Owners mourn spoiled food after firmware update bricks Samsung smart fridges

9cb14c1ec0

Meanwhile, my non-smart fridge continues to run just fine. Why do we need smart fridges? That was always a bad idea.

tacomagick

Why is the fridge's cooling system is one with the smart features? They should be kept completely separate

saadn92

Maybe not everything needs to be smart.

Scubabear68

This is my fear on the car side, as smart features start leaking from isolated areas in automobiles into the larger CAN bus....

__sy__

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.

sixothree

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.

ryukoposting

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.

rkuska

Gilfoyle's take on Smart Fridges: > This thing is addressing problems that don't exist. It's solutionism at its worst.

robrain

Yesterday I learnt that Samsung has a Royal Warrant in the UK. TIL that they really shouldn’t.

nekusar

"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.

100percentjake

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.

crtasm

dupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49815381 1 day ago | 270 comments

steveBK123

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.

petcat

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.

tonymet

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.

steveBK123

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.

charles_f

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

sn0n

If you have a fridge that new… you are probably fine.

Telaneo

So when will Samsung be compensating affected owners for their spoilt food?

drob518

Sigh. Anything + computer = computer