Thread

1. sandworm101 · 1790169670 · focus · HN ↗

   The fridge compressor answers to software? Idiocy. It need be nothing more than a relay attached to a thermocouple. I can see having a smart screen to deliver aps/ads and to collect data on people in the home, but why on earth would that need to actually manipulate temperatures?

   1. chii · 1790169730 · focus · HN ↗

      Fridge sellers dont want their product to be seen as commodities, because they can't charge a high margin on those type of products.

      1. hylaride · 1790170715 · focus · HN ↗

         In 2006 shortly after I bought my (first and still only) home, I bought the cheapest Kenmore fridge from Sears (~$600 at the time) as the one that came with the house failed soon after moving in - it was probably 26 years old with metal grill shelves. I was stretched for money for a bit due to dealing with closing costs, etc. I figured it'd last 5-10 years and I'd just get a new, "better" one when my cashflow wasn't acutely tight.

         Despite having since remodelled the kitchen (again spending more than expected as one does when renovating), I kept the fridge...it's still working fine 20 years later, though the plastic drawers are starting to degrade. Next to higher-end German appliances it looks a bit well worn and out of place in an otherwise very nicely renovated kitchen, which my wife and I semi-seriously joke gives the place character.

         Every once in awhile I'll wander through an appliance aisle and sigh. Similar fridges feel cheap and are much more expensive. In fancy fridges, I just see more components that'd fail. I'll I really want is a freezer and a fridge. I want need an ice maker (especially after learning how gross they can get). Ideally I'd have a standard old-fashioned sized fridge that had a good separate temperature control for the freezer and is common enough that I can get replacement parts 20 years from now.

         The kicker was I now realize the old 26 year old fridge probably just needed a coolant top up. Maybe that wasn't possible as I'm not sure when freon was banned and if it would have been possible to do that.

         1. f6v · 1790171139 · focus · HN ↗

            Old fridges last over two decades. I don't think that Samsung and others want these to last as long.
      2. gedy · 1790170788 · focus · HN ↗

         I guess the sellers and industries should have thought of this when they offloaded manufacturing to cheap countries that can and will undercut them.

         1. pjc50 · 1790174497 · focus · HN ↗

            Samsung fridges are made in Korea. i.e. not outsourced.

            They're just very bad at software.

            1. boelboel · 1790176565 · focus · HN ↗

               Most non high-end samsung fridges aren't built in Korea, lower-end fridges are made in Vietnam and midrange fridges are made in China or Thailand. Regardless of Samsung outsourcing they still have to compete with outsourcing firms. There's only so much demand for fridges, 100-200 million fridges a year worldwide, and most of the consumer fridges end up primarily competing on price.
   2. vlovich123 · 1790170163 · focus · HN ↗

      Because the temperature is adjusted and they want to be able to display the current temperature as well as the target on said display? And once you’ve done that, your bean counters will pressure you to shave the BOM.

      Not saying it’s smart, just laying out a plausible sequence of events on how they reached that decision

      1. avian · 1790171088 · focus · HN ↗

         > they want to be able to display the current temperature

         Do they really? When replacing my 20 year old fridge (that had an actual mechanical temperature gauge) with a new one I specifically bought one that had a (now digital, of course) display for the current temperature.

         It turned out that the temperature display is completely faked. It always shows exactly the set temperature, from the moment you power it on. I guess because of (actual or imagined) customers complaining why their fridge shows e.g. 7°C when they set it to 4°C.

         Incidentally, my new smart AC does exactly the same thing. Subjectively it's worse than the old one at keeping the place not too cold and not too warm, but it makes damn sure to never show the actual measured temperature anywhere.

         Everything is getting dumber.

         1. sandworm101 · 1790172409 · focus · HN ↗

            It probably has more to do with consumer fridges being a bang-bang controller situation where temperature will always fluctuate several degrees either side of the desired number.

            1. avian · 1790179641 · focus · HN ↗

               Well, yes. Hence my comment.

               Or are you saying old fridges didn't have a bang-bang controller and hence could have an honest thermometer built in?

   3. Hizonner · 1790171082 · focus · HN ↗

      A thermocouple won't drive a relay.
   4. Grombobulous · 1790172902 · focus · HN ↗

      My non-Samsung fridge lets me change the temperature settings from my phone.

      That’s why the compressor answers to software. How else would I change the temperature remotely if it didn‘t?

      I find that the anti-smart device brigade among tech enthusiasts is very detached from the reality of what consumers want. The general public does demand smart features and they want them to work well.

      The sin here isn’t that the fridge is smart, the sin is that bad software was pushed out.

      My particular refrigerator also has a purposefully limited set of features. You’ll notice that real luxury brands like Sub-Zero don’t pack their refrigerators with crazy feature lists and touch screens. Their smart apps are basic and focus on essentials like “door left open” or “change filter” notifications and remote temperature adjustment. They don’t have complicated features like craft cocktail ice and even basic stuff like water dispensing is an optional extra (since it’s assumed that luxury clients may have a separate dedicated reverse osmosis and sparkling water machine for that). They don’t push out frequent updates and they keep their smart functions as modular components since it’s assumed that the refrigerator will remain installed permanently for decades (e.g., you can add a newer control system with touch screen and WiFi to your older Sub-Zero fridge).

      It would be nice if non-luxury brands followed some of these philosophies a little more.

      1. cesarb · 1790173153 · focus · HN ↗

         > How else would I change the temperature remotely if it didn‘t?

         ...why do you need to change the fridge temperature remotely?

         1. Grombobulous · 1790173236 · focus · HN ↗

            I paid $11,000 for my luxury built-in refrigerator, I expect that functionality to exist since it’s trivial to implement.

            I could implement that in a weekend on an ESP board.

            1. crtasm · 1790174678 · focus · HN ↗

               When you had an offline fridge did you ever find yourself in a situation where remotely setting the temperature would have been useful?

               1. Grombobulous · 1790178290 · focus · HN ↗

                  I’m away on vacation and weather reports say there might be a thunderstorm at my house with high probability of power outage, so maybe I lower the temperature setting to try and extend the life of the contents.

                  Kids/nanny/housekeeper changes the temperature against my wishes.

                  I’ve left the house for a long vacation with the fridge emptied and I’d like to change the temperature to consume less power while I’m gone, forgot to do it before I left.

                  And again it’s trivially simple functionality that costs almost no money or development effort to I implement.

                  1. epcoa · 1790180171 · focus · HN ↗

                     > so maybe I lower the temperature setting to try and extend the life of the contents.

                     Bullshit. The ideal refrigerator temperature is already close enough to freezing that any small adjustment you could make is unlikely to do any good. If this was actually a good idea then by your logic (similar to odd love for printer manufacturers) the all wise manufacturers would have already incorporated this into their “smart” fridges.

                     1. Grombobulous · 1790183828 · focus · HN ↗

                        Well, basically all manufacturers have this functionality, so I don’t know what to tell you.

                        1. epcoa · 1790185666 · focus · HN ↗

                           They have the functionality that if the local weather is predicted to be bad they will preemptively lower the temperature? Really, which ones?

                           That you can remotely control something isn’t “smart”

                           1. Grombobulous · 1790210054 · focus · HN ↗

                              That is not the feature I described.
                  2. crisnoble · 1790183051 · focus · HN ↗

                     So you spend 11k on a smart fridge, have a nanny, but maniacally control the temperature depending on contents, possible weather scenarios and and if you are vacation. Makes sense. Maybe that is why I'm still poor, imagine all the money I've wasted never once adjusting my fridge temp remotely (or even manually) in the last 14 years.

                     1. Grombobulous · 1790183711 · focus · HN ↗

                        I’m just listing examples, not saying I engage in them.

                        The smart functions that have been very useful to me have been water filter reminders and door left open reminders.

                        In the case of one of the door open reminders the person who was at home didn’t realize the door was left open.

                        1. tocs3 · 1790216992 · focus · HN ↗

                           I said it above but I will say it again, if your fridge has a door open sensor it should have a close the door function. This is especially true if you spent $11k on it.

                           1. Grombobulous · 1790342189 · focus · HN ↗

                              I think you misunderstand the built-in luxury appliance market a little bit. They are meant to be permanent appliances that are easy to repair and replace parts for, and they are built to higher quality standards (depending on the brand, of course, but Sub-Zero has a good quality reputation and builds their appliances in Wisconsin).

                              Because they are designed to be installed for decades, they also evolve at a slower pace than typical consumer appliances. If something breaks 15 years down the line, the manufacturer either still makes the same part or makes a compatible replacement. They are sold under the assumption that they are installed long-term.

                              Sub-Zero explicitly markets their refrigerators as being designed to last at least 25 years.

                              They have fewer features than Samsung feature checkbox fridges on purpose.

                              An automatic door close function would also be potentially dangerous with a built-in custom panel refrigerator like mine. My fridge has more pinch points than a normal fridge because the cabinetry is designed to be seamless.

                              A temperature control is a dead-simple and basic smart function that’s easy to implement. Automatic door closing would be a complicated mechanical mechanism prone to failure.

                              I will also note that I didn’t choose this fridge to be a snob, I chose it because my home already came with a custom panel refrigerator that needed to be replaced (a garbage piece of shit from Viking that wasn’t worth repairing, side note, I hate that company even more than Samsung). If I replaced my refrigerator with a normal one I would have had to do additional carpentry work on my house to avoid the area looking gutted so to speak, and I would also devalue my home since luxury built-in custom panel appliances are features that show up on real estate listings and they are a “luxury” indicator to buyers.

                     2. epcoa · 1790196577 · focus · HN ↗

                        "Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience”

                          - Albert Einstein

            2. Boxxed · 1790177469 · focus · HN ↗

               By that logic there's a whole lot more useless crap it should do.

               1. Grombobulous · 1790178422 · focus · HN ↗

                  Would you buy a car that cost $50,000 without air conditioning even if you don’t need air conditioning?

                  Do you think a $50,000 car that doesn’t have air conditioning is a good value?

                  1. Boxxed · 1790189638 · focus · HN ↗

                     I'll just say that if you honestly think AC in a car is a comparable feature to a network enabled fridge then we're never going to agree on anything.

                     1. [deleted] · 1790210701 · focus · HN ↗

                        [deleted]

                     2. Grombobulous · 1790342737 · focus · HN ↗

                        Is the AC necessary to operate the vehicle?

                        Cars in the United States were sold with air conditioning as an optional feature until maybe 20 years ago

                        There are still regions of the world where air conditioning is an optional feature in automobiles.

                        1. Boxxed · 1790450391 · focus · HN ↗

                           I truly have no idea what point you're trying to make
            3. [deleted] · 1790184109 · focus · HN ↗

               [deleted]

      2. CWuestefeld · 1790173398 · focus · HN ↗

         My non-Samsung fridge lets me change the temperature settings from my phone. That’s why the compressor answers to software. How else would I change the temperature remotely if it didn‘t?

         I can't tell if you're serious or sarcastic, so I'll bite: why on Earth would you ever want to change the temperature settings of your fridge?

         1. Ensorceled · 1790177557 · focus · HN ↗

            Check out his comments in this thread, this guy appears to be a corporate apologist.

            1. kstrauser · 1790178047 · focus · HN ↗

               Check them out on other threads, too. I think he’s just a garden troll.

               1. Grombobulous · 1790178377 · focus · HN ↗

                  I don’t really appreciate being assumed to be a troll just because I’m holding a contrary opinion. That’s very much against the guidelines of this site.

                  I think if you are the type who is interested in digging up comment history you’ll find plenty of comments from me that show that I’m pretty much a regular person who has respectful conversations.

                  I apologize if I didn’t follow the popular “corporation bad” narrative. Like, I do recognize that ink is grossly overpriced and all that. At the same time, I don’t really think we are held hostage by printer companies these days. I buy ink once a year or less and it’s not even a laser printer. It isn’t a significant expense or inconvenience.

   5. account42 · 1790173052 · focus · HN ↗

      Does a relay with a thermocouple get you the cycles required for no-frost features? I agree that there should be adequate safeguards at every turn but its not like computerized control of fridge temperature doesn't make sense.

      1. [deleted] · 1790174759 · focus · HN ↗

         [deleted]

   6. gausswho · 1790177967 · focus · HN ↗

      2028 headline: Coordinated attack causes all fridges in Topeka to explode, causes city-wide fire.

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