A Smart Fridge like that would allow you to generate shopping lists and reduce food waste by alerting you to possible soon-to-be-spoiled food.
A bit like what roombas are doing for cleaning. You still need to do it yourself a bit, but they help.
Not necessary, not even a gamechanger but another neat home automation. Would be nice, sad to hear they don't work well.
eulers_secret 16 hours ago [-]
We need smart pantries to fully realize the “auto shopping list”, though… so a smart fridge is a half solution at best.
I even store produce (ex onions) on the counter tops, so I guess smart counters as well
bluGill 15 hours ago [-]
What I need is a whole kitchen camera that notices when I put things in the fridge/pantry and then take them out. Bonus if it can say "The lettuce in your fridge is probably expired, use it or toss it today".
The fridge/pantry camera is a useful addition, but most of the value would be a system that just tracks what I put in/take out.
freeone3000 16 hours ago [-]
You should be able to combine two half solutions into a full solution.
It might actually be easier to start with the smart pantry! An in-cabinet kit that can be tested entirely dry and warm and open, and then expanded to the fridge.
curiousObject 16 hours ago [-]
>”a smart fridge is a half solution at best”
A car is a half solution to going to work. A stove is a half solution to preparing food.
Half solutions are what people need. They’re the solutions we are using every day.
There is this huge problem with advertising that makes consumers think a half solution is a 100% solution. Most smart product makers do that trick. But, apart from that problem, ‘the perfect is the enemy of the good’
Edit: but no way would I buy any smart or connected fridge from Samsung. I don’t anticipate that being a positive experience
dns_snek 15 hours ago [-]
> A car is a half solution to going to work.
> A stove is a half solution to preparing food.
A working grocery tracking system is a half-solution to effortless shopping.
A half-working grocery tracking system is useless, much like a car without an engine.
curiousObject 15 hours ago [-]
>A working grocery tracking system is a half-solution to effortless shopping.
>A half-working grocery tracking system is useless, much like a car without an engine.
Yes. Something designed to be a half solution can be useful. But a full solution which is broken is probably worse than useless.
dns_snek 15 hours ago [-]
I can't really think of a use case for a grocery tracking system that only tracks a third of my groceries. A system that tracks everything would be massively useful, however.
curiousObject 14 hours ago [-]
>I can't really think of a use case for a grocery tracking system that only tracks a third of my groceries.
Me too. I think I’m not communicating clearly. Sorry.
What I’m talking about is a system that does only one third of the steps in the total end-to-end process for ALL your groceries. You do the rest yourself, or use other help.
I’m not advocating a broken system that claims to do that complete process, but really ignores two thirds of your groceries. That would be damn stupid.
Do you understand what I mean?
dieselgate 15 hours ago [-]
“Half solution” seems like an odd way to say tool?
curiousObject 15 hours ago [-]
“tool” seems like a good way to describe a half solution. We use and combine various tools and our own skills to do what we want
14 hours ago [-]
asdff 9 hours ago [-]
Seems like it would be better solved with a phone app you can just scan the receipt and log your usage. It would get you out of having to buy a $1000 fridge and also solve the pantry issue. Actively logging your usage vs passively might have other downstream benefits like being more aware of your macros.
hyperhello 16 hours ago [-]
Your enthusiasm is catching. I’m not sure I would ever consider a fridge with a built in camera though because of the bad manufacturer incentives. Maybe you could find a wireless camera that you put inside and the fridge related processing - the real point - is done somewhere else?
voidUpdate 15 hours ago [-]
Id want to be careful of it getting cold and damp if you put a consumer camera inside a fridge. You'd ned one rated for that sort of environment
oh_my_goodness 16 hours ago [-]
That does nothing to solve my real problem, which is too little surveillance.
yreg 13 hours ago [-]
Because you are at the supermarket trying to remember what you have at home.
dieselgate 15 hours ago [-]
I always just want to know how much of X or Y is on hand when I’m physically out and at the grocer. You can just buy another but that usually leads to folks storing 5 bottles of ketchup or whatever
Legend2440 16 hours ago [-]
...while I'm at the grocery store on my way home from work?
juvvel 16 hours ago [-]
1. Look in fridge before work
2. Add any missing items to shopping list
3. Reference said list on the way home from work
dotancohen 16 hours ago [-]
1. When you finish the milk, voice record "buy milk" on the phone.
2. At supermarket, listen to voice recordings.
I'm actually working on a pet project to transcribe my 20 years of voice recordings and organise them, then sync them between the phone and desktop. Maybe in the coming weeks I'll know that I needed milk in October 2008.
stackskipton 16 hours ago [-]
I mean, there are plenty of voice assistants these days. We use our Alexa for this but both Siri and Gemini could easily do it. Whenever we run low on something, "Alexa, add milk to our shopping list" and then can look at application at grocery store.
vel0city 13 hours ago [-]
And what happens when its your kid who finishes the milk and doesn't mention it to you?
Or you didn't finish the milk, but didn't realize it had gone bad until after you got home with ingredients for a meal depending on milk.
asdff 9 hours ago [-]
Have a shared shopping list with the family. Teach your kid to put the milk on the list after they finish it. Be at least somewhat aware of how old your food is. Problem solved. Somehow we managed this model for a century.
vel0city 4 hours ago [-]
Somehow we also managed to get by before we had pretty much any kind of technology. Somehow we managed without trains, somehow we managed without telecommunications, somehow we managed without refrigeration, somehow we managed without websites and forums.
Maybe we could do better. Maybe we can automate this as well.
asdff 2 hours ago [-]
Yup, end game is becoming a Guild Navigator. Obese, immobile, suspended in a tank full of dopamine. Why beat around the bush with all this doing stuff and using our limbs or god forbid thinking? Straight to the neurotransmitters, pure efficiency.
dotancohen 8 hours ago [-]
Well, then, of your cows can only be milked on the 'morn you'll have to do with milking one of the goats.
mingus88 16 hours ago [-]
I think the point is these devices sell some kind of convenience. Anyone who grew up of a certain time is seduced with this idea of our world being perfectly in tune with our needs, like the Jetsons.
Now we have generations of people who grew up with surveillance capitalism and broken promises I wonder what the next big wave will be
pessimizer 15 hours ago [-]
I instead use the technology of "whiteboard on fridge, where I write what I want or what is running out." That way it works when I didn't even plan to shop, because I vaguely remember what's on the whiteboard on the fridge.
matsemann 16 hours ago [-]
I'm biased working for an online grocer, but isn't the problem really that you are in a store making the decision instead of in your kitchen at home? Half the goods I buy anyways aren't in a fridge, so a smart fridge only solves parts of the problem.
jjulius 16 hours ago [-]
Yeah, if the argument truly is, "I want to be able to know everything I need to buy for cooking," then you need "smart" everything - cabinets, bread baskets, a way of analyzing the produce sitting in a bowl on the counter, pantries, freezers, and so on.
Perhaps it's because I'm the cook of the family, but to my mind, if you're in your kitchen on a daily basis, it's incredibly easy to have a strong idea of what you have at home when you're at the store. It's never perfect and once in a while you double up or miss things, but that's life!
bluGill 15 hours ago [-]
I'm not the only cook in my family though. Last two nights I made dinner, but Monday my wife did. I'm not sure who will cook tonight (I need to get my kids to start doing more of that). The result of that is nobody knows exactly what the other person used up.
We do have a shared shopping list. If I remember I'll put things I use up on the list, but often I'm busy at the time I notice because the thing on the stove needs to be stirred constantly... Last night I used one can of beans leaving two more - I didn't put beans on the list, but maybe I should have. Overall this system is working, but it is annoying and sometimes not ideal.
jjulius 15 hours ago [-]
>I'm not the only cook in my family though. Last two nights I made dinner, but Monday my wife did. I'm not sure who will cook tonight (I need to get my kids to start doing more of that). The result of that is nobody knows exactly what the other person used up.
My wife cooks sometimes too, but usually it's fairly easy for me to observe what she made and have a good sense of what went into the meal.
>We do have a shared shopping list. If I remember I'll put things I use up on the list, but often I'm busy at the time I notice because the thing on the stove needs to be stirred constantly... Last night I used one can of beans leaving two more - I didn't put beans on the list, but maybe I should have. Overall this system is working, but it is annoying and sometimes not ideal.
Same for us. I wanted to make pinto bean tacos last night but forgot the pinto beans at the store last weekend, because I'd assumed we'd had some. We used it as an opportunity to pivot and have a random meal that involved using up extras in our pantry and freezer. Life will always have annoying moments that aren't always ideal, there's no amount of automation that will eliminate them. It's good for us to experience those moments and use them as growth opportunities (not saying you don't, I'm just speaking generally here).
bluGill 8 hours ago [-]
Last night I was cooking while my wife took my kids to practice - they got home just as I was putting everything on the above. In short she couldn't observe everything. This happens commonly in my house these days.
asdff 9 hours ago [-]
> Overall this system is working, but it is annoying and sometimes not ideal.
And costs you nothing. Is easy to roll out. Doesn't ever need replacement. Doesn't ever fall apart. Lasts forever.
The smart fridge will also screw up and not get it all right 100% of the time. And for that, it will cost you handsomely, will be difficult to implement in all your kitchen, will need constant replacement, will fall apart, will not last forever.
Framed like this, the smart solution is actually worse.
bluGill 8 hours ago [-]
I remember when someone got a car to 100k miles - they called all their friends to see the car turn over to all 0's. They had to add oil before they left, and drove off in a cloud of smoke. They had to avoid puddles or the spray through the floors would get mud all over everybody...
Point is things advance. the first iteration might be as bad as you say, but they are likely to fix the bugs and make it better over time.
asdff 8 hours ago [-]
Well you are still paying orders of magnitude more than a pen and paper grocery list. For what in my mind is no new real functionality. Just the ability to get a bit lazier and think a bit less. I don't know about you but I'm trying not to get senile here. Thinking is actually a good thing, not a chore. A muscle that isn't under use atrophies.
crisnoble 16 hours ago [-]
Everyone is arguing over a feature that this fridge does not have.
phoghed 15 hours ago [-]
And everyone is aware of that, because it was explicitly stated by the commenter that kicked this off, /user?id=Legend2440
It’s “wouldn’t this hypothetical feature be great” vs “my feeble mind cannot even imagine why anyone would ever want that”
netrap 16 hours ago [-]
makes me wonder maybe if NFC/RFID strips were cheap enough you could have all the items tagged in the house and your phone could tell you what you have.. but probably causes e-waste though
vel0city 13 hours ago [-]
The other problem is that just an equivalent barcode but NFC product tag isn't going to tell you that you're down to half a stick of butter, it'll just say you have butter. And that's assuming you keep the packaging.
Anything you've prepared at home will also not be tracked by such a system.
16 hours ago [-]
whackernews 7 hours ago [-]
Because people are mentally unwell and would rather not spend any time actually in the moment and doing life. They’d rather just free up all this “wasted” time so they can sit on their arse and watch the 8th series of the latest Netflix programme. They live to consume.
phoghed 16 hours ago [-]
Why not do the more labor intensive, higher energy use, higher friction, less convenient version of anything? Why automate anything?
jjulius 16 hours ago [-]
Why the blind insistence upon automating everything?
phoghed 15 hours ago [-]
It’s not blind insistence, and that framing reveals a real lack of imagination on your part in my opinion. A truly smart fridge that had an inventory of all my stuff, knew expiration dates, etc. hooked up to my chat agent would be wonderful.
applfanboysbgon 15 hours ago [-]
Do people have the memory of a goldfish or what? "I can't remember what's in my fridge" is not a problem I've ever had in my entire life. What is there even to automate? If you were talking about a smart fridge with an accompanying robot that automatically orders groceries, picked up the deliveries itself, and stocked your fridge that'd be something, at least... still an insanely, unbelievably wasteful use of both your personal and our planet's resources to save five minutes a week, but something. But that's not even what smart fridges promise. They promise to automate looking in the fridge, an activity that you must do every time you withdraw or deposit food from/into it anyways. Wonderful.
EvanAnderson 13 hours ago [-]
> Do people have the memory of a goldfish or what? "I can't remember what's in my fridge" is not a problem I've ever had in my entire life.
I have no problem remembering what's in the fridge. It doesn't do me any good because my wife and daughter also know what's in the fridge and they eat those things too.
Knowing I might need to pick something up while I'm out, particularly when nobody is home to check the remaining stock, would be handy.
Having said that, I don't want anything to do with the modern conception of a "smart fridge". If there was a self-hostable fridge camera I could install I might be into that. Otherwise, no thanks. I like my "dumb" fridge UI the way it is.
phoghed 15 hours ago [-]
> still an insanely, unbelievably wasteful use of both your personal and our planet's resources to save five minutes a week
Actually a cheap microcontroller and a few cameras over the lifetime of the fridge that caused me to open it say 50% less would save more money than it would waste by my estimate.
> If you were talking about a smart fridge with an accompanying robot that automatically orders groceries, picked up the deliveries itself, and stocked your fridge that'd be something, at least
Yeah.
Step 1: fridge with smart inventory
Step 2: hook it up to grok bot
Step 3: grok bot orders your food from Walmart+ InHome
So every piece of this exists except the hypothetical sci-fi fridge.
Again, I’m stunned by the complete and utter lack of imagination and critical thinking here. You guys are the offshore contractors of HN commenting.
> Do people have the memory of a goldfish or what?
This is actually a pretty good point. Many people do have poor memory for a plethora of reasons. This would be a great accessibility feature.
applfanboysbgon 14 hours ago [-]
Perhaps you could use your wonderfully amazing imagination to imagine the contents of your fridge as you last saw it when you opened it 8~12 hours ago to retrieve food or drink.
zdp7 12 hours ago [-]
I personally can't do that. I deal with aphantasia (I can't visualize anything in my head). I can put something in the fridge and not realize it's there, unless I can see it. Then on the other hand I can create 20+ character passwords (no words, numbers, symbols) and not need to write them down. I have way above average memory recall, but will often forget about items aren't normally in the fridge.
phoghed 14 hours ago [-]
Great comment after being demonstrably wrong on all points. Again, trivial to imagine a scenario where other people use the contents of the fridge too. Or that when someone grabs the milk they aren’t doing an inventory of all the drawers, checking what’s out of line of sight because it’s hidden behind something.
You can’t be a software developer with such a poor imagination and intuition. Debugging would be hell for you. Even worse because you’d fail to imagine the edge cases ahead of time.
13 hours ago [-]
vel0city 13 hours ago [-]
> "I can't remember what's in my fridge" is not a problem I've ever had in my entire life.
I take it you've only ever lived alone then? Its pretty easy for someone in my household to consume food or add food without me knowing about it. And I definitely do not take a full and complete inventory every time I open the fridge.
I'd find it very handy to look at a glance and see the current stock of stuff I have in my house. I definitely don't know exactly how much butter I have at the moment, I don't know what the date is on the almond milk versus the whole milk, I don't know how many string cheese sticks are left after the kids grabbed their snacks for school. I don't know exactly how much salt or pepper or smoked paprika or herbes de provence or curry powder or semi-sweet morsels or baking soda I happen to have on hand.
I don't know the technology to seamlessly track all of this is realistically at hand, but it sure would be nice. I do agree, every smart fridge today either doesn't even try with this or just totally sucks at it.
But hey I guess you just have all that data totally memorized and you're entirely omnicient about everything your household consumes. Sure seems nice.
lemmetellya 16 hours ago [-]
[dead]
bmurphy1976 15 hours ago [-]
My idea of a smart fridge: a fridge with Zigbee Temp/Humidity sensor connected to my Home Assistant automation system that alerts me if things get out of whack.
My idea of a dumb fridge: a fridge that updates firmware, bricks itself, and lets all my food spoil.
marcosdumay 14 hours ago [-]
You can get a Zigbee temp/humidity sensor and throw it inside the fridge.
13 hours ago [-]
gherkinnn 15 hours ago [-]
This wouldn't work in today's environment because any engineering capacity won't be directed towards making the thing useful when Samsung or whoever can sell the inside of your fridge in return for "recommended products".
jwr 13 hours ago [-]
Yes! I've been thinking about placing a tiny camera in the fridge for such a long time. This is especially important if you have a summer house or another apartment — you never know/remember what is in the fridge.
Taking photos of the fridge is a solution, but then phones were too stupid until recently to be able to find those. Even know it's a mixed bag.
We live in a world of dumb devices that could be so much smarter.
jabroni_salad 16 hours ago [-]
It would be nice if that was all they were, but evidently a software update can render the fridge unable to run, so it is clearly much more. These things have transitioned from IT to OT.
schnevets 16 hours ago [-]
Why does it have to be a camera? Surely there are other sensors in this age of untethered innovation that could apply. Give me a "smart nose" that will explain whether the unusual smell is coming from the vegetable drawer, dairy section, or no man's land in the back of the top shelf. Give me a top-of-the-line thermometer that can warn me if leftovers are going into the fridge too hot.
crisnoble 16 hours ago [-]
These sound useful but hard. Putting a tablet on the front sounds easy but adds no value. Guess which one they picked? Apparently people will still buy.
yreg 13 hours ago [-]
They have started trying it when the problem was much more difficult than it is now. I think a fridge that does this itinerary well is not too far away.
kjs3 12 hours ago [-]
I just open the fridge and look. It's not an onerous task.
scruple 15 hours ago [-]
Why do you want that? Generations of humans have existed just fine with modern refrigeration without any of these extra... What you would call features and I would call simple bullshit.
IslandRebel 15 hours ago [-]
Why? Just open the door and look in it.
LoganDark 16 hours ago [-]
The trouble here is that this smart fridge put safety-critical features behind a single internet-connected piece of shit. Appliance manufacturers really need to take inspiration from automotive manufacturers in terms of redundancy and localizing failure.
Skwid 15 hours ago [-]
I hate to break it to you, but those guy's aren't far behind on the path of enshittification.
You break nothing much, don't worry - I was taking about equipment failure or malfunction, not targeted attack. Like, your power brakes or ABS can fail but you can still brake. Power steering can fail but you can still steer. Hell, steering wheel can pop right off and the steering geometry should still try to relatively prefer the center (not always ideal, but like, better than going fully insane like a shopping cart wheel). My point is there's no single CPU executing the entire vehicle where any malfunction can spontaneously cause the entire vehicle to stop functioning so badly that it won't perform any of its duties. Sure an ECU could fail and not run the engine, but that won't make you lose the ability to brake or steer if it happens in the middle of a highway. Something malicious can still command the rest of the vehicle to stop functioning one by one, but there aren't many single sources of that much failure.
At the very least, the system that maintains the temperature of the fridge (critical for food safety) should not be brought down by an exception in the system that displays advertisements on the front panel...
silon42 16 hours ago [-]
Maybe they were testing spoiled food detection /s
weli 16 hours ago [-]
I see reasons to have smart features in a fridge. Reminding you what food is going to be bad soon. Letting you know a list of recipes you can do with what food you have. Hell even being able to see and set timers without having to take my phone out. What I cannot fathom is the fact that the module running those smart features is not separated and modular enough so that basic functions like refrigerating are not dependent on an entire Android stack running.
jcoder 16 hours ago [-]
> Reminding you what food is going to be bad soon. Letting you know a list of recipes you can do with what food you have
I feel like this is what people say a smart fridge _could_ be good for, but can they even do that? From what I understand the most sophisticated ones can tell you if some specific items are in your fridge, and otherwise they just do basic shit like display photos and tell the weather.
deepspace 5 hours ago [-]
My 'smart' fridge came with an app. Which only function is to perform diagnostics on the fridge when something goes wrong. A while ago, the fridge stopped cooling. I ran the diagnostics, which reported everything as A-OK. A service call found that the compressor had died. So, yeah, they cannot even do the basics, let alone something actually useful.
Legend2440 16 hours ago [-]
Right now, no. The technology just isn't there yet.
herrherrmann 16 hours ago [-]
… and makers don’t have an incentive to even deliver such features, because people are already buying them?
At least I wouldn’t know what’s stopping them from building actually-useful features, tech-wise. Or was it just always a bad idea because fridge placement is random and items are often hard to find/detect?
Legend2440 16 hours ago [-]
I don't think many people are buying them tbh.
The technological issue is that computer vision is hard, even after the last five years of AI progress.
simonask 16 hours ago [-]
All of those features just seem so gimmicky, and I could never imagine myself actually relying on them. If you are a functioning adult, these things are barely convenient, and the novelty wears off very quickly.
I will take a solidly engineered fridge with a good energy usage profile every single time over some overengineered wifi-connected piece of crap.
WarmWash 16 hours ago [-]
People pay 10-20% extra for food to be delivered to their door just for the convenience of only having to open a single app rather than call the take out place directly.
Never underestimate the value of convenience to people.
VulgarExigency 16 hours ago [-]
> Reminding you what food is going to be bad soon. Letting you know a list of recipes you can do with what food you have.
How? Are there cameras inside the fridge that check best before dates, and what food is in there? Having a fridge that is actively spying on what I eat seems even worse.
limagnolia 10 hours ago [-]
Why not just attach a tablet to your fridge? Then you can easily upgrade and replace it over time. Maybe the fridge maker could integrate some internal sensors and let a generic tablet interface with them, if you want to? No need for some integrated "smart" (dumb) feature that bricks the fridge and fails at doing the basic job a fridge is supposed to do!
2OEH8eoCRo0 16 hours ago [-]
It's one of the tragedies of modern tech. We could make a time saving smart fridge but we end up with ads and data collection with a veneer of usefulness.
natnatenathan 16 hours ago [-]
I cannot relate to this. The past 15 years have made me so tired of connected devices (and subscriptions) that simple products feel like a relief. Side note, I bought a great, magnetic timer for my daughter that we keep on the fridge for just a few dollars.
sjs382 15 hours ago [-]
I've had a wifi-connected[0] Samsung fridge for 6 years. A few connected features that I like but aren't life-changing:
- Reminders to change the ice/water filter get sent to my phone. There's an indicator light, but the phone notification is nice, too. The app also records when the filter was changed—useful to confirm that I'm "tasting" that the filter needs changed early.
- When we had a teenager living with us, getting remote notifications that the refrigerator door was left open probably saved us a few fridge-fulls of food.
Other than that, it's just a fridge that works reasonably well. My one complaint has nothing to do with smart features: about once per year I have to spend 5 mins to defrost the ice maker with a hairdryer. Just infrequent enough for me not to investigate the source of the problem.
[0] I don't say "smart" here because nothing's really smart/automated and it doesn't have a screen, speaker, microphone or camera. RF28R7201SR/AA if you're curious.
tredre3 8 hours ago [-]
Those are undoubtedly useful features, I just question why they should need the cloud:
> - Reminders to change the ice/water filter get sent to my phone.
How do you deal with all your other maintenance tasks around the house? with other appliances? with your car? Why not use a central system, like a task/reminder app?
> - When we had a teenager living with us, getting remote notifications that the refrigerator door was left open probably saved us a few fridge-fulls of food.
I would understand a child leaving the door open but a teenager doing it that often is kind of wild? Regardless, wouldn't a reminder beep that starts when the door has been open for 5 minutes be better? Must everything be on your phone? It's not even actionable if you're not in the house, where you'd hear a local beep.
vel0city 13 hours ago [-]
> The app also records when the filter was changed
The filters I buy come with little date stickers to put on it.
__MatrixMan__ 16 hours ago [-]
I'd love to text my fridge from the grocery store and ask it how much cheese is left. It's a good idea. It's just that these days, we're just not making the kind of company who can be trusted to implement it. Gotta fix that first.
someonebaggy 16 hours ago [-]
Because the fridge company can make more money by displaying ads on your fridge, and consumers can save more money by buying the fridge with the ads and taping cardboard in front.
someothherguyy 16 hours ago [-]
any instances of this in the wild? it seems like fridges are pretty cheap anyway and ones with smart features are more expensive? i don't think this a tv-like scenario.
15 hours ago [-]
ta8903 16 hours ago [-]
It's apparently common enough for funny things like this to happen.
They now require login for old.reddit.com. You can remove the subdomain and access the modern JS laden slop without an account unless they deem it 'Adult Content'
someonebaggy 15 hours ago [-]
Reddit now requires login. What are these?
Bruises 15 hours ago [-]
There was a fake story that went viral last year about a woman being sent to the psych ward after seeing the Pluribus ads on her Samsung fridge.
Have any data that the savings are passed on to the consumer? I'm not saying you're wrong, I just don't see any modern, late-stage capitalism companies doing anything that actually benefits the consumer.
mingus88 16 hours ago [-]
They aren’t. The smart features are more expensive to make and the added features justify a higher price. Most people don’t care either way and will buy it when they see a discount and feel like they got a good deal.
My parents are of the generation where they put a TV in every room and just keep it on 24/7 news all day long. They don’t understand a world without ads and certainly don’t go out of their way to avoid them
somehnguy 15 hours ago [-]
Smart appliances just seem like a ticking time bomb.
I want my appliances to last far longer than devices like my phone or computer.
There is absolutely no way these manufacturers will continue updating them even close to as long as I want to own them. So then you're stuck with an insecure and functionally useless, bad looking (in my opinion) appliance. That you paid extra to own and see ads on.
21asdffdsa12 15 hours ago [-]
Just solder a jtag connector to them and let AI dump the firmware, decompile, reverse engineer and flash a non-updating, sanitized version.
somehnguy 15 hours ago [-]
That does sound like a fun project! Not on an appliance that I rely on working 24/7 though. Maybe an idea to apply to a broken unused one.
braincat31415 14 hours ago [-]
"I want my appliances to last far longer than devices like my phone or computer."
... and hopefully be simple.
My washer and dryer (made in late 90s) are dirt simple inside, with parts readily available. I recently had to replace the belt in the dryer, and a water valve in the washer. It was a diy job, with the help of a few youtube videos.
My neighbor guest's car got stuck in their driveway recently when an electronic parking brake malfunctioned. It really feels like all the gadgetry is a step backwards.
nunez 12 hours ago [-]
Our fridge is a smart fridge, though it doesn't have a screen on it, AI in it or anything like that, and the smart fridge capabilities can be easily removed (it's a pluggable module).
I like knowing if I (or someone visiting our house while we're gone) left one of the doors open or when it needs maintenance done on it.
TuringNYC 15 hours ago [-]
Even if it worked right, you know they will eventually force a paid subscription just to keep the fridge running.
morkalork 7 hours ago [-]
That one tweet that went viral was funny
Finnucane 16 hours ago [-]
But your non-smart fridge doesn't support surveillance capitalism or a subscription model! How will investors keep making money on you if you think you can just decide for yourself when you need to shop for food?
pbkompasz 16 hours ago [-]
We don't need this anti-innovation mindset.
herrherrmann 16 hours ago [-]
I think it’s at least equally important to be sceptical of bad ideas, in order to let good ideas win. From a consumer perspective, smart fridges are usually bad.
deciduously 16 hours ago [-]
I genuinely cant tell if this is sarcastic. Im all for innovation where its productive, but some things already just work.
jjulius 16 hours ago [-]
There's innovation [nods head] and innovation [shakes head].[0] We've seen what kind of "innovation" "smart" fridges have been.
You think smart fridges are bad, my wife bought this $300 "smart toothbrush" that I'm just like... facepalm. All it does is connect to an app and reminds you to brush your teeth or something. It's so dumb I'm just waiting for it to break.
tacomagick 16 hours ago [-]
Why is the fridge's cooling system is one with the smart features? They should be kept completely separate
thiht 15 hours ago [-]
I like how escalators gracefully degrade to stairs, and electric toothbrushes to regular toothbrushes. That a smart fridge can't act as a dumb fridge is absolutely ridiculous.
Escalator manufacturers actually don't recommend having people use stationary escalators as stairs, as they're potentially in a problem state and may experience additional failure and become very unsafe.
If you have an option of regular stairs or stalled escalators, use the stairs.
thiht 8 hours ago [-]
Ngl, I’d like to see a broken escalator failing more than being stairs. I don’t know if manufacturers tell that as an abundance of caution or if they even say that, but a broken escalator becoming a danger seems highly unlikely to me
If the brakes aren't operating properly the stairs could start moving uncontrollably.
thiht 55 minutes ago [-]
Wow that’s terrifying
ta988 16 hours ago [-]
or at the very least go back to safe default when the computer part fails which is (should be) design 101. designing failsafe systems was one of the first thing we learned in engineering class (that was a while ago but still)...
alasano 16 hours ago [-]
Right lol. How is there no default fallback?
doublerabbit 14 hours ago [-]
It's cheaper to not implement one.
alasano 13 hours ago [-]
Most expensive if statement
OptionOfT 4 hours ago [-]
Optimization? The new Rivian merged a bunch of ECUs together, cutting lots of wires, but how the fallout of a failed ECU is much larger.
wat10000 16 hours ago [-]
The "smart" side has access to the temperature sensor for whatever reason. Then somebody notices that they could remove a component and save three cents per unit if they drive the compressor in software.
naasking 12 hours ago [-]
Driving the compressor with software is not intrinsically a problem, but critical functions have to be isolated to a minimal safe kernel that will always run, like the kernel space/user space distinction. Smart features can read and send messages to the minimal kernel, but should not themselves be in the critical loop. Boggles the mind that this is not standard practice.
xyst 13 hours ago [-]
some numb skull product engineer at Samsung thought remotely controlling the temperature of freezer/fridge was a "must have" or "quick win". Or maybe engineer was feature-maxxing to pump the yearly eval.
Scubabear68 16 hours ago [-]
This is my fear on the car side, as smart features start leaking from isolated areas in automobiles into the larger CAN bus....
tobysmith568 16 hours ago [-]
My car has two screens, one screen for things like showing the speed / the indicator lights and one screen for maps / music.
You can hard reset the latter one by holding down the home button for ten seconds, but while it turns back on the indicators don't function... even while driving
OnACoffeeBreak 14 hours ago [-]
There was a YouTube video of (I think) a Kia that was towed into a shop because it would not start on the side of the road. The reason for no-start turned out to be a failed backup camera module. So, the car stranded the owner because it could not communicate to the backup camera.
alpaca128 10 hours ago [-]
I also remember an incident where a rental car refused to start the engine because the driver made the mistake of parking it in an area without reception and it wouldn't start without phoning home to a server.
mingus88 16 hours ago [-]
I’ve been in a Rivian during two infotainment crashes. It’s scary but the car still drives. Everything not screen related worked, and you can just pull over like any other car breakdown.
They take this type of bug very seriously but obviously any platform will have bugs. It’s the legacy automakers I worry about, since their software has always been outdated crap and this problem needs the best in test automation
alpaca128 10 hours ago [-]
A relative recently bought an electric Renault. When you open the door and sit in it you are greeted by an annoying voice assistant talking to you (can be disabled at least). It's also got sound effects for everything, but you cannot throttle its charging speed and the charging status shown in the app is often delayed by hours.
delecti 15 hours ago [-]
Having worked in software at a legacy car company (Mercedes specifically), I wouldn't actually be too worried about most of them either (note: in this regard specifically, I could certainly criticize plenty of other things). There's a lot of institutional discipline keeping the stability and operation of the driving stuff separate from the screen stuff.
bmurphy1976 15 hours ago [-]
It's not just the screen. Microchips and sloppy firmware are everywhere.
My 2015 Jeep Cherokee had a freakout one day: the power steering stopped working mid-drive, on the highway. I was 50 minutes from my house, had to turn around and drive back home (an exhausting exercise given that modern cars are not built to function without power steering). I got to the dealer, parked in the lot, turned the car off, wait 30 seconds, turn it back on, everything worked fine.
That never happened again, but once is enough to put somebody in a dangerous-to-life situation.
It's not just the infotainment system we should be worrying about. Most modern cars are now distributed computer systems.
JoeAltmaier 15 hours ago [-]
Yes! Pretty much everything the driver touches is no longer directly controlling anything. THe brakes are anti-lock (electronic control can disconnect them). The steering depends on assist motors. The throttle is just a suggestion.
Even my rear-view mirror is a camera, and currently it has failed (shows matrix style drippy blue lines instead of a picture.
the_sleaze_ 14 hours ago [-]
That's exactly how it should work however, even if power steering goes out the steering still works. Albeit in a degraded state.
neogodless 13 hours ago [-]
If you reboot infotainment in a Polestar 2, all HVAC stops working until the system is finished booting...
This is a direction all manufacturers are going into, so there is little actual choice. And buying used is not a real solution; where do tomorrow’s used vehicles come from?
qmr 13 hours ago [-]
My vehicles save one of my motor bikes are all over 20 years old.
_aavaa_ 12 hours ago [-]
That works for you personally, but what are people going to do 20 years from now? Fight over the dwindling stock of 40 years of vehicles?
To say nothing of the tradeoffs that come with an older vehicle (safety and pollution).
asdff 9 hours ago [-]
There are people today driving 40 year old vehicles. Or 60 year old vehicles. I even saw a model A at the grocery store lot once. There will be used cars for me.
mrheosuper 3 hours ago [-]
You really don't get it, right. The age is not a problem.
And let be real, the 60 years old car, while there are some aspects they do better than modern one, overall they are much worse than mordern car.
asdff 2 hours ago [-]
Ehh. I'm still going to own a manual transmission car the rest of my life. New market isn't marketing to me going forward so I just won't participate in it. I'm sure there will be a million likeminded people keeping these puppies going as they've done.
pjc50 16 hours ago [-]
A chunk of smart features are either legally mandated (eCall) or soft-required for "safety" (Euro NCAP lanekeeping etc).
someonebaggy 16 hours ago [-]
all cars made in the last 15 years do it
asdff 9 hours ago [-]
Economy cars like base model corolla are still normal cars.
qmr 13 hours ago [-]
My cars are all older than this.
None of them have turned into pumpkins.
matkoniecz 16 hours ago [-]
Starting own car company is not a viable solution for a typical person.
rkuska 16 hours ago [-]
Gilfoyle's take on Smart Fridges:
> This thing is addressing problems that don't exist. It's solutionism at its worst.
steveBK123 15 hours ago [-]
There is SO much of this in IoT / smart / 2010s-2020s tech.
Recent household BS: music playing out of my thermostat.
Wife tried playing music out of Sonos, but the clunky app was laggy and had also signed her out of Spotify. No problem, you can also just play direct from Spotify app into Sonos speakers. She opens Spotify, selects "Living Room" and next thing you know our THERMOSTAT was playing music.
Neither of us know this was possible, neither of us enabled it, apparently it's existed for years but for some reason Saturday was the day that "Living Room" thermostat beat out "Living Room" Sonos in the Spotify sort order.
There were product managers on both sides of that decision to prioritize enabling such a stupid feature.
I'd pay for it to not be possible. I'd disable it on either/both ends if they had a toggle, which of course they don't. MVP baby.
bluGill 15 hours ago [-]
> There were product managers on both sides of that decision to prioritize enabling such a stupid feature.
Probably not. And that is why it happened - nobody thought about this at all until everything working as designed fails.
That is the thermostat probably is an off the shelf tablet with a speaker that they put other things on to make it a thermostat - this is the obvious thing to do and a lot cheaper than making your own completely custom hardware for this job. The software on the thermostat is likewise off the shelf (probably android) which has spotify in the base install and nobody took it out. Then you set the thermostat to be in the living room - again because that is the obvious thing to do. Finally your wife plays music and spotify sees two devices in the living room and picks one - which happens to be the wrong one but they have no way to know that.
The above is entirely likely and at no point (until know when I point it out) has anybody thought of it.
steveBK123 15 hours ago [-]
Wildly its an Ecobee and they added the feature on purpose some years back.
Apparently a firewall rule is about the only way to stop this.
sgarland 3 hours ago [-]
I also experienced this, albeit deliberately. I saw that it was possible, and out of morbid curiosity, enqueued a song to play through it. I immediately questioned why anyone would want it, stopped play, and disabled it. There are settings on the thermostat you can change such that it isn't used for playback or recording.
mystifyingpoi 16 hours ago [-]
Well, they saved Pied Piper in the end. So maybe it was worth it :P
If there's one thing to point to as an example of why we should make "smart fridges" and similar appliances not worth developing, it's things like this. Way way too easy for the company to just publish an update that breaks something like this. Imagine if you have a smart oven which gets an update and starts a very bad electrical fire because the company was stupid and decided it was a really smart idea to make an Oven that can connect to the internet. Wouldn't even surprise me if that's already happened.
mrheosuper 3 hours ago [-]
This could escalate to much worse problem. Spoiled food can literally kill people. Yet the safety standard we put those "smart" fridge under is nowhere near medical device standard.
zaphar 15 hours ago [-]
I've given up on not buying "smart $thing". It seems nearly impossible in many cases. However I absolutely refuse to connect them to my wifi which mostly makes them "dumb" for me.
kfoley 14 hours ago [-]
For anyone looking to disconnect their Samsung appliances from the web while keeping local control through Home Assistant, there's LocalThings[0].
I found it after learning that Samsung is planning to start charging $5 a month for API access but another benefit is reducing the risk of something like this.
My garage door motor did the same thing. How can an APi to open and close be $5/mo
zkmon 16 hours ago [-]
Need #1: we need a fridge.
Need #2: we need it to be smart
Need #3: we need it connected to internet
Need #4: we need it to be controlled by the seller.
Excessive needs bring you excessive pain.
steveBK123 16 hours ago [-]
Besides Samsung incompetence, I think smart fridges were probably solving the right problem (some sense of efficiency / time saving in grocery management) the wrong way (sensors/cameras/connected fridge).
It turns out that grocery stores with real time inventory on websites & pickup/delivery are a much better solution.
I have my weekly order I add my usuals to, and then add items to the cart all week as I noticed I am out/low while making dinner.
petcat 16 hours ago [-]
Never owned a Samsung appliance, but I had a Samsung smart TV for about year. Worst piece of technology I have ever owned and threw it in the trash and got a Roku.
Roku sucks. Is that the bar? Can barely do anything on it without an internet connection or Roku account.
throwaway27448 10 hours ago [-]
You can just not connect it to the internet
charles_f 16 hours ago [-]
Thanks to AI and IoT, we can now have vibe coded fridges and ovens that might have fantastic features and work 80% of the time!
The future truly is incredible
saadn92 16 hours ago [-]
Maybe not everything needs to be smart.
deadbabe 16 hours ago [-]
Few things are truly smart.
ta988 16 hours ago [-]
Decidedly not the ones who approved the design of those fridges...
NordStreamYacht 5 hours ago [-]
I have no idea why a fridge would need to be connected to anything but a power source.
I can understand some people would like their heating/cooling systems to be available online as a convenience, but a fridge?
robrain 16 hours ago [-]
Yesterday I learnt that Samsung has a Royal Warrant in the UK.
TIL that they really shouldn’t.
harrouet 22 minutes ago [-]
Wait until they put AI on it...
Balooga 15 hours ago [-]
My parents still have the fridge they received as a wedding present in 1969 from my mom's parents. Still running as the second fridge in the garage.
chinathrow 15 hours ago [-]
Speaking of fridges, did anything come to light about that mass failing of gov run fridges we had here a few weeks ago?
tonymet 16 hours ago [-]
The lesson here is that technology doesn’t always move in a positive direction. “Primitive” technology (e.g. simpler ICs, electro-mechanical machines, purely mechanical machines) can often be far better than the “modern” solutions.
This extends all the way up to software. Be wary when someone pushes a modern replacement of a reliable and effective tool you already have.
jakzurr 15 hours ago [-]
Why would any company have firmware updates pushed during a holiday? For that matter, why would you do a lot all at once, rather than spreading them out? I didn't see any info about some critical "vulnerability." Maybe I missed it.
pavon 10 hours ago [-]
They intended to deploy to a test environment and accidentally deployed the update to customer devices.
i know it's maybe an unpopular thing to say to OEMs, but i do think some should adopt an open firmware stack to prevent post-discontinuation bricking and flex that somehow in their marketing. I'd buy that, especially for a larger appliance.
silon42 16 hours ago [-]
There's a name for when they don't: e-waste.
Telaneo 16 hours ago [-]
So when will Samsung be compensating affected owners for their spoilt food?
samudrijan 12 hours ago [-]
Why does a fridge need firmware? Compressor and thermostat IC should do the trick. Maybe a fan to circulate some cold air.
If you have a fridge that new… you are probably fine.
sixothree 16 hours ago [-]
I had a samsung fridge. Every year it would spoil all of the food inside of it. The temperature reading on the outside would say 35 (1.5 c) but the food inside would be warm and spoiled.
It only happened when it was particularly cold outside. I eventually figured out that there is an external temperature sensor that causes the fridge to stop cooling below a certain external temperature. And that space in the kitchen was particularly cold in the back. But I could never read it below 55, so I think the sensor was faulty.
But the reading on the front is what really annoyed me. I had to keep a thermometer inside the fridge so that I didn't accidentally eat food that felt cool enough but was bad.
This happened every year. I eventually gave it away for free, with a warning to the person.
negura 8 hours ago [-]
First world problem if there ever was one.
clickety_clack 15 hours ago [-]
What is the best quality fridge that is just a compressor connected to an insulated box?
nullorempty 14 hours ago [-]
Makes me think of all who hope to return to life from cryonics one day :)
nphardon 15 hours ago [-]
Can't wait for refrigerators to require 2FA.
ButlerianJihad 14 hours ago [-]
That would be totally awesome for eating disorders. "Please text your recipe to your PCP for approval and unlock code."
... and then get their clocks reset on the next power outage.
ryukoposting 16 hours ago [-]
What a profoundly idiotic way to design a smart fridge. Shame on Samsung for designing their product in such a way that this was even possible.
Granted, I think the very concept of a smart fridge is a bad idea no matter how you execute on it... but they still managed to take a bad idea and execute on it badly. Amazing.
sitkack 16 hours ago [-]
Funny that so many people in this thread are arguing that a bad idea should also be engineered well. It was already a bad idea, so no it won't be. They are a package deal.
fwip 15 hours ago [-]
I don't think this is a good argument to make in general, as the contrapositive is that if it has good engineering, it was a good idea to build.
For example, nuclear weapons are certainly well-engineered, but I think it's reasonable to disagree on if they were a good idea or not.
"Smart" is stupid. It's primarily just a way to tie subscription shit and advertisements, and lock in DRM (and laws protecting DRM) on what used to be perfectly fine hardware.
"Smart" that I can back is simple sensor acquisition over open protocols. I would appreciate being able to MONITOR my fridge/freezer/stove/oven/washer/dryer. Changing shit over those connections is not needed, nor wanted.
Aeolun 15 hours ago [-]
How?! The only thing you need to do is test it on the friggin fridge?!
xyst 13 hours ago [-]
In the wake of the IoT hype, the fridge is among the top items that will never be "smart" for me.
phendrenad2 15 hours ago [-]
To err is human, to really mess up your software you need a hardware engineer.
15 hours ago [-]
drob518 16 hours ago [-]
Sigh. Anything + computer = computer
starkeeper 13 hours ago [-]
Why can't we have dumb appliances please. It used to be a Joke used to sell java claiming it would be great in your toaster...
Plainharbor21 16 hours ago [-]
[dead]
boringg 14 hours ago [-]
Smart fridges are a waste. Why would you need AI on your fridge - maybe to brick them so people need to buy more fridges?
I was at the store and one fridge had built in cameras so you could get pictures of your fridge all the time. :S
Razengan 16 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
gdulli 15 hours ago [-]
People don't laugh at conspiracy theorists over claims that technology will continue to get more annoying. People don't even laugh at conspiracy theorists who claim the rich engage in sex trafficking. People laugh at them over the specifics of pizzagate, qanon, etc.
matkoniecz 15 hours ago [-]
Or even worse like chemtrails, reptilians or "poor innocent Russia got attacked" and on similar level of silliness.
Razengan 15 hours ago [-]
yeah the actual crazies distract from the actual concerns
Obviously the review of a brand-new device or vehicle with 100 miles on it is going to have a disconnect from the realities of 60k miles of rocky ownership but I remain baffled when people buy a 7 year old used V6 Traverse, a vehicle extremely well known for catastrophic engine failure, and if I question their decision I get a "the reviews were good!". It seems like journalistic malpractice to not retroactively update reviews with a warning when critical widespread shortcomings are found later in a products life.
I'm guilty of it as well, if forced to choose blindly I'd pick Sony over WMFSENSY. But I'm beggining to wonder, with the recent casualness with which brands lower quality, whether they'll be a generational change and people will start ignoring brands entirely.
I'm starting to change my mind myself. My last Nike shoes weren't even the same size/shape (apparently they make left and right shoes in different countries now). At that point might as well go for the knockoffs.
This feels like a joke about just in time inventory and globalization, but I'm worried that it might be true.
The most natural way for shoe mismatches is from the showroom. Customer grabs 5 pairs, tries some on, they get mixed up when returning to stock. Same shoe and size (hopefully, lol), but different production number and different factory/origin.
GP didn't give enough context ("MY shoes are weird so I extrapolated" vs "I know this is true; here's proof."), but the casual one-off scenario is absolutely a showroom level of "random happens".
Babysitting all those individual shoes and styles and sizes seems ... expensive, logistically.
In fact, if this were a thing, I'd imagine they'd start offloading them as though it were a cool feature. "Want to mix-n-match shoes? buy just a left!"
Also let’s multiple “competitors” consolidate packaging into one big operation. Or localized to destination. Also a space thing: can ship more in bulk and make it all fluffier closer to point of sale.
Shoeboxes, among other packages, are a lot of air, why fill your truck/container/aircraft “unit load device” with it.
I've sworn off Bosch appliances after a 2 year fiasco of service calls with one of their dishwashers. The thing was still about $900 plus install. At what price point am I to believe it's not the worse-on-purpose line, as they cheapen the product every year. They seem to have models from $700 to $2000.
A bad $900 model sours me on gambling that the $1200, $1500 or $2000 model is the good one this year.
Seems like almost everything moderately priced has soles made of a extremely lightweight, squishy soft plastic that neither has much traction nor any toughness — worse than cheap flip-flop material.
Shoe companies should be embarrassed to put their name on such crap, yet they try to pass it off as premium.
This is something that frustrates me to no end. How are clothing item sizes not standardized yet?
For example, I recently went to buy new Jeans, so I went to the same store where I got my current Jeans, asked for a size 28, and tried it on. How is it possible that my size 28W Basic Straight Jeans from Fox fit me, while a pair that fits the exact same description is too small?
I later went to a different branch, and there I found another pair which fits the exact same description, and it did fit me!
I have encountered this type of thing inany places, like when buying shoes one of the employees at the store told me "We don't have this in size 42 in stock, but we do have 41 and our sizes are larger".
Imagine if you went to McMaster Carr and asked for an M3 screw, and being told "We are out of M3, but our M2.5 is larger so it should work for you"
However, clothes are nearly impossible to simultaneously standardize and commoditize: people (and their feet) come in all shapes and sizes, so different brands in particular, but also different lines of those brands, will have different proportions.
As a tall guy, I hate that clothes keep growing in width with larger sizes, but rarely grow in length (pants/trousers included), but only because you can't get things without trying them on in multiple sizes.
If you do not understand why standardized sizes are not mandated or something similar, just look at any bespoke garment creation and all the variable measures being taken for a shirt, pants or jacket — just make realistic combination of all of them in different sizes, and you are looking at ~1000 "standard sizes" or more.
One problem is that business forces keep turning brands into rugpulls.
After enough of this nonsense, brands are less of a reliable indicator.
Amazon pushed that to its inevitable endgame, where each product is a unique look-at-reviews situation. (and coincidentally the amazon advertising business is there while you run the product choosing guantlet)
On the contrary, *insertanynonenglishnamebrand* (*newbrand*) doesn't need to have any care in the world. If the product is trash, they would replace the name next year, bonus points if they declare bankrupcy and don't pay their obligations.
Only at the same price. If there's a big discount, I'm going to prefer the random letter jumble from China because it's probably a standard design that a lot of factories are producing because it works well enough.
The only reason I lean towards Sony all things being equal is because I know that Sony gets sued when things go wrong, and won't just drop the brand and close up shop like the random letter jumble.
Also I would prefer Sony if lead would be a problem somewhere in the thing I'm buying.
:)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootk...
edit: I must add - except for this cheap Android phone from the carrier. But I head it off at the router.
The problem with this is it's a bit hard to put "well known" in a news article about a negative piece of news, because the manufacturers tend to threaten to sue you unless you have some kind of source or some kind of actual numbers. So this ends up just circulating as received wisdom within the car-knower community but not to the general public. Unless they get lucky with Reddit search results.
I noticed today that Autotrader.co.uk have recall warnings for certain cars, though.
Last I checked Samsung had the most engagement on Facebook just behind Netflix. This means that they are spending tons of money to put their products in front of their customers via social media marketing. Go out and ask any normies for the top 3 brands for electronics, especially that of home appliances, Samsung will definitely be up there somehow, because most people think that big brand = good. How do they know it's big? Well, you see them everywhere!
So I imagine that, "the reviews were good!" is just the surface. The truth is that they ignored all the writings on the wall. In the reality created by the constant exposure, the manufacturer is a big brand, thus they make good cars. Unless someone runs a counter advertisement to tell them about the critical problem the same amount of time or more than when they're shown the car whooshing through multiple scences sytlishly.
Also I don't see how it's unfair to expect refrigerators that cost a grand to do their one job without firmware.
Ford's recently designed engines were designed with a timing belt internally that operated in an oil bath.
They are currently walking that decision back and attempting to make it look as if it wasn't planned obsolescence (dry cambelt engines or proper timing chains means that the engine would last almost longer than the person who bought it if they did the regular maintenance. A cambelt that cannot be changed because its internal means that there is a limit to how long the engine would last.)
Needs changing at 100,000 to 150-000 miles or every 10 years.
The 10 year service is a spendy one.
Goes to show how long brand name goes, especially on appliances.
I’m puzzled as well, buying a car that depreciates 60-70% in 7 years seems like a horrible idea, you could spend roughly the same on a Toyota Highlander or Honda Pilot and only face 30-40% depreciation after 7 years. This information is freely available if you google “[vehicle model] depreciation curve”.
Nissan (and Stellantis, Mitsubishi) decided to stop making better cars and focus almost exclusively on subprime lending, the rest of the story tells itself once you have that information.
That's just one of those secrets that you need to know, though. It's like knowing to ignore the unemployment rate (in the vast majority of cases) and instead to look at the prime-age employment rate. People rarely think of something like that without being told.
Maybe cruel, but I haven't found a better way to get someone to realize the error of their ways… because logic has obviously failed them.
[1] https://youtu.be/GceNsojnMf0 [2] https://youtu.be/-fC2oke5MFg
someone did not like you linking that!
OK, that's a fair statement, but!
My 2017 Altima has been great. Comfortable to drive, bluetooth connection that doesn't drive me crazy, space for passengers and cargo, manageable maintenance, I even use it to tow a small trailer with lawn equipment, no issues! I'm up to 190,000 mi with only minor repairs that I could do myself. I got my money's worth out of this one.
That said... I do avoid smart appliances, especially LG and Samsung. The additional features do not seem to add enough value to overcome the potential problems.
You don't have the CVT, do you?
Just total engineering incompetence of forced updates with new features for no reason that degrade core workflows and introduce needless instability.
Even Tesla which plays fast & loose with some things.. the car does not come to a halt if the infotainment/GPS/etc tablet reboots. It's VERY disconcerting as you have no speedometer, the car is eerily silent, etc.. but the car still drives.
Just sloppy, cheap, lazy engineering.
But it is true that the rules don’t anticipate a fridge that cannot refrigerate food if the advertisements aren’t playing properly.
I would love a fridge with a camera inside and a smart enough AI to tell me (1. what's in the fridge (2. how long it's been there and (3. what I've eaten from it. Some companies have tried making this kind of fridge, but AFAIK they don't work very well.
Features that are smart listed on the product page[1]:
Family Hub™ 21.5”: Family Hub™ keeps your family connected from anywhere; search recipes, share pictures, stream music, access YouTube and control your smart devices all from your the fridge* (*A WiFi connection and Samsung account required)
SmartThings Energy: SmartThings lets you monitor and manage your smart refrigerator's power usage; get energy saving tips and alerts to help lower your electric bill all from your phone.
Now Brief: The Now Brief provides a daily overview of information including the weather, your schedule and latest health data on your Family Hub ™screen, when it's not in use; customize your Now Brief dashboard using your favorite apps and widgets to get a quick glance of what's relevant to you.
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Samsung-30-cu-ft-Smart-French-Door-...
Extremely uncompelling stuff. Now add in that it is probably beaming your usage habits for your ad profile, always listening for voice commands, and apparently will break into freezing mode, and I cannot imagine why anyone would even consider this. If they were giving them out for free or paying people to put in their house, their existence would make sense tp me. Now I've learned that n>1 people paid multiple thousands of dollars for this and I assume it is not the only model out there.
I get mail from my utility that I use more electric than average. However that doesn't give me anything actionable to do about it. I don't need another nag about things I can't do anything about.
I would love to see someone at the level of technology connections do a breakdown of the physics here, and where the likely crossover point point is for different kinds of fridges. My current (probably illformed) belief from the suction and imagined resulting air exchange of all the fridges I’ve lived with is that leaving the fridge open on the order of seconds is better than opening-closing-opening-closing in terms of cold loss.
* https://www.reddit.com/r/AskEngineers/comments/1618mku/would...
It’s be an interesting experiment to put a temperature probe in something like a block of cheese, let it cool to the ambient fridge temperature, then open the fridge door for a few minutes and see if the temperature of the cheese even measurably changes over the next few hours or whatever amount of time.
I can see why customers might want something like this though. We have a Skylight calendar in our house. It's just a big ass calendar. The software and service that Skylight provides makes it a VERY GOOD big ass calendar, but I can see some people thinking "i use my fridge all the time; why not just have a self-updating calendar there?". (Magnetic calendars on fridges are very popular.)
But, no, Samsung and LG literally sell this concept as doomscrolling as a service. So dumb. They look super tacky also. EVERY ultra high end fridge is literally two solid doors or designed to disappear behind closet doors. Nobody's staring at their fridge while pulling out their eggs and bacon for breakfast lol
Here's a tip to save some electricity on the fridge: unplug all the smart stuff.
A fridge only uses a couple kWh a day and there's not much to optimize other than "keep the door closed" and "don't overfill it".
Just about the only thing I might want to see on a smart fridge door is maybe a shared family calendar that can sync with an external calendar provider, and that's not even listed as a feature.
Fundamentally due to product lifecycle expectations, I wouldn't even want that!
I hope a fridge will last 10+ years.
Unfortunately any SaaS/cloud-connected piece of hardware is going to have some combo of firmware/OS/security/app update deprecation well before 10 years is up. The last people I expect to maintain software that long is the maker of a fridge.
What they don't tell you: when the fridge door is closed the light turns off.
(yes HN this is a joke)
More seriously, in a previous job I did inventory/POS systems for pubs which would track the obvious things like "you got ten casks of beer delivered this morning and have sold 50 pints, at what point do you need to order more beer". It would genuinely be useful to have inventory tracking for fridges. At one point this would rely on barcodes, but machine vision should be good enough for now. The problem is, as with many smart things, it needs to be reliable and frictionless enough that it's better than just the Mark 1 Eyeball.
Also it's very difficult to trust if it might end up integrated into a purchase system. Does "you always have milk in the fridge" sound good? Yes. Is it going to be like "HP Instant Ink", a massive and slightly wasteful ripoff? Well, quite possibly.
I am always on the lookout to automatate as much boring, everyday tasks. A Smart Fridge like that would allow you to generate shopping lists and reduce food waste by alerting you to possible soon-to-be-spoiled food.
A bit like what roombas are doing for cleaning. You still need to do it yourself a bit, but they help.
Not necessary, not even a gamechanger but another neat home automation. Would be nice, sad to hear they don't work well.
I even store produce (ex onions) on the counter tops, so I guess smart counters as well
The fridge/pantry camera is a useful addition, but most of the value would be a system that just tracks what I put in/take out.
It might actually be easier to start with the smart pantry! An in-cabinet kit that can be tested entirely dry and warm and open, and then expanded to the fridge.
A car is a half solution to going to work. A stove is a half solution to preparing food.
Half solutions are what people need. They’re the solutions we are using every day.
There is this huge problem with advertising that makes consumers think a half solution is a 100% solution. Most smart product makers do that trick. But, apart from that problem, ‘the perfect is the enemy of the good’
Edit: but no way would I buy any smart or connected fridge from Samsung. I don’t anticipate that being a positive experience
> A stove is a half solution to preparing food.
A working grocery tracking system is a half-solution to effortless shopping.
A half-working grocery tracking system is useless, much like a car without an engine.
>A half-working grocery tracking system is useless, much like a car without an engine.
Yes. Something designed to be a half solution can be useful. But a full solution which is broken is probably worse than useless.
Me too. I think I’m not communicating clearly. Sorry.
What I’m talking about is a system that does only one third of the steps in the total end-to-end process for ALL your groceries. You do the rest yourself, or use other help.
I’m not advocating a broken system that claims to do that complete process, but really ignores two thirds of your groceries. That would be damn stupid.
Do you understand what I mean?
2. At supermarket, listen to voice recordings.
I'm actually working on a pet project to transcribe my 20 years of voice recordings and organise them, then sync them between the phone and desktop. Maybe in the coming weeks I'll know that I needed milk in October 2008.
Or you didn't finish the milk, but didn't realize it had gone bad until after you got home with ingredients for a meal depending on milk.
Maybe we could do better. Maybe we can automate this as well.
Now we have generations of people who grew up with surveillance capitalism and broken promises I wonder what the next big wave will be
Perhaps it's because I'm the cook of the family, but to my mind, if you're in your kitchen on a daily basis, it's incredibly easy to have a strong idea of what you have at home when you're at the store. It's never perfect and once in a while you double up or miss things, but that's life!
We do have a shared shopping list. If I remember I'll put things I use up on the list, but often I'm busy at the time I notice because the thing on the stove needs to be stirred constantly... Last night I used one can of beans leaving two more - I didn't put beans on the list, but maybe I should have. Overall this system is working, but it is annoying and sometimes not ideal.
My wife cooks sometimes too, but usually it's fairly easy for me to observe what she made and have a good sense of what went into the meal.
>We do have a shared shopping list. If I remember I'll put things I use up on the list, but often I'm busy at the time I notice because the thing on the stove needs to be stirred constantly... Last night I used one can of beans leaving two more - I didn't put beans on the list, but maybe I should have. Overall this system is working, but it is annoying and sometimes not ideal.
Same for us. I wanted to make pinto bean tacos last night but forgot the pinto beans at the store last weekend, because I'd assumed we'd had some. We used it as an opportunity to pivot and have a random meal that involved using up extras in our pantry and freezer. Life will always have annoying moments that aren't always ideal, there's no amount of automation that will eliminate them. It's good for us to experience those moments and use them as growth opportunities (not saying you don't, I'm just speaking generally here).
And costs you nothing. Is easy to roll out. Doesn't ever need replacement. Doesn't ever fall apart. Lasts forever.
The smart fridge will also screw up and not get it all right 100% of the time. And for that, it will cost you handsomely, will be difficult to implement in all your kitchen, will need constant replacement, will fall apart, will not last forever.
Framed like this, the smart solution is actually worse.
Point is things advance. the first iteration might be as bad as you say, but they are likely to fix the bugs and make it better over time.
It’s “wouldn’t this hypothetical feature be great” vs “my feeble mind cannot even imagine why anyone would ever want that”
Anything you've prepared at home will also not be tracked by such a system.
I have no problem remembering what's in the fridge. It doesn't do me any good because my wife and daughter also know what's in the fridge and they eat those things too.
Knowing I might need to pick something up while I'm out, particularly when nobody is home to check the remaining stock, would be handy.
Having said that, I don't want anything to do with the modern conception of a "smart fridge". If there was a self-hostable fridge camera I could install I might be into that. Otherwise, no thanks. I like my "dumb" fridge UI the way it is.
Actually a cheap microcontroller and a few cameras over the lifetime of the fridge that caused me to open it say 50% less would save more money than it would waste by my estimate.
> If you were talking about a smart fridge with an accompanying robot that automatically orders groceries, picked up the deliveries itself, and stocked your fridge that'd be something, at least
Yeah.
Step 1: fridge with smart inventory
Step 2: hook it up to grok bot
Step 3: grok bot orders your food from Walmart+ InHome
So every piece of this exists except the hypothetical sci-fi fridge.
Again, I’m stunned by the complete and utter lack of imagination and critical thinking here. You guys are the offshore contractors of HN commenting.
> Do people have the memory of a goldfish or what?
This is actually a pretty good point. Many people do have poor memory for a plethora of reasons. This would be a great accessibility feature.
You can’t be a software developer with such a poor imagination and intuition. Debugging would be hell for you. Even worse because you’d fail to imagine the edge cases ahead of time.
I take it you've only ever lived alone then? Its pretty easy for someone in my household to consume food or add food without me knowing about it. And I definitely do not take a full and complete inventory every time I open the fridge.
I'd find it very handy to look at a glance and see the current stock of stuff I have in my house. I definitely don't know exactly how much butter I have at the moment, I don't know what the date is on the almond milk versus the whole milk, I don't know how many string cheese sticks are left after the kids grabbed their snacks for school. I don't know exactly how much salt or pepper or smoked paprika or herbes de provence or curry powder or semi-sweet morsels or baking soda I happen to have on hand.
I don't know the technology to seamlessly track all of this is realistically at hand, but it sure would be nice. I do agree, every smart fridge today either doesn't even try with this or just totally sucks at it.
But hey I guess you just have all that data totally memorized and you're entirely omnicient about everything your household consumes. Sure seems nice.
My idea of a dumb fridge: a fridge that updates firmware, bricks itself, and lets all my food spoil.
Taking photos of the fridge is a solution, but then phones were too stupid until recently to be able to find those. Even know it's a mixed bag.
We live in a world of dumb devices that could be so much smarter.
Remember this classic? https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-hig...
At the very least, the system that maintains the temperature of the fridge (critical for food safety) should not be brought down by an exception in the system that displays advertisements on the front panel...
I feel like this is what people say a smart fridge _could_ be good for, but can they even do that? From what I understand the most sophisticated ones can tell you if some specific items are in your fridge, and otherwise they just do basic shit like display photos and tell the weather.
At least I wouldn’t know what’s stopping them from building actually-useful features, tech-wise. Or was it just always a bad idea because fridge placement is random and items are often hard to find/detect?
The technological issue is that computer vision is hard, even after the last five years of AI progress.
I will take a solidly engineered fridge with a good energy usage profile every single time over some overengineered wifi-connected piece of crap.
Never underestimate the value of convenience to people.
How? Are there cameras inside the fridge that check best before dates, and what food is in there? Having a fridge that is actively spying on what I eat seems even worse.
- Reminders to change the ice/water filter get sent to my phone. There's an indicator light, but the phone notification is nice, too. The app also records when the filter was changed—useful to confirm that I'm "tasting" that the filter needs changed early.
- When we had a teenager living with us, getting remote notifications that the refrigerator door was left open probably saved us a few fridge-fulls of food.
Other than that, it's just a fridge that works reasonably well. My one complaint has nothing to do with smart features: about once per year I have to spend 5 mins to defrost the ice maker with a hairdryer. Just infrequent enough for me not to investigate the source of the problem.
[0] I don't say "smart" here because nothing's really smart/automated and it doesn't have a screen, speaker, microphone or camera. RF28R7201SR/AA if you're curious.
> - Reminders to change the ice/water filter get sent to my phone.
How do you deal with all your other maintenance tasks around the house? with other appliances? with your car? Why not use a central system, like a task/reminder app?
> - When we had a teenager living with us, getting remote notifications that the refrigerator door was left open probably saved us a few fridge-fulls of food.
I would understand a child leaving the door open but a teenager doing it that often is kind of wild? Regardless, wouldn't a reminder beep that starts when the door has been open for 5 minutes be better? Must everything be on your phone? It's not even actionable if you're not in the house, where you'd hear a local beep.
The filters I buy come with little date stickers to put on it.
https://old.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/1ow6cpu/appa...
https://old.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/1pi2ax1/woman_...
Cant manage to get an archive link for the second one.
Does anyone know of an xcancel like service but for Reddit? OP links just lead to a login page.
The ads were real though: https://ibb.co/5hbG7ymS
My parents are of the generation where they put a TV in every room and just keep it on 24/7 news all day long. They don’t understand a world without ads and certainly don’t go out of their way to avoid them
I want my appliances to last far longer than devices like my phone or computer.
There is absolutely no way these manufacturers will continue updating them even close to as long as I want to own them. So then you're stuck with an insecure and functionally useless, bad looking (in my opinion) appliance. That you paid extra to own and see ads on.
... and hopefully be simple. My washer and dryer (made in late 90s) are dirt simple inside, with parts readily available. I recently had to replace the belt in the dryer, and a water valve in the washer. It was a diy job, with the help of a few youtube videos.
My neighbor guest's car got stuck in their driveway recently when an electronic parking brake malfunctioned. It really feels like all the gadgetry is a step backwards.
I like knowing if I (or someone visiting our house while we're gone) left one of the doors open or when it needs maintenance done on it.
[0]https://youtu.be/OvUr00GPcIo?is=zSoGzA6fV49JTSpV
https://youtu.be/vrIw2i4WtA4?is=AWJK7ywVgImbVcTD
If you have an option of regular stairs or stalled escalators, use the stairs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krXj69fJjgA
If the brakes aren't operating properly the stairs could start moving uncontrollably.
You can hard reset the latter one by holding down the home button for ten seconds, but while it turns back on the indicators don't function... even while driving
They take this type of bug very seriously but obviously any platform will have bugs. It’s the legacy automakers I worry about, since their software has always been outdated crap and this problem needs the best in test automation
My 2015 Jeep Cherokee had a freakout one day: the power steering stopped working mid-drive, on the highway. I was 50 minutes from my house, had to turn around and drive back home (an exhausting exercise given that modern cars are not built to function without power steering). I got to the dealer, parked in the lot, turned the car off, wait 30 seconds, turn it back on, everything worked fine.
That never happened again, but once is enough to put somebody in a dangerous-to-life situation.
It's not just the infotainment system we should be worrying about. Most modern cars are now distributed computer systems.
Even my rear-view mirror is a camera, and currently it has failed (shows matrix style drippy blue lines instead of a picture.
You must not fear it that much.
This is a direction all manufacturers are going into, so there is little actual choice. And buying used is not a real solution; where do tomorrow’s used vehicles come from?
To say nothing of the tradeoffs that come with an older vehicle (safety and pollution).
And let be real, the 60 years old car, while there are some aspects they do better than modern one, overall they are much worse than mordern car.
None of them have turned into pumpkins.
Recent household BS: music playing out of my thermostat.
Wife tried playing music out of Sonos, but the clunky app was laggy and had also signed her out of Spotify. No problem, you can also just play direct from Spotify app into Sonos speakers. She opens Spotify, selects "Living Room" and next thing you know our THERMOSTAT was playing music.
Neither of us know this was possible, neither of us enabled it, apparently it's existed for years but for some reason Saturday was the day that "Living Room" thermostat beat out "Living Room" Sonos in the Spotify sort order.
There were product managers on both sides of that decision to prioritize enabling such a stupid feature.
I'd pay for it to not be possible. I'd disable it on either/both ends if they had a toggle, which of course they don't. MVP baby.
Probably not. And that is why it happened - nobody thought about this at all until everything working as designed fails.
That is the thermostat probably is an off the shelf tablet with a speaker that they put other things on to make it a thermostat - this is the obvious thing to do and a lot cheaper than making your own completely custom hardware for this job. The software on the thermostat is likewise off the shelf (probably android) which has spotify in the base install and nobody took it out. Then you set the thermostat to be in the living room - again because that is the obvious thing to do. Finally your wife plays music and spotify sees two devices in the living room and picks one - which happens to be the wrong one but they have no way to know that.
The above is entirely likely and at no point (until know when I point it out) has anybody thought of it.
Apparently a firewall rule is about the only way to stop this.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/gPRyq0Vu0Tk
I found it after learning that Samsung is planning to start charging $5 a month for API access but another benefit is reducing the risk of something like this.
[0]: https://github.com/mbillow/localthings
Excessive needs bring you excessive pain.
It turns out that grocery stores with real time inventory on websites & pickup/delivery are a much better solution.
I have my weekly order I add my usuals to, and then add items to the cart all week as I noticed I am out/low while making dinner.
The future truly is incredible
I can understand some people would like their heating/cooling systems to be available online as a convenience, but a fridge?
TIL that they really shouldn’t.
This extends all the way up to software. Be wary when someone pushes a modern replacement of a reliable and effective tool you already have.
https://mnews.sbs.co.kr/english/article.do?newsId=N100876742...
It only happened when it was particularly cold outside. I eventually figured out that there is an external temperature sensor that causes the fridge to stop cooling below a certain external temperature. And that space in the kitchen was particularly cold in the back. But I could never read it below 55, so I think the sensor was faulty.
But the reading on the front is what really annoyed me. I had to keep a thermometer inside the fridge so that I didn't accidentally eat food that felt cool enough but was bad.
This happened every year. I eventually gave it away for free, with a warning to the person.
https://www.computersecurity.com/products/refrigerator-lock
Granted, I think the very concept of a smart fridge is a bad idea no matter how you execute on it... but they still managed to take a bad idea and execute on it badly. Amazing.
For example, nuclear weapons are certainly well-engineered, but I think it's reasonable to disagree on if they were a good idea or not.
https://www.techradar.com/home/smart-home/samsung-launches-a...
"Smart" that I can back is simple sensor acquisition over open protocols. I would appreciate being able to MONITOR my fridge/freezer/stove/oven/washer/dryer. Changing shit over those connections is not needed, nor wanted.
I was at the store and one fridge had built in cameras so you could get pictures of your fridge all the time. :S