Happy with my ad-free dumb fridge.
Let me know when the smart fridge can track when I'm low on essentials and toggle them unchecked on my shopping list, WITHOUT phoning home, and with no fucking ads. Don't need a screen either.
this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2025
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An old cooler with gas station ice is preferable to this bloated spy crap they're producing nowadays.
Unless you build it and code it yourself, do not get a smart device at any cost. Even if they're on sale for $5. (Unless you're just planning on reselling them I guess)
The irony of this article being paywalled is the chef’s kiss.
Cool, they're giving me a free $2,000 fridge? Because there's no way I'd have that fridge otherwise.
There's a future coming where every fridge sold will come with a screen for ads, and not necessarily any other smart features.
Once people accept this shit, there's no going back.
I sure hope not, it's hard enough to find nonsucking TVs, I really don't want to have to find an "industrial" fridge just to get a regular one.
I have never bought a fridge in my life. When I bought this house the owner just left the current fridge behind it has no branding at all and is basically a white box. The only smart feature it has is that it beeps if you leave the door open (although honestly it's not really much use since it only starts beeping after 10 minutes which I feel like is too long).
I have a feeling the alarm you're talking about is a temperature alarm, not for the door. It's just that leaving the door open will raise the temperature eventually.
and that future will include me ripping out the network connection cards from the primary boards.
if that bricks it, I'll just have to setup an "internet" connection.
I can totally see it going the same general way as TVs.
If it has a screen, theyll put ads on it. If it doesn't have a screen, they'll add a screen, then put ads on it.
This is an amazing article. I'm serious. Very well written. This is my favorite part:
I asked Higby why they were bringing ads to the fridges. He said via email, “This pilot further explores how a connected appliance can deliver genuinely useful, contextual information. The refrigerator is already a daily hub, and we’re testing a responsible, user-controlled way to make that space more helpful.”
This is similar to the justification Panos Panay, Amazon’s head of Devices & Services, made to me last month when I asked him about advertising on its Echo devices. He said it was looking to be “elegantly elevating the information that a customer needs.”
Do these people actually believe this? Do they see advertisements in their own lives and think, "ah yes, that was useful and contextual. That was a helpful ad, elegantly elevating my information." I've seen some delusional people in executive-level roles, but that would be a special new class of delusion. Nobody likes ads. I recognize that some people have higher and lower tolerances for them, but nobody is actually grateful for them. Right?! I need to believe this is true.
Both companies claim they want to offer “curated,” “relevant” ads that might “enhance the experience.” I can buy that to some extent when it’s ads for features that your smart fridge or smart display offers. This tech is complicated and capable, and most people only tap into a fraction of what their devices can do.
That's generous. But ok, maybe I can grant the premise.
But there is no future where third-party advertisements will ever be welcome in people’s homes like this — even if they happen to show me a brand of pet food right when my dog is looking at me with hungry eyes.
Right. Exactly. No matter what, I can think of no situation in which an ad is serving the customer's interests. Maybe in the case of a coupon? But even then, I think it's dubious.
I like TikTok ads. I am not a material person, so I am generally hard to shop for. But since TikTok came out, I am able to provide a list for people of cool gadgets and stuff that aren't too expensive. Do I like any other ads? No...
Interesting. I have not had that experience, on Tiktok or elsewhere. I do have a similar experience with tech reviewers' videos on Youtube, though. Albeit not the sponsored ones.
Yeah they earn a commission, so it really incentivizes them to find products to promote that people actually want.
The only ones I hate, are the ones where they pretend to be a regular video and then turns into an ad 3 minutes in.
And this isn't an endorsement of Tiktok, just the advertising model.
Unfortunately, it is paywalled. Can you copy the text for the rest of us?
There's an archive.is link in the original post: https://archive.is/20251027141201/https://www.theverge.com/report/806797/samsung-family-hub-smart-fridge-ads-opt-out
I'm wary of running afoul of copyright laws to literally paste it here, but I think you should be able to get it there.
I believe I will continue to use the same fridge that has been in the house since the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Only problem is they become noisy when the coolant leaks out. This is the technical problem they should be solving.
Worth pointing out that that “Target figured out a girl was pregnant before her father did” story is almost certainly untrue: https://www.predictiveanalyticsworld.com/machinelearningtimes/target-really-predict-teens-pregnancy-inside-story/3566/
I agree with the article that getting ads on a device you’ve already paid for with no hint that there would be ads is intrusive and a sad sign of how tech is going (in the same week that it was announced that Apple are going to be adding ads to Maps, too). But I also can’t help but wonder - who the fuck wants a smart fridge? Like, legitimately, what is the advantage over a normal fridge?
Not a "smart" fridge per se, but I can see the use of a screen on my fridge; something where we can see our family calendar, leave notes for each other, and maybe also be able to access the grocery shopping list. Weather would be nice too, though you can keep the news widget (yikes). Something in a visible location in our house, where we go every day.
I'm not sure what other features they advertise with a smart fridge, but those few would be nice; especially if I could just plug a raspberry pi into it and skip all of the Samsung nonsense entirely.
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I was ready gawk at what ads on my fridge would look like, and then this. I don't know what I expected.
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such bullshit
Why. Why would anyone buy a fridge with a screen. We have lots of screens. A fridge does not need a screen. It is a fridge.
The issue isn't that the fridge has a screen. The issue is that the screen real-estate is owned by the manufacturer, not you.
As a Home Assistant geek, I would love to have a tablet built into the fridge door that I could 100% hack to display useful information and such. Currently I have an Android tablet on the wall that does this, but one on the door could be cool, especially if you could setup a place for virtual sticky notes that you could leave reminders and such for family members.
It’s not worth it for ad space though and I wouldn’t want it to be required for the fridge to operate either!
So a whiteboard with dry erase markers?
And a clock, and a weather forecast, and a picture frame...
A screen has a lot of potential. But not if it works against your interests
My household has a shared calendar we use to plan events. I've thought about a project before just to put a big view version of that up somewhere for people to reference, but I've been hesitant because it's a large household and having to play tech support every time it goes wrong isn't something i can do.
If i could get a reliable screen on the fridge that could display that, along with maybe a Reminders List and your sticky note idea, that would be perfect. With ads though that's a big nope from me.
Even excluding my stance on not wanting ads, that's how you find out the 5 year old accidentally bought something, or that something was leaked in a big data leak. That's just something i don't want in my home
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