Here’s what ads on your $2,000 Samsung smart fridge will look like
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/51856491
Here’s how to opt out.
Archived version: https://archive.is/20251027141201/https://www.theverge.com/report/806797/samsung-family-hub-smart-fridge-ads-opt-out
https://www.theverge.com/report/806797/samsung-family-hub-smart-fridge-ads-opt-outOpen linkView original on lemmy.zip326
Comments151
Opt out is idiotic. Don't buy this shit! You to not own it. What fuckwit dumbass rents a fridge someone else controls for $2k. I bet it has a camera inside to sell grocers a list of what to mark up for your custom pricing nonsense because you bought a billboard that screams I'm a gullible moron with more money than sense.
I need my refridgerator to be a box.
A box that gets cold inside.
Thats it. Just a cold box.
I just wish I could buy a cold box, a hot box, a spinny-arm water box and a spinny-drum water box without computer chips in them at all.
So we need a robust, failsafe open source motor controller with minimal firmware or just heavy duty relays and analog timers.
It needs a brain, but only enough to record the cycles from the factory controller and then replay them after replacement.
I also want it dispense cold water. That's not a requirement, just nice to have.
If you eat like shit, that info can be sold to health providers, insurance for that sweet sweet premium increases too.
Here’s what they look like on my fridge:
I would not buy appliances with ads,
I would not buy them, Sam-I-Am.
That's the main issue here. This fridge didn't show ads when people bought it.
So buying things that don't show ads isn't enough. You need to only buy things that don't get updates.
Yeah, that just makes this so sinister.
What I mean is that my fridge doesn’t have a screen. So if Panasonic decided to show me ads on a fridge where the most complicated feature is the ice maker, that would be a neat trick.
Receives a letter at home from Panasonic containing a message, a color printed sheet and a fridge magnet.
Message reads: "Dear costumer, please use enclosed fridge magnet to hang provided advert sheet on your Panasonic refrigerator"
Funny you say that, in Japan it’s common to get business magnets in your junk mail. Stuff like cleaners, in-home therapy, etc.
We did too... Like 10 years ago. I haven't seen that nonsense in a while. The closest thing is a coupon calendar.
But... Do you need the LCD panel? Will the box still get cold without it? Cause I do have a hammer...
I would not buy them here or there. I would not buy them anywhere. I do not like appliances with ads. I do not like them Sam-I-Am.
Not in my house
Not in a flat
Don't make me grouse
I do not want that!
I can't think of a single thing on a fridge that needs to be smart.
its the same people that bought the 2k beds, and aws froze and heated up the beds.
Not 2k beds. 2k bed covers. You still needed your own bed.
I thought I read about beds also being stuck in a reclined position.
That version is significantly more expensive. Still requires you to bring your own mattress lol
that is so much worst, not even a bed, but a bed cover lol. people were discussing how they wernt pulling the plug on the 2k covers, because they would have to admit they spent 2k on a smart"bedc over"
Nothing needs to be, but I do like to monitor door status and temperature for my fridge and deep freezers with home assistant.
Have these functions actually proved useful? I think I've had maybe one fridge failure in my entire lifetime that resulted in a complete loss of contents. And many dumb fridges these days have open door alarms.
The door monitor mostly helps when a kid walks off leaving it open thinking they closed it.
The freezer temperature monitoring has saved the contents several times. A breaker had tripped once and I didn't notice, it let me know that I needed a generator during a power outage, and one of the kids snuck an ice cream and left the lid wide open.
So yeah, it's been useful. It's not needed 99% of the time.
An alarm that beeps when the door is left open more than X minutes (say, 5 minutes) only requires a stupidly simple circuit and about $5 in parts.
No smarts needed (though it's probably cheaper to make it with a microcontroller than have the timer circuit be done with discrete parts).
Hmm, my fridge is in my kitchen, which is in the middle of the house. I've never been in a situation where the fridge door has been open more than a couple minutes without me noticing, and I have three kids.
I've had two fridges die (well, the same one twice), and that sucked, but there's not much I could do about it even if I knew a few hours earlier, and I use the fridge enough I'll notice within a few hours. Refrigerator deliveries often happen after a few days, and I'm not going to keep stocking ice during that period, I'll just consume what I can and move the important stuff to the mini fridge or chest freezer.
It would be cool, sure, but it's not worth having it connected to the internet.
The only time I've ever lost anything from a fridge was when an apartment complex preemptively cleared out the last of our belongings before we finished moving out.
And that was 30 years ago.
To Home Assistant! The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems. 🍻
The people designing them should be smart. Should be...
I'm opting out by buying a significantly cheaper non-smart fridge. Which luckily is still an option.
This
Why. Why would anyone buy a fridge with a screen. We have lots of screens. A fridge does not need a screen. It is a fridge.
There are tablets with docks available. E.g. I could use Pixel tablet with the hub for that, even with privacy-supporting GrapheneOS.
I was about to say… I have a laptop that can go anywhere in the house, including the kitchen. It’s not tethered to any one location and can do all the things that fridge screen can do, and much more. Laptops also have ad blockers freely available.
What? How is the fridge possibly a good location for it? In what world could that ever be true? And do you not have wall outlets in your kitchen? Put your device on the counter!
I mean... what?
Ok, so let's say you're making dinner and you want to watch something at the same time. Perhaps you're chopping vegetables on the counter. Do you really want to be looking at the front of the fridge while you do that? If the fridge is against the same wall as the counter you need to crane your head back to see anything, and if it's on a different wall you need to turn your head a totally different direction. Why not use one of those tablet cases with a kick stand and then put the tablet right in front of you, on the counter? Like right in front of the the cutting board you're using.
I don't know, I think if you do anything other than putting it right in front of you, you're gonna and up losing some fingers instead of chopping veggies.
The fridge is a very inconvenient location though.
My tablet sits on the counter where I am prepping food when using mealie, or where I am standing to cook when I am talking with someone over Jitsi.
Tablet batteries last far longer than any session I am at in the kitchen so after words it just goes to the charger for tomorrow.
No need for wires during use, and its charging station is where ALL my devices chargers are.
Screens would get in the way of my many magnets with notes. Not only does it not "need" one, I'm actively anti screen in this case.
As a Home Assistant geek, I would love to have a tablet built into the fridge door that I could 100% hack to display useful information and such. Currently I have an Android tablet on the wall that does this, but one on the door could be cool, especially if you could setup a place for virtual sticky notes that you could leave reminders and such for family members.
It’s not worth it for ad space though and I wouldn’t want it to be required for the fridge to operate either!
My household has a shared calendar we use to plan events. I've thought about a project before just to put a big view version of that up somewhere for people to reference, but I've been hesitant because it's a large household and having to play tech support every time it goes wrong isn't something i can do.
If i could get a reliable screen on the fridge that could display that, along with maybe a Reminders List and your sticky note idea, that would be perfect. With ads though that's a big nope from me.
Even excluding my stance on not wanting ads, that's how you find out the 5 year old accidentally bought something, or that something was leaked in a big data leak. That's just something i don't want in my home
So a whiteboard with dry erase markers?
And a clock, and a weather forecast, and a picture frame...
A screen has a lot of potential. But not if it works against your interests
So for a clock and picture frame you’re not gunna believe this but…
And for a weather forecast I mean just make a widget on your phone’s home screen, it’ll be fine. The techification of every damn fucking thing we have is ridiculous and we so happily dive into filling our lives with nonsense just to have a theoretical 1% improvement in efficiency that we don’t even need.
I’m not saying we need to throw out all technology but we also don’t need to jam modern tech into every single aspect of our lives.
Good luck when they all have screens :(
You do need to have a display to show you what's in there /s Yes, that's an actual selling argument (slap my forehead real hard)
The issue isn't that the fridge has a screen. The issue is that the screen real-estate is owned by the manufacturer, not you.
I was ready gawk at what ads on my fridge would look like, and then this. I don't know what I expected.
Archived link for you.
Thank you
Guess what they look like on my 250 Dollar dumb fridge.
I can even keep my food chilled with it. Plus I can freeze stuff. Even has a light when I open the door. Super practical. You guys should come see it!
No they won't, because I'm not stupid enough to buy a ridiculously overpriced fridge.
This is an amazing article. I'm serious. Very well written. This is my favorite part:
Do these people actually believe this? Do they see advertisements in their own lives and think, "ah yes, that was useful and contextual. That was a helpful ad, elegantly elevating my information." I've seen some delusional people in executive-level roles, but that would be a special new class of delusion. Nobody likes ads. I recognize that some people have higher and lower tolerances for them, but nobody is actually grateful for them. Right?! I need to believe this is true.
That's generous. But ok, maybe I can grant the premise.
Right. Exactly. No matter what, I can think of no situation in which an ad is serving the customer's interests. Maybe in the case of a coupon? But even then, I think it's dubious.
I like TikTok ads. I am not a material person, so I am generally hard to shop for. But since TikTok came out, I am able to provide a list for people of cool gadgets and stuff that aren't too expensive. Do I like any other ads? No...
Interesting. I have not had that experience, on Tiktok or elsewhere. I do have a similar experience with tech reviewers' videos on Youtube, though. Albeit not the sponsored ones.
Yeah they earn a commission, so it really incentivizes them to find products to promote that people actually want.
The only ones I hate, are the ones where they pretend to be a regular video and then turns into an ad 3 minutes in.
And this isn't an endorsement of Tiktok, just the advertising model.
Unfortunately, it is paywalled. Can you copy the text for the rest of us?
There's an archive.is link in the original post: https://archive.is/20251027141201/https://www.theverge.com/report/806797/samsung-family-hub-smart-fridge-ads-opt-out
I'm wary of running afoul of copyright laws to literally paste it here, but I think you should be able to get it there.
can't wait for the ice dispenser dlc
It’s already a subscription model called a water filter.
Since it's a Samsung ice dispenser, that's a recurring charge: Service calls.
(Seriously though, I'll never buy another Samsung appliance after my experience with that fridge's ice dispenser)
Same experience with them here. The LG replacement fridge w icemaker also sucks and stops working for months at a time.
Oh! I've had no real problems with my LG.
The made ice occasionally gets stuck and has to be knocked loose, but that's no big deal - not like the Samsung freezing the whole mechanism into a huge block that prevents accessing it to clear it out.
Any "ads" that appear on my fridge will be because I was given a $2000 fridge free by the company. Only idiots pay for appliances/services that include ads.
I still wouldn't buy it, but I agree.
If they gave me the fridge for free, I'd use it, and spend a bunch of time figuring out how to remove the ads. If it's not possible, I'd just unplug the screen.
I'd expect it's probably not possible to unplug the screen without unplugging the whole fridge XD
It shouldn't be that hard to take apart the fridge door and cut a few cables...
Or just cover it w an opaque sticker.
Maybe, maybe not. But even if there isn't a chip that makes the fridge stop working when you do that, it would definitely void your warranty, so when the fridge stops working for some other reason later on, you would have to buy a new one XD
Cool, they're giving me a free $2,000 fridge? Because there's no way I'd have that fridge otherwise.
There's a future coming where every fridge sold will come with a screen for ads, and not necessarily any other smart features.
Once people accept this shit, there's no going back.
I have never bought a fridge in my life. When I bought this house the owner just left the current fridge behind it has no branding at all and is basically a white box. The only smart feature it has is that it beeps if you leave the door open (although honestly it's not really much use since it only starts beeping after 10 minutes which I feel like is too long).
I have a feeling the alarm you're talking about is a temperature alarm, not for the door. It's just that leaving the door open will raise the temperature eventually.
and that future will include me ripping out the network connection cards from the primary boards.
if that bricks it, I'll just have to setup an "internet" connection.
I sure hope not, it's hard enough to find nonsucking TVs, I really don't want to have to find an "industrial" fridge just to get a regular one.
I can totally see it going the same general way as TVs.
If it has a screen, theyll put ads on it. If it doesn't have a screen, they'll add a screen, then put ads on it.
I would pry the screen off and dig out the WIFI device if it came down to no other option.
The irony of this article being paywalled is the chef’s kiss.
Every day an open source initiative for applicances makes more sense
imagine paying 2k for a fridge just because it has a screen and stupid smart shit. basic fridge please and thank you.
and play ads on it too.
Unless you build it and code it yourself, do not get a smart device at any cost. Even if they're on sale for $5. (Unless you're just planning on reselling them I guess)
No that's what the front of my fridge will never look like, no matter my net worth. I will never buy a smart refrigerator, certainly not this model from Samsung!
I would like to know why anyone would go out and buy a smart fridge. What amazing feature does it have that you cannot be without? I seriously don't get it.
One thing I heard of that would be handy is cameras in the fridge so while out shopping you can check if you already have stuff or how much is left (depending on the container)
Does that work though because I can't imagine you get a very good angle on things unless there's multiple cameras and you get a composite image one for each shelf.
I haven't tried one, but yeah, I assume multiple cameras and either composite or just letting you switch between them.
And here I am all old-school, just making a list for things.
Yeah, me too. But I'm not good at it.
That's my partner. I just shop hungry and ask him to check the refrigerator for me while I'm out.
We also have a shared grocery app, which works nicely.
I could see it if it was a screen I get to control, akin to a smart mirror. Fridge door would be a pretty good surface since I'm guaranteed to look at it a couple of times each day.
Other than that, push notifications if the door is open? That's about the max when it comes to usefulness I can imagine. Is that a problem that requires a connected device? No, probably not.
However, depending on the model range, it becomes difficult to even get a model that doesn't have the "smart" features. No one can force you to connect the device though (yet).
It has been my general experience over the years that with just about all electronics devices with "everything and the kitchen sink" in them, you're actually better off buying functional elements separatelly as discrete devices.
For example, you're better of with a "dumb" fridge plus a good tablet and something to hang it on the fridge door. Another example is how a "dumb" TV and a TV Media Box separatelly are a better choice than a Smart TV.
This is because those things usually have different technology life-cycles (i.e. the time period were a tablet is expected to remain useful and performant is much less than for a fridge) and some parts are useful on their own and hence are more flexible to use if they're separate (i.e. a standalone tablet has many more uses than one integrated in a Smart Fridge).
Yea, i pretty mich agree with all your points. Made me think of a situation with my neighbor a few months ago- one of their kids left the fridge door slightly open when they left. I think for a weekend trip or something, just enough that everything had spoiled. Lots of meat, too, so they had a blast with that. Some sort of push notification might have helped or prevented that, but otherwise…nah. Dont need nor want any of that always connected, smart, online, wtf ever mess.
They can program it in a way that means it will simply stop cooling your food if it doesn't have internet(and/or if you haven't given them permission to send ads to at least one other device) XD
I think you can run DOOM on it
But can it run crysis?
Running Doom on a Linux device with Wayland is not really that much effort once you have a way to execute 3rd party binaries.
It's a way of showing one's wealth (and peak dunnig-krugger status when it comes to technology) to visits?!
Happy with my ad-free dumb fridge.
Let me know when the smart fridge can track when I'm low on essentials and toggle them unchecked on my shopping list, WITHOUT phoning home, and with no fucking ads. Don't need a screen either.
Nope. Don't want a fridge to track what I eat. Don't want anything to track my data unwanted, just give me a fridge which cools and has a working door. No fancy features, just basic functionality and silent. No smart dishwasher, oven, microwave, washing machine, tooth brush, bed, watch, home hub, locks, lights, etc. I want a smart phone and a smart girlfriend.
If the data is offline, then it only serves you without selling you out. I know it's unrealistic; why would any corporation make something that benefits consumers and not themselves?!
An old cooler with gas station ice is preferable to this bloated spy crap they're producing nowadays.
I believe I will continue to use the same fridge that has been in the house since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Only problem is they become noisy when the coolant leaks out. This is the technical problem they should be solving.
I opt out by never connecting it to the internet.
I opt out by not spending $2K on a fridge that annoys me by its mere existence.
I don't know if that kind of fridge will do its job without internet, it might just stop cooling your food XD
Worth pointing out that that “Target figured out a girl was pregnant before her father did” story is almost certainly untrue: https://www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/machinelearningtimes/target-really-predict-teens-pregnancy-inside-story/3566/
I agree with the article that getting ads on a device you’ve already paid for with no hint that there would be ads is intrusive and a sad sign of how tech is going (in the same week that it was announced that Apple are going to be adding ads to Maps, too). But I also can’t help but wonder - who the fuck wants a smart fridge? Like, legitimately, what is the advantage over a normal fridge?
Not a "smart" fridge per se, but I can see the use of a screen on my fridge; something where we can see our family calendar, leave notes for each other, and maybe also be able to access the grocery shopping list. Weather would be nice too, though you can keep the news widget (yikes). Something in a visible location in our house, where we go every day.
I'm not sure what other features they advertise with a smart fridge, but those few would be nice; especially if I could just plug a raspberry pi into it and skip all of the Samsung nonsense entirely.
I don't even like water/ice dispensers on the door. I love the interior water dispensers.
I agree with you there.
We already do all of that (except the weather) why would I need a screen?
We're a family of six, and the kids don't have phones. It's tough to coordinate schedules already and it's only going to get worse.
I recognize that I'm an edge case.
You’re not an edge case. My family isn’t that large but we still have challenges with this exact thing.
There’s a screen device that my wife gets incessantly advertised to her that is probably a better option than it being built into a fridge that has been engineered to last 3 weeks longer than the warranty.
I was trying to say there is paper. That's what we always did.
And still do for that matter.
We've tried paper. And dry-erase. The problem is that we keep our calendars and todos and schedules on our phones, which don't automatically update the paper; and by the second week, we tend to just stop manually updating it. There's a paper calendar in my office that I just flipped to October last week (from August).
The only way that really seems to work, where we don't forget an event, is having a single digital shared calendar.
So just the two of you?
Also, if you do end up sharing a digital calendar on a device you already have, what is the fridges for?
My wife and I have phones where we keep our shared calendars, yes. But we have four kids who also have their own lives and schedules, and they often want to know what's going on, what our plans are, etc. They would value being able to see the day's upcoming events, too; when the play dates are, when the dentist appointments are, when the days off of school are, what we're eating for dinner, all of that. Currently, their only access to that information is through our phones.
Having a screen in the kitchen that only shows calendars and a couple of other pieces of data would be useful. We wouldn't want to be able to watch videos or browse websites on it, though.
Normal fridges are dumb. Smart fridge smart.
No, won’t look like anything as I will never buy a product like that.
"Smart" fridges are the dumbest shit ever; given that, pi hole or some ad blocking DNS? Block access to Samsung servers?
Don't understand people who are willing to let all that data pass through 3rd party servers
I mean. Sure. Until they start putting SIM cards in them and using the cellular network.
Can you pull it out and put it in your own device to get free service?
I don't know. I've heard of them being soldered to the board sometimes in cars. I'm sure it would be possible though.
No, they would definitely use eSIM
Perhaps they'll be talking via a giant mesh of your neighbors doorbells, fridges, and televisions. Wouldn't that be fucked up? Maybe they'll stream to the police drones patrolling your neighborhood.
I always wondered how an "ad-supported" Kindle would show new ads on the home screen if you only transfer books via USB and never connect via WiFi or wireless? Does it just reuse the old ads? How will the fridge do it?
This is where it's going, I think.
You'll need to use wifi if you want any online functionality out of the device but it'll communicate on its own via cellular for ads and any metrics literally whoever the fuck wants.
As long as a business is able to make more from ads and selling your data than whatever the wireless fees they pay are it makes business sense. It's fucking evil and a dystopian nightmare but it makes business sense.
How will that work? Will they cover the subscription fee for the sim anywhere in the world? Or do you mean the fridge owners will cover it?
In cars the car companies pay the costs.
I'm assuming they negotiate bulk discounts with mobile carriers to buy SIM cards en masse.
The same would be the case in any other appliance.
"fridge, I need a 12 pack of beer and two large pizzas". Uber eats shows up 45 minutes later. We're all doomed! Ha ha ha.
Maybe we are all in the bad place.
But can it run Linux
It already does. Samsung's Tizen OS these things run is Linux based, albeit at this point broadly in the same sense that Android is.
Never will I ever get an appliance that reports everything to the internet (advertisers) and forces ads into my home. Fuck them all, there is absolutely nothing they can offer that is worth the spying and intrusion.
Literally LOL'd when I saw the ad.
Pi-Hole?
https://pi-hole.net/
in case someone only wants to use the block without setting up a server (& trusting others) https://fmhy.net/privacy#dns-adblocking
So, what happens if I use pi-hole or adguard to block DNS for the advertisement TLDs, like I do for all the other gizmos in the house trying to show me ads or obtain telemetry data?
Should block it. Blocks the homescreen ads on my Roku.
Inb4 smart devices don't need wifi and ship with their own cellular connection
IOT home devices using cell data? In Canada? It would either come with a hefty monthly fee, or the appliance company would lose their shirt.
Cell companies here put a lot of effort into keeping the prices up.
Might fly south of the border though.
such bullshit
So it's a billboard with a build in beer cooler?
https://bounties.fulu.org/bounties/samsung-familyhub-refrigerators
I'd sooner take a sledge hammer to it
I'm about to do that to my echo show
Repo it please, I will simply use salt to preserve my food
Can't believe the number of tool boxes in this comment section say "oh gee, I can really see how this unnecessary feature improves my life because I don't know how to breathe on my own or live"
I’m clinging to my “dumb” fridge for dear life