Link: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/09/owners-mourn-spoiled-food-after-firmware-update-bricks-samsung-smart-fridges/

Some Samsung smart fridges stopped working on Tuesday due to a firmware update.

Korean outlets were the first to report the problems, which affect Samsung’s Bespoke AI line of fridges. Star News Korea, per a Google-provided translation, said that most of the affected devices were four-door fridges from 2024 or later.

Affected fridges “suddenly lost power and stopped functioning immediately after” trying to issue a firmware update through SmartThings, Samsung’s smart home platform, per Star News Korea. The SmartThings app then showed the devices as offline. Some users said that their fridge’s internal display was stuck showing the message “Checking SmartThings app during update.”

There are numerous reports on Samsung’s Korean community forum detailing the problem. Some users claim that they have owned their affected fridge for just a year or less.

“[T]he refrigeration and refrigeration functions themselves did not work normally, so all the food in the refrigerator had to be disposed of,” one user wrote, per a translation.

Yikes, and I thought I hated my LG fridge with the stupid compressor issues 4 times in 5 years across 2 fridges.

At some point in my life new technology started adding problems to life instead of managing them.

I’m surprised the cooling unit doesn’t have a system that’s just state (on/off) and desired temperature, and that the enshittification subsystem controls the cooling at all.

My fridge from 1958 is still working on the original parts, has only ever had the seal replaced

No firmware update required

Linear compressor?

I suppose they probably have it possible to adjust cooling remotely - I could see how that could go wrong.

But yea, letting it control cooling is stupid.