A refrigerator should never need an update. Smart appliances are the stupidest shit I ever heard of. A refrigerator should not need anything but an outlet and maybe a water connection.

It is a really poor design choice to tie the smart screen to the core function of the refrigerator. They apparently haven't heard of the idea of fail safe.

I don't really understand why a fridge which needs to update for features like seeing the interior on your phone or cataloguing the cintents would fail to even refrigerate after an update.

The refrigeration should be manual so that when the digital controls fail it falls back on manual settings.

look, i wouldn't mind a dashboad where i could see when the dishwasher was run, that the rinse fluid is low, the temperature in the fridge ans freezer over time, how many times the ice machine refilled, when the AC on....

smart devices could have been cool.

what we got was the ability for the power company to turn of my fridge, requiring a broken app to run cycles on a dishwasher, and spying for no benefit in every device.

The idea has promise and i hold a small glimmer of hope for home assistant. But, like so many things companies did not give anyone what they wanted.

Honestly, this is not outside of possibility. My 3d printer does more complicated metrics. I'd be willing to bet we'd be able to do aftermarket mods for that if anyone was willing to DIY these days.

A lot of people using Home Assistant make some of those things happen.

I know right? Yet people buy them.

Like SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world

Agreed. The idea of reminders that I bought something in particular and should eat it before it goes bad is an appealing one. This seems like the opposite of that, though.

It's a smart fridge and that's a dumb idea!

AI makes everything better.

One of the reasons techies are burning out is because they are tired of seeing the promise of a new tech and watching it be used to enable surveillance.

For a fridge the functionality as an appliance shouldn’t be linked to the functionality as a device with a web browser. Ice bucket low? Sensor sends signal to app, fine. But the fridge doesn’t need to know that; it can keep using the float switch or whatever it used to before “smart”. Temperature tracking same thing - bolt a sensor and hook it to the app, but don’t use that app and sensor to control the fridge.

The update probably triggered something buried in the code that’s there solely to hold your fridge hostage if you don’t want to pay for subscriptions.

They have.

But failing safe doesn’t get them monthly subscriptions.

It could also be used for emergency power shutoff in case of electrical fault (or for planned obsolescence) but again that could and should be Analogue and not dependent on digital settings or stored values. Hopefully legislators in South Korea, EU, and Americas tackle these issues in the future.

If only someone could have warned us this would happen.

Seems to be working as intended: shittily.

I recently had to buy all new kitchen appliances. They are machines, as simple as is available. I do admit the fridge does have digital controls, and they're kinda nice.

Give me a washer, dryer and dishwasher that send my phone an alerr when they finish please.

I do too. But most commercial appliance integrations are hacks, and having missing featurea or dont really work most of the time. Many times I suspect skirting very close to violating TOS too.

HA is great if you have matter or zigbee or zwave. Probably even some of the proprietary in building protocols too. But these one off cloud commercial systems honestly suck in my experience.

If you buy a refrigerator that needs an internet connection, you deserve this tbh

It's a box that makes stuff cold for ffs ain't no damn 1s or 0s required

NO ONE COULD HAVE FORESEEN THIS RIDICULOUS INEVITABILITY

I just set a timer

This is dumb, but what's even dumber is making a device that can even fail in that way to start with. I'd have expected the core refrigerator function to be isolated in some way from the rest of the device.

Some day we will only be able to get connected "smart" devices. I hope I'm not around to see that.

Oh but then you would own part of the device... Can't have that

With home assistant we usually monitor a smart plug: instant power goes above x value -> cycle has started, power goes (close) to zero for x time -> cycle has ended, send notification. In my case I raise a flag value that reminds me periodically to unload the machine until I confirm that I've done it

Doesn’t work for washers and dryers that use sensors to tell when the clothes are clean/dry.

Thankfully, my set is “connected” in that you can connect to it to see status updates and adjust notification volume, but everything else is manual.

My fridge also has monitoring, and tells you if the inside temperature goes outside range. It also lets you toggle the ice maker, notify you when it’s full and adjust temperature of the three compartments. I can see that last one triggering something similar to Samsung’s gaffe if a firmware update hard locked the temperatures to negative values or something.

Nothing. Is made. Correctly. Anymore. I went to school for industrial design, and I can comfortably say design and how to communicate proper use are fucking dead. Some thing or website or service is made wrong every fucking time I turn around. It is relentless and unreal.

That's because no one has designers, or listens to them anymore. I have absolutely no clue where new design students are even getting work.

There is no consumer product that needs AI except for maybe a note taker or conversation summarizer. I want my life to have less screens, not more. And I'm for god damn sure trying to create a screen free house for my kids.

I’ve run a household for 20 years and never needed anything like this

Those sensors don't work anyway. Just do it by time.

causing outrage and science projects

Need != could be useful

Perhaps being able to turn the fridge off remotely was always part of the plan? We're in the age of enshittification, where companies don't see enforcing a mandatory subscription onto their pre-existing customers as problematic. I honestly wouldn't put it past a modern company to keep such an ace up their sleeves just in case.

What would be really cool is if a fridge kept track of how fresh everything was, and alerted users when food spoiled, or was about to spoil, or on track to spoil given how seldom it was consumed.

I can't tell you how many times yogurt or sour cream has gone bad in my fridge because everyone forgets it's in there.

Also, detecting ice buildup and consequently adjusting humidity or water flow to the ice maker etc

Can't wait until sex toys become over Ai'd. If you don't pay your pocket pussy subscription and you run out of time mide session; you'll have to pay to get your dick back.

Not enough people have seen Silicon Valley

Why was it even able to fail that way to begin with?

It's not like the functional software in a refrigerator needs to be updated that often at all. You'd think that if the update fails catastrophically, it would fall back to a basic operating mode like a car does.

Do they have a renting system or something in the works that's meant to let them shut the device remotely?

If you buy smart appliances, you're a fucking retard

First thing I thought of!

I have smart lights that can be controlled over the internet.
If the internet connection goes down, I can also control them locally.
If the local network fails, I have physical light switches.

All smart devices should fail into a safe and functional mode when the smart features inevitably stop working. It seems Samsung doesn't subscribe to that philosophy.

wait until they start selling your, erm, 'habits' to data brokers and we start seeing websites selling "what are they into" kind of data to people. (people including your employer.... )

What odious turd buys an AI fridge??

Wish they gave me a thousand upvotes for this.

This made me glad I only use a fridge without the "smart" features.

and just today i was joking with a friend about a theoretical shitty llm-powered microwave with no buttons

quite ironic

I blame Gilfoyle. Fucking Gilfoyle.