A thermostat, a compressor and two heat exchangers.
We solved this problem decades ago.
this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2026
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It's a fridge. It doesn't even need an 8 bit microcontroller from the 1970s.
My washing machine keeps asking to be connected to the WiFi. 2 years I've been ignoring it, which has been very convenient. I think it just wants to watch porn.
Sock puppet porn.
I caught my mother's dehumidifier connecting to WiFi to watch porn. The damn thing was actually dripping wet.
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show this to someone frm the 1950s
One day, transistors will cause this:
Don't connect your fridge to the internet. Just don't.
Right? Just because a networked version exists, doesn't make it a good idea.
I just don’t see the utility. I can be pretty pro “smart” stuff, especially if I can run it without an internet connection, but what’s the point for a fridge?
Like an oven I get, though I don’t have one. It’s laziness but there is some utility in being able to preheat the oven without getting up, or double check the oven was turned off. Although newer ovens tend to have rapid preheating that really can be quick (unlike my 1996 oven that takes 15-20+ minutes)
But a fridge? What are you going to do? Ensure it’s running? Except when something like this happens lmao. The only real thing it could add is an advertisement and data collection vector, which is the opposite of utility. I’ve also seen smart toasters. Not toaster ovens, but like pop in two slices of bread and push the plunger. Why? You have to come to the device to load it. Do you leave bread overnight getting stale and save the 30 seconds and greatly raise the risk of cold toast? Ridiculous
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But how else will it get important updates that protect it from the latest online threats?
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And here I am using the same fridge that's been going since before the end of the Cold War.
Old fridges do last longer, but from what I understand they use significantly more energy to run.
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.......a smart fridge should be smart enough to still act like a fridge when its confused
we need to start tearing out the garbage. smart appliances aren't smart, they're extractive enshittification.
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Yeah this is a matter of making it fail safe. A refrigerator that isn't operating at food preservation temperatures (and freezing temperatures in the freezer) is dangerous.
Appliances related to safety such as refrigerators and temperature control need to have a safe position they can fail to when their logic is confused.
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Time for me to get on my Samsung soapbox, and it is for an entirely different reason but very relevant for why you shouldn't buy a Samsung appliance!
Never. I repeat NEVER, buy a Samsung home appliance. For this reason ONLY. Especially when it comes to food preservation… or simply keeping food cold.
Here is the thing. Samsung will not let approved service repair companies stock parts. I repeat, WILL NOT LET APPROVED SERVICE REPAIR COMPANIES STOCK PARTS. So if you buy a Samsung refrigerator through Home Depot… and it breaks under warranty… you will get an apologetic service technician that will confirm that your appliance is broken.
Great!… I already knew that. That's why all of my perishables are starting to smell funny. The service person feels bad for you but they don't have the part to fix your appliance. They can order the part within 24 hours and be back this time tomorrow. Did you already have to take the day off work for the 6 hour service window???
Well this is all super annoying especially if you bought the EXTRA large capacity refrigerator and freezer… that NO ONE has enough coolers and ice to preserve…
Okay, so the service person orders the part and, dang… that wasn't the problem!
Weird, Okay so NOW the service person will order the more expensive part that is actually the problem. All of the ice in the cooler has melted. All of your cooler food has spoiled.
The refrigerator THREE DAYS LATER is now fixed. F#*k Samsung appliances. And this is the annoying part about all their 5 star reviews. Yeah they look nice when you give them their stars but their reliability is GARBAGE!!!
If an "appliance company" will not let service people stock parts… for the love of god DON'T BUY IT.
Lastly… Samsung ice makers ARE THE WORST!!! You will only have REGRETS. REALLY!!!!!!
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Appliance repair guy here and I have only one thing to say: 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
"Mourn" is a strong word here, but also, this is why you don't connect your fridge to the internet...
Y'all remember when Windows updated their OS and all computers without enough memory to run it were bricked?
Because we didn't throw a fit then, when a company's update destroyed our possessions, now we're getting more of it.
This could actually just be more modes of planned obsolescence.
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If I'd like emojis I'd use the clown emoji now.
I'll do it on your behalf so that it's used, but that you don't have to say you used an emoji.
🤡
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rather than mourn, are they going after Samsung to replace said food? When I worked best buy our warranty covered food spoilage up to 2 years I believe (if it was the fridge/freezer's fault, not just a random power outage or something). I'd expect Samsung to do the same.
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If an automated update bricks my fridge, warranty or not, you owe me a new fridge
If that is a problem, them maybe you shouldn't have required OTA updates as a requirement for a fridge.
The problem would be solved by not buying a fridge that needs a goddamn firmware update to operate. Just buy a regular, standard fridge. the kind we've used for 70+ years. All that smart shit doesnt make your food colder, or last longer, all it is, is cheap slop garbage shoved into a device to turn a 200 dollar device into a 2200 dollar device at little extra cost to the maker.
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Wait, so there's not even a hard thermo in it to fail safely? Well done guys, you really saved 10p per unit on that one
The usefulness of a smart fridge always seemed dubious to me, but why the hell is the refrigeration part managed by the smart part? It's literally just a pump.
If the fridge operation depends on a simple thermostat and compressor, then it's more reliable and can be repaired with lamp wire and a soldering iron if it does break. Samsung would rather have a system depending on a control board they build for $3 and sell you for $600 when it breaks.
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Of all the appliances that could be "smart", I find the fridge the least exciting.
My heat pump has Wi-Fi. Cool, I can turn it on remotely so it starts heating or cooling my home.
Washing machine that tells you it's finished and reports the ETA in the meantime - not an entirely unwanted feature, since the same program could take 1 hour or 5 depending on how much laundry I put in. Mine doesn't have it and I don't NEED it, but if I'm ever in the market again and two equivalent washing machines from a reputable brand (MAYBE I'd trust Miele. Definitely not Samsung, LG, most others) were priced roughly the same, I'd buy the one with it.
I just can't think of a world where a smart fridge would work better for me than my dumb one though. I paid a bit extra to get one that had a better efficiency rating and a nearly silent compressor and that's it. The only things I would find to be "upgrades" over this would be if it was a larger SBS one that made ice, but I decided not to triple the budget from ~600 to ~2000.
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Just wondering, is it confirmed that food actually spoiled? Because making the actual cooling dependent on smart functionality seems incredibly stupid. I assumed it would just be all the smart features that stopped working, but if it couldn't even cool anymore... woooow XD.
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Trully what people really need in their lives are additional risk factors for their peace and quiet in exchange for little or no value.
I'm just happy that I'm moving in the very opposite direction, avoiding externally controlled computing devices like the plague and instead having my own stuff when I actually need some smarts on my stuff (which, at the moment, is mainly my TV media player).
We've recently had some big brownouts in the city and country I live in and those made me keenly aware of risks to my peace and quiet (for example, electronic payments don't work if there's no power, so if you don't have actual cash on hand things can get pretty tricky) and nowadays there are way too many unnecessary dependencies on external entities in exchange for little, none or even negative value for us (don't get me started on Smart TVs) - it's long been the case that a big utility provider going down would be quite a pain in the arse, but nowadays lots of people's risk exposure profile is so stupidly wide that "random company turning to vibe coding and sooner or later forcefully pushing an update that bricks your 'smart' device" or leaves your home network and digital devices one it wide open for people wanting to steal financial info from it, are maybe one of the biggest risks.
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