So absurd and embarrassing ..."

Some Samsung smart fridges stopped working on Tuesday due to a firmware update.

Korean outlets were the first to report the problems, which affect Samsung’s Bespoke AI line of fridges. Star News Korea, per a Google-provided translation, said that most of the affected devices were four-door fridges from 2024 or later.

    • FjordDan@lemmy.zipEnglish
      5·
      12 hours ago

      Digital display for thermostat/thermometer is nice.

      Party Mode is convenient when adding large amounts of beverages (or leftovers) as it temporarily changes the compressor setpoint/cycle for a couple of hours in expectation of heavy usage.

      Night mode / vacation mode can similarly change the compressor working profile to be either more quiet or energy efficient at times when it’s not expecting the door to open for extended periods of time.

      None of these are essential features of a fridge, but they can be convenient.

    • AnyOldName3@lemmy.worldEnglish
      41·
      11 hours ago

      Some things off the top of my head are:

      • you could set the temperature to a number of degrees via a numerical display, which would be much harder to implement without a microcontroller.
      • maybe you could have PID control over the compressor rather than bang-bang control, so the temperature would be more stable.
      • these days, a bimetallic strip costs more than a microcontroller and a chip thermometer, despite the chip being much more accurate.

      All of this only requires a really dumb microcontroller, though, not one with networking. I don’t see how that could be useful until your fridge could magically track what it contains so you could ask it if you needed to buy stuff while you were shopping. I don’t think we have the technology for that yet.

      • Zanacross@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        11 hours ago

        I think we probably do have the tech to track what’s in the fridge but we’d need a camera and some kind of ai watching it always…

        • AnyOldName3@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          10 hours ago

          Image recognition will be able to figure out the obvious items, and hopefully the expiration dates, too, but it’s not going to be able to figure out that opaque containers are nearly empty or identify leftovers in tupperware. It’s also probably going to be unable to identify when loose produce is past its best unless it’s extremely rotten.

    • khánh@lemmy.zipEnglish
      21·
      11 hours ago

      beeping after the fridge hasn’t been closed for a while, or controlling the temperature, or turn on the lights when the door is open.

      • WIZARD POPE💫@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        11 hours ago

        Yeah that can moatly be done without one. The beeping maybe not but the temp and lights can be done completely analog. Our old fridge literally had a push switch that turned off the light when closed (20yr old fridge)