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Samsung makes ads on smart fridges official with upcoming software update

arstechnica.com

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Re: Samsung makes ads on smart fridges official with upcoming software update

#201

Post by analog31 »

Fwirt wrote: post #25
kstrauser wrote: post #12

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

Samsung appliances have among the worst reputations for ease of repair and lifespan. Sadly most other brands are rebrands of Chinese conglomerates or not much better on the quality chain. But honestly it's also a lottery. We bought a fridge on sale for $500 as an emergency stopover when our expensive fridge was delayed by a month during a move, and it's still plugging along out in the garage, a hostile environment fo…

Maybe we need a new boots theory:

The rich person buys a $3500 pair of boots that comes with surveillance, useless AI, and bricks itself on the next firmware update.

The poor person buys a pair of boots, that are... boots.

Re: Samsung makes ads on smart fridges official with upcoming software update

#202

Post by nicbou »

jmward01 wrote: post #185

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

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

Re: Samsung makes ads on smart fridges official with upcoming software update

#203

Post by margalabargala »

smallstepforman wrote: post #190
darkwater wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is the advantage of an inductive stove? That you can control temperature changes better than with a ceramic hob, on par with methane stoves. > I think in Europe they work with 360 V No, normal 230V (or 220V)

3 phase is 380V

Three phase consumer induction stoves are approximately 0% of the consumer induction stove market.

Re: Samsung makes ads on smart fridges official with upcoming software update

#204

Post by lexszero_ »

kstrauser wrote: post #12

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

For a short while, I worked at one of Samsung subsidiaries on their TV firmware, mostly fixing Linux kernel bugs introduced by the product teams cannibalizing upstream features to serve their needs (including intentionally disabling reasonable kernel security measures that happened to be in their way). I've seen things, both technical and organizational, that led me to pledge never to give my money to that company, or have their devices connected to networks I care about. I don't trust any of it, if not due to evil intent, but just incompetence.

Re: Samsung makes ads on smart fridges official with upcoming software update

#205

Post by stephen_g »

nappy-doo wrote: post #139
kstrauser wrote: post #12

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

I beg to differ that Samsung makes good stuff. We had a Samsung front-loading washer. The drum and the crank that holds the drum were made of two different materials, and in the presence of the water and detergent, a galvanic reaction occurred, dissolving the drum arm. Replacing the arm was $400 in parts and over 8 hours in repair time. (There's lots of YT videos of this exact repair.) What kind of monkey designs som…

I’m glad to have avoided it - when I moved from sharing with room-mates into my own place and had to buy new appliances, there had just been a spate of Samsung appliances literally randomly catching fire in the news. Those models have all been recalled but it put me right off.

Otherwise I might have considered them but steered well clear, and am very happy with the decision a decade later. Went Bosch for the washer and Electrolux for the fridge, had zero issues.

Re: Samsung makes ads on smart fridges official with upcoming software update

#206

Post by bleomycin »

tempest_ wrote: post #113
Fwirt wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Samsung appliances have among the worst reputations for ease of repair and lifespan. Sadly most other brands are rebrands of Chinese conglomerates or not much better on the quality chain. But honestly it's also a lottery. We bought a fridge on sale for $500 as an emergency stopover when our expensive fridge was delayed by a month during a move, and it's still plugging along out in the garage, a hostile environment fo…

The issue is that the 10k fridge is not actually any better. The "luxury" appliances can be double that and are still shit.

Not quite accurate as a blanket statement. Munro did a very detailed tear down series of a sub zero refrigerator that’s very interesting. Youtube link: https://youtu.be/KAYj6m9QtDU

I wish more content like this existed. It’s the only type of review that is worth paying attention to.

Long story short if you live in an energy market like california the energy savings of the sub zero will likely offsets its additions cost over the lifetime of the unit.

Re: Samsung makes ads on smart fridges official with upcoming software update

#208

Post by embedding-shape »

nerdsniper wrote: post #120

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

> Include instructions for carrying out the functional method which are accessible and easily usable by a non-technical individual

Good luck for anyone to claim this bounty if that's one of the requirements. Does the fridge have any exposed ports at all that the average person could access without removing anything from the fridge?

It's also not clear in the bounty, if I add funds to the campaign and it gets fully funded, does that mean that software/hack will be released publicly? Or only to "backers"? It's not clear what the donation goes to, besides for the person who makes the hack to claim.

Re: Samsung makes ads on smart fridges official with upcoming software update

#209

Post by lexszero_ »

analog31 wrote: post #201
Fwirt wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Samsung appliances have among the worst reputations for ease of repair and lifespan. Sadly most other brands are rebrands of Chinese conglomerates or not much better on the quality chain. But honestly it's also a lottery. We bought a fridge on sale for $500 as an emergency stopover when our expensive fridge was delayed by a month during a move, and it's still plugging along out in the garage, a hostile environment fo…

Maybe we need a new boots theory: The rich person buys a $3500 pair of boots that comes with surveillance, useless AI, and bricks itself on the next firmware update. The poor person buys a pair of boots, that are... boots.

"You are so poor that when AWS goes down, you still can get into your house" -- seen somewhere

Re: Samsung makes ads on smart fridges official with upcoming software update

#210

Post by FloorEgg »

kstrauser wrote: post #12

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

I bought a Samsung phone back in like 2014, and shortly after bought smartwatch to pair with it. A year later, Samsung released an update that removed the pairing functionality so my smartwatch could no longer pair. They did this in conjunction with releasing their own smartwatch and some proprietary pairing protocol.

I'm not a fan of vendor lock in, but their decision to retroactively remove functionality that I was depending on led me to never buy another Samsung product since.

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