So, if I bought this at Costco, and the fridge was 10 years old, I’d use their guarantee to return the motherfucker and make a
hugeepic fucking scene if they tried to refuse.edit: huge wasn’t enough, it would be epic.
Wait why the fuck would a fridge be connected to the internet?
Edit: where I come from we don’t have unlimited internet plans so this would just be taking up expensive bandwidth and monthly quota.
I’m not defending this practice because it’s remarkably awful but I will note that I have a router that lets me monitor the traffic that individual devices use and most smart devices like this actually use incredibly small amounts of bandwidth. Our smart water tank uses ~10 MB a month which is smaller than most images.
And yes I do think a smart water tank is valid because it can do shit like tell me when it thinks it’s about to explode or leak or whatever and it can also like, be remote controlled, and it has a heat pump which is nice.
I suppose I’d want to know if my fridge was about to explode… /s
In seriousness, though, you’re right - the problem isn’t with the technology, it’s how the technology is used
For no good reason whatsoever
The whole selling points was to track fridge contents via cameras so that not only could you ‚see’ inside without having to open the door - theoretically saving electricity, using AI it was supposed to be able to track expiry dates, and suggest shopping lists in order to have full recipes.
Additionally it had all the usual „smart home” integrations on top of that.
But let’s be honest, the whole point was just to put in yet another screen that vendors could sell advertisements on, as well as track/sell personal information.
Recently I read an article about smart devices uploading and downloading over 1GB per day. I tried to find the article again but all I can find is stores selling smart fridges etc. Search engines are broken. I asked chatgpt, which was able to find articles. How fucked is this. Boring dystopia. Anyway, here are some sources.
https://www.tomshardware.com/networking/your-washing-machine-could-be-sending-37-gb-of-data-a-day
https://www.reddit.com/r/smarthome/s/F5ETernz6f
https://www.reddit.com/r/SmartThings/s/HY2E0uOBiH
In the following article they talk about devices sending up to 19MB per week, but only text (so again insane amounts of data considering it’s only text).
https://www.consumerreports.org/electronics/privacy/smart-appliances-and-privacy-a1186358482/
The following is about researchers finding lots of thirst party domains when analyzing IoT traffic from Smart devices.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.09848
The following is an academic paper on how even encrypted data isn’t safe from Smart devices. Bit off topic, but still interesting.
I tried to find the article again but all I can find is stores selling smart fridges etc. Search engines are broken.
I was able to find some links using duckduckgo including the same article from “Tomshardware” so at least that still works.
Again I don’t know why a washing machine would need an internet connection it’s not like you can remotely load it.
I mean I do understand the appeal and usefulness of smart homes and some IoT devices but companies are pushing AI and internet connectivity like it’s some kind of magic that makes any product better. I mean it would be nice to have a centralised panel to view your usage patterns and consumption but even then you don’t need all this overpowered tech stuff.
Ngl, that appearing on your fridge fits the show so well though. Points to Apple for abusing Samsung’s choice to put ads on a fucking fridge
Start watching
On what, the fucking fridge?
There’s an option in the settings app that allows you to turn ads off.
Oh, how kind of Samsung. Pray they don’t alter the deal further.
For now
waiting for the zero day fridge vulns… shouldn’t be long now
you can use a hammer
Kill it with fire.
What’s the fuss about it? It is always nice to have another
screendoom machine around /s" finally"? How long you been wanting them?
Why would anyone spend the money to have this in the first place? It’s absolutely laughable.
No thanks. I wonder if the damn thing will have a hidden barcode reader.
Imagine that. You not only paid for the refrigerator, but also the electricity and the internet access. And it uses all of that stuff to display ads to you. You’re literally paying for every ad it shows you.
You not only paid for the refrigerator, but also the electricity and the internet access.
That’s a good point actually. You can eliminate these ads by taking it off the Wi-Fi.
Why you’d connect it to the internet in the first place is a mystery to me
I mean, yeah. I’m with you 100%
I have my washer and dryer connected to the internet. I set up an automation that flashes the lights upstairs when a load is done, and turns on the laundry room lights. I suspect there are some fun automation opportunities with this fridge, too. But my washer and dryer don’t have giant touch screens or ads. I’d never buy this fridge.
You don’t have to have a smart washer and dryer to do this. If you get a smart outlet that monitors power usage, you can have it notify you when the usage dips. That’s how I do it.
Are there smart outlets that can handle 240v?
Yes but they’re very expensive. But if you just want to monitor you can use something like: this
Now who’s the patsie
If you paid me just 5 bucks a month I’d let them install that fridge in my house.
Yeah, I might accept that.
Actually, I could use a new fridge…
Ok, who wants to pay me a subscription fee to give me a fridge? Get in line, I’ll only be accepting applicants today!
That’s exactly the thing that turned me off cable. I’m not interested in paying for a service that’s going to pipe ads into my home. OTA TV, fine, I’m not paying for that. When I can pay for services that don’t show me ads, why would I pay for one that does?
When I can pay for services that don’t show me ads, why would I pay for one that does?
Don’t worry, they are gradually taking that option away too.
Then the answer becomes to get those things without paying someone to show you ads.
When the illegal choice becomes the objective best experience, you’re just a savvy consumer.
I arrgree
Yeah, but you end up paying extra to not see ads, so… it’s the same thing either way.
So? If I’m paying for a thing, I’ll sooner pay for a thing that doesn’t have ads than one that does.
When that fails, there’s always the high seas.
True enough!
You wouldn’t download a fridge, would you?
I absolutely would! That’s pretty kickass
Joke’s on you: product placement in movies. The ads are already there.
Jokes on them, I don’t recognize half the car emblems they flash at me.
bootstrapping problem if you need to drink your Mountain Dew™ verification can before you can open the door.
Gotta keep some warm ones outside the fridge just for this situation. It only takes a couple of warm Mountain Dew’s to get people back in line.
