- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/37646129
Source: Reddit post— Private front-end.
Samsung Statement to Android Authority:
Samsung is committed to innovation and enhancing every day value for our home appliance customers. As part of our ongoing efforts to strengthen that value, we are conducting a pilot program to offer promotions and curated advertisements on certain Samsung Family Hub refrigerator models in the U.S. market.
As a part of this pilot program, Family Hub refrigerators in the U.S. will receive an over-the-network (OTN) software update with Terms of Service (T&C) and Privacy Notice (PN). Advertising will appear on certain Family Hub refrigerator Cover Screens. The Cover Screen appears when a Family Hub screen is idle. Ad design format may change depending on Family Hub personalization options for the Cover Screen, and advertising will not appear when Cover Screen displays Art Mode or picture albums.
Advertisements can be dismissed on the Cover Screens where ads are shown, meaning that specific ads will not appear again during the campaign period.
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Given how many times Samsung’s been caught spying on customer mics, and throwing ads into everything with an internet connection, I don’t understand why anyone is still putting wifi credentials into a Samsung device.
I don’t understand why people even buy their products. Shouldn’t trust them farther than you can throw your fridge.
Agreed. They’re not even good products without the spying. Bad on top of bad.
Last time I had a Samsung product was their S7 phone, and even then it was so full of bloatware I just couldn’t take it anymore.
The other crime here is Bixby.
If you have gone out of your way and intentionally purchased a fridge with an internet connection and a screen frankly you deserve this. What did you expect? Screens have advertisements on them, why else would they put a screen on there.
There was a time when WiFi was actually useful in smart appliances, I have an LG washer/dryer about 7-8 years old, no touchscreens, but by WiFi you can get cycle done alerts, time checks, even remote start it. My matching fridge gives me energy conservation information, and allows me to choose a lower duty winter cycle
I like these features. IDK why the fuck I would want a fridge with a touchscreen. All the smart appliances I’ve seen in the last 5 years are just there to serve you ads and steal your data.
Yeah. We have a smart washer. It’s out in our detached garage/shop so even if the chime were on, no one in the house would ever hear it.
The only “smart” feature we use on it at all is remote notifications.
And we don’t use the GE app for that either. I have it linked through our Home Assistant, so no one in the family needs their crap on our phones. Yes, HA must link into their servers, but the only real data GE gets is how much we use it, and the “city” where our internet connection says we’re in… which is 300 miles away from our actual home, in a completely different state.
Meanwhile my fridge made in communist Yugoslavia is still going strong.
I’d still take a dumb fridge and magnets at any time of the day.
Magnets is science…too liberal.
yet those magnets don’t show the time of day, do they?
no, for that you get a dumb analogue clock
I hate the enshittification going on everywhere but I’d say the whole smart fridge thing was pretty shitty to begin with…
is this punishment for expelling hyundai workers?
They should just push a ton of anti-Trump graphics.
I need my fridge to maintain a cold temperature on the inside. That’s it. That’s 100% of what I need from a fridge. The last one I bought was $300 and there’s no place to put an ad. I have no idea why y’all were hooking your appliances up to the internet in the first place, but I’m sorry you’re having a bad time.
You could add a printed ad with adhesive tape to the front door of your fridge to have a similar experience like all those “smart” things…
In the past, the typical example for a “smart device” was a refrigerator, that would automatically buy milk online once it’s empty, but I’m not sure if that really works (or makes any sense). But at least you can now see ads together with weather and news on your refrigerator door.
if people are buying 1800$ fridges, its on them if they get ads from samsung.
lol who downvotes this? You have to be a colossal moron to buy an appliance without doing 5 minutes of research about any given model.
The ads are new. Research wouldn’t have revealed them.
on the sub, where it was discusssing the same thing, it was referring to the 1800$ samsung fridges.
Next model will come with a latch that won’t unlock the fridge door until you’ve watched a 30 second ad or are subscribed to SnackPass+ for 29.99$ a month.
Drink verification can to continue.
Enhance the product by making it shittier
👏 You 👏 Don’t 👏 Need 👏 A 👏 TV 👏 On 👏 Your 👏 Fridge 👏
In the 1980s, home computers were sold like this:
“Look at these awesome games, kids! And as for your parents, uh… well, you could use the computers to… uh… I dunno… keep track of the contents of the fridge? Yeah, let’s go with that.”
Nobody ever did that. Not then, not now.
Don’t buy a smart fridge, it’s a scam
The computer manufactuers knew what they were doing. Although, 8-bit computers were cool typewriter replacements/spreadsheer machines if an adult wanted to use them.
and if you do: just get it separately
If consumers stopped being stupid we would not have issues like this.
Fortunately only the stupid people are affected by this. Everyone else can just laugh at them.
No. Because if enough people buy the shit product, it will become the only product available. And then you can choose between an ad-fridge or no fridge at all.
As of right now you can still buy normal fridges and if they want to integrate screens into them I can always just refuse to connect them to the internet.
Outside of the US there are consumer laws that will prevent them from doing anything too bad. But yeah you lot of seriously screwed, you might want to reply to Swedish citizenship or something.
This is my fear. It’s still possible, barely, to buy a dumb TV. When my current fridge/dishwasher/stove/etc dies in a few years, will there even be a dumb version? Will it cost 5x the price of a spyware version? How about my thermostat. HVAC? Car? And will attempting to disable any of this spyware land me in prison?
Right now, uninformed/unaware/stupid people are affected by this. Pretty soon, everyone will be, or they will have to forego things we consider to be necessities now, like refrigeration and cell phones or be rich enough to buy the privacy-focused models.
I can’t immediately find it, but I just saw another post about a new privacy-focused cellphone with a huge price tag. The established manufacturers have a cost advantage. Samsung et al. can easily make a new fridge with fewer consumer rights, but a new company will have to spend tons of capital to make a factory to put out a comparable product; and they won’t have the advantage of selling your data to subsidize the price.
Privacy is and will become more-so a commodity unless we fight for it.
Explain yourself
and offer additional content to the user
Ads are content, yes. They know it’s a disservice to the user.
Let me guess! If you try to use PiHole or some other network Adblocking mechanism, the Fridge will either brick itself OR will fail to start the compressor. Right? It’s not like that didn’t happen before, when Google Calendar went down. We all know this is going to happen, and Samsung is going to push this wide scale. The extra revenue from ad space is too irresistible to avoid doing the sensible thing.
The smartest any of my Fridges ever became was having a small computer on the front panel to record voice messages, which also doubled as the Water/Ice dispenser function selector, and to have a timer on the dispenser light so it could turn on and off automatically. That was an Amana fridge I had back in 2002, which lasted until 2019. My current fridge has a basic computer inside of it to monitor and control the interior climate, to save energy by recirculating cold air from the freezer into the Fridge, and to beep loudly if there’s a problem.
