Samsung Officially Rolls Out Update To Annoy You With Ads On Smart Fridges
from the pray-i-don't-alter-it-further dept
If I had to pick one iconic line spoken by Darth Vader in the Star Wars franchise, it would be this one.
The confident evil of a villain who calmly acknowledges that the deal struck with him is changing and there is nothing that can be done about it strikes a chord. What’s odd is that we don’t seem to want to acknowledge that this is precisely what is going on across the world of IoT devices that are updated and changed after the purchase of a device has been made.
Weeks ago, we discussed a pilot program from Samsung to inject advertisements onto the screens of its smart fridges. Based on public feedback, the pilot program went over like a fart in church, with many people complaining that this was a material change to a purchased product with consumers having to jump through hoops to not have to suddenly suffer an advertisement barrage. This wasn’t the deal that customers made when they bought their fridge.
Samsung’s response has been Vader-esque: “I’m altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it further.” What was a pilot program is now an official update from the company, with the ad program going live this week.
The ads will be shown on Samsung’s 2024 Family Hub smart fridges. As of this writing, Samsung’s Family Hub fridges have MSRPs ranging from $1,899 to $3,499. The ads will arrive through a software update that Samsung will start issuing this month and display on the fridge’s integrated 21.5- or 32-inch (depending on the model) screen. The ads will show when the fridges are idle and display what Samsung calls Cover Screens.
The software update will also introduce “a Daily Board theme that offers a new way to see useful information at a glance,” Samsung said. The Verge reported that this feature will also include ads, something that Samsung’s announcement neglected to state. The Daily Board theme will show five tiles with information such as appointments and the weather, and one with ads.
It will be interesting to track sales of these fridges over time. I don’t believe that most people want ads showing up on their fridge. I believe that if people are informed that their fridge will advertise to them to generate revenue for Samsung, most will be less likely to buy the product. Sales numbers will demonstrate whether I’m right or wrong.
Which is entirely besides the central point here: if I exchange money for a product, the product ought to be mine. I shouldn’t have to jump through hoops and lose out on product features simply because I don’t want to be your product for advertisers.
Samsung fridge owners can also opt to avoid the latest software update altogether. However, they would miss out on other features included in the software update, such as a UI refresh and the ability for the internal camera inside some fridges to identify more fruits and vegetables inside the fridge.
The changes are part of a frustrating trend among smart home products to change the user experience in unwanted ways after people have already made their purchases. It also shows Samsung’s growing reliance on ads with its smart home products, even after downplaying the idea that that would happen.
Is there any doubt that the ability to opt out of this will eventually be pared back as well? And is anyone going to do literally anything to protect the consumer from this sort of trespass into already-bought products.
Or are we just going to let Vader alter the deal and pray he doesn’t alter it further?
Filed Under: ads, family hub, fridge, ownership, refrigerators, smart refrigerators
Companies: samsung
Comments on “Samsung Officially Rolls Out Update To Annoy You With Ads On Smart Fridges”
I just assume everyone still buying a smart device likes being whipped and dominated.
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Does the thing about a cover screen mean that the fridge had its screen lit up constantly ?
Because that sounds too annoying on its own to be worth whatever benefit the “smart” part of the fridge adds. Even before the advertising.
Re:
There’s that joke on Silicon Valley where one of the characters gushes that the smart fridge has a screen, so you can see what’s inside it.
And Guilfoyle points to a refrigerator with a glass door and deadpans, “You mean like that one?”
Re: Re:
You can see what’s inside it from a grocery store. Which still seems pretty useless to me, but is a difference from a glass door.
The manufacturers seem to be over-estimating, or at least over-emphasizing, how much trouble the average person has with grocery shopping. Anyway, someone wanting to use the internet to make this task easier could just as well order grocery delivery while standing in their kitchen.
Re: Re: Re:
I have seen people complaining about supermarkets that replaced the glass doors with screens. Leading to two outcomes:
– Screen doesn’t show anything useful. So they have to open the door to find out what is inside
– Screen shows what should be inside. So they open the door to find out that it isn’t.
I just assume everyone still buying a smart device likes being whipped and dominated.
Even better
Just wait until Neuralink gets ads…
Re: Black Mirror
S7E01 Common People
I was considering, earlier, for a day, writing down a note every time I saw a news story or anything else where thirst for money is the source of a problem.
After seeing this article, I think I’d have a sprained wrist before lunchtime.
Re:
Gotta keep goosing those quarterly earnings!
'I have altered the deal, pray I- wait, why are you looking at other brands?!'
For corporations it is not enough to make a good amount of money.
It is not enough to make a large amount of money.
It will only be enough, temporarily, when they have all the money.
Any amount less than that is treated as a failure to exploit every possible source of revenue.
Samsung has been on my shit list for phones for a while, I’m just going to add them to my shit list for all products.
The technological advancement theses last decades have been very amazing. Even about fridges, we came from dump cold white block, to silent ventilated aluminum and glass stylized with intelligent cameras and screens. It can even detect what you’ve go in into it! That was science fiction 20y back.
And we are now living in this science fiction scenario. And it mostly sucks.
Re:
But not really. It can’t realistically detect what goes into it, or is inside of it. Not till every single piece of fruit, for example, has its own RFID tag. Even then, they’ll find some way to fuck that up; like it’ll only work for fruit producers who’ve partnered with Samsung, or only stuff purchased at certain major grocery chains. It probably won’t have any way to detect how much is left inside opaque containers, unless every fridge-user remembers to go into the inventory screen and update it. And so on.
Hey, Samsung: you know that fridge I was planning on buying? well, guess what: it ain’t gonna be a Samsung anymore. Anything else will be preferable.
On further consideration
If someone wants to sell me a fridge that will pay ME the advertising revenue over time to watch their ads… uh, still no. I wanted a fridge.
The one party that never seems to get paid for personal data being shared/sold is the person creating the personal data.
Could clever enthusiasts alter the deal themselves with a custom firmware update? Probably. But then we’ll get to see the DMCA’s anti-circumvention clause get applied to refrigerators…
Re: The evolution of "fair dealing" and "prosperity".
1975: “You buy our product, and it’s yours. Value for money. (And heck, it might even be good quality.)”
2025: “You will own nothing, and be happy. What real choice do you have anyways? (Well, we’ll be happier than you, of course.)”
I bought a house with Samsung appliances, but ...
… the Samsung app won’t work with Pixel phones, so those devices are currently unconnected.
Maybe I’m old, but I just can’t get over the phrase, “your fridge will miss out on software updates”, like it’s running Windows.
Again, I may be old, but I want my fridge to keep things cool, so why does it need software that needs to be updated? Why does it need software at all?
Re:
A microcontroller is somewhat reasonable, to allow for complex behavior such as temperature zones and defrosting schedules. But I don’t see any reason why updates should be considered normal.
(I’m also old. Remember when games came in ROM chips, and the only way to update them would’ve been to recall them? That sucked for Atari in the case of E.T.—which was, in fact, kind of fixable, although Atari chose to just dispose of the returned defective inventory in a landfill.)
Re: Re:
If the fridge scans product codes or somehow helps keep track of the contents, some updating of the software may have a point?
And of course, if such a mechanism (or even just an internal database) may require an internet connection, security updates are going to be necessary as well.
Such features could be designed to not require an internet connection — but that would require some inconvenience to the householder, to enter such data themselves.
Re: Re: Re:
But we shouldn’t say “of course” so easily. If programmers could write secure software in the first place, software updates wouldn’t be necessary. Maybe occasional database updates would be useful.
It’s all very hypothetical anyway. I’ve never heard of anyone really using or wanting such features, even if they could be made reliable. And if they do turn out to be popular, it’d probably be best to make it a replaceable computer separate from the “fridge” part of the fridge (except, why not use a phone?). People keep fridges for decades—or, rather, ones from decades ago are still running, and we’ll see about the new ones—and you’re lucky to get 5 years of continued interest from an “internet of things” company.
The other possibility is that houses themselves become as disposable as the appliances within. Live there for 10 years, and then it’s an antique to be torn down and replaced. (Like in Japan, where houses are considered basically worthless after 15 years, and are used for 30 on average.)