Samsung Forces Ads Onto Fridges; Is a Bad Sign for Other Appliances
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Smart Home DevicesAdvertisingConsumer Electronics
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Samsung's decision to display ads on its smart fridges has sparked outrage among HN users, who see it as a sign of the increasing commercialization of appliances and a threat to user experience.
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> Another option is to disconnect the fridge from the Internet. Again, though, this would eliminate some core capabilities, like its meal planner, recipes, and shopping list features
…all things that on-device LLMs can already do, for example my MacBook can run Llama 4 (albeit slowly) and it can generate recipes for me.
Samsung will either need to shape up or competitors will enter the market to offer equally fancy but non-annoying fridges. I hope.
I've run a local LLM, and while I probably didn't do a great job optimizing things, it was crawling. I would absolutely not stand there for 20 minutes while my fridge stutters out a recipe for kotleti, while probably getting some of it wrong and requiring a re-prompt.
Not everything needs to be a genie.
What timeline am I living in?
This is an actual thing.
But nah, smart means it can show ads...
For all the billions spent on ad targeting, it's pretty coarse.
I know things can be designed and programmed to do amazing things, some of them admirable. I don't need any of them. I just wonder if there will always be a choice. When I need a computer, I'll use a computer. I don't ever want to read the news on my spatula, or edit a video with my toaster.
This shit should be beaten, severely, back whence it came.
Anyway, I admire the Amish. I'm not extremely far off. I hope to actually keep stumbling in that direction. I wouldn't expect others to though.
1. Can it run Doom?
2. Can it run the "Suck it Jinyang" program?
shows picture of my daughter with red hands on my sandwich
Probably more likely to see a EO on requiring those things
But also: Don't buy a "smart fridge"
And if they use dynamic, rotating IP addresses?
A better approach is scissors (cut the cord) or don't buy "smart" anything --- unless it actually costs *less* and can be easily used in a "dumb" mode (TV for example).
"Smart" means it intends to take advantage of "dumb" users. Any "smarts" will eventually be used against you by the manufacturer. They simply can't resist the extra $.
I have a 50 inch "smart" TV that serves as a dumb display and nothing more.
If you really, really need to have your fridge manage your sell by dates somehow or give you recipes based on what it thinks it has in it (and hopefully the cupboards have the other items) or whatever the tech-brained-fuck you think it'd will do for you, the communications tool in your hand highly optimised for manual input and with a web browser that's not embedded shitware seems a sensible interface.
Or just buy an insulated box with no electronics other than that which controls the light and temperature. And the simpler and more robust that is, the better.
Samsung confirms its smart fridges will start showing you ads (68 points, 2 hours ago, 52 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45291107
Samsung smart fridge displaying advertisements (32 points, 2 days ago, 21 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45262808
Variable speed motors are icing on the cake that reduce operating costs so I’ll allow for that. What I just described is true for every single commercial refrigerator available for sale, homeowners have absolute garbage to pick from for appliances.
Who are the psychopaths buying refrigerators with screens? Please stop, you’re ruining things for the rest of us. I know Speed Queen exists if you want sane appliances for laundry, but I’d like to know the brands for laundry and kitchen appliances that are well made and not full of insane garbage nobody asked for like screens.