Comment by kstrauser
1 month ago
This guarantees I'll never buy a Samsung appliance. If they're this willing to screw with their customers today, they'll do it again tomorrow.
Sadly, I'm including their TVs in this. I have one today, displaying the output of an Apple TV and not directly connected to the Internet because hah, no way, but I'll be shopping around when it comes time to replace it.
Pity. They make nice stuff. Not nice enough that I'm willing to tolerate their anti-customer shenanigans, but otherwise decent quality.
Samsung appliances have among the worst reputations for ease of repair and lifespan. Sadly most other brands are rebrands of Chinese conglomerates or not much better on the quality chain. But honestly it's also a lottery. We bought a fridge on sale for $500 as an emergency stopover when our expensive fridge was delayed by a month during a move, and it's still plugging along out in the garage, a hostile environment for fridges. All the parts are very accessible too which bodes well for repair, although the leveling feet did snap off.
However, when you see the viral videos of "dream fridges" from the 1950s, it's important to remember that adjusted for inflation they would be something like $10k today. Of course they also last 10x as long, but you can still find fridges in that price range today with a similar value proposition. The question is whether or not you're willing to pay that upfront. I think we've all been so conditioned to accept that appliances go obsolete that it doesn't seem possible for a fridge like that to ever pay for itself.
It's the boots theory at work.
Maybe we need a new boots theory:
The rich person buys a $3500 pair of boots that comes with surveillance, useless AI, and bricks itself on the next firmware update.
The poor person buys a pair of boots, that are... boots.
"You are so poor that when AWS goes down, you still can get into your house" -- seen somewhere
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It's hard to make the right boots analogy (try it yourself if you think you can), but to speak of fridges —
• The rich person's remodeller (or the developer of the house they buy) buys a commercial-kitchen prep fridge for the house's kitchen. This is a big, powerful, durable, repairable, no-frills, utilitarian fridge, that could be viewed as attractive or ugly depending on your opinion on brutalism. The rich person never sees this fridge. It's kept in the butler's pantry and only their private chef ever touches it.
• The rich person's interior designer then buys an elegant/classy half-sized in-wall glass-door fridge to live in the kitchen itself. This is intended for the rich person's household staff to keep constantly stocked with snacks and drinks for the rich person to grab. (Also, if the rich person thinks they want to cook one day, the staff will prep the exact ingredients needed in advance, keeping them in the butler's pantry until called for, but will then stage any "must stay cold" ingredients here.) This fridge is generally a piece of shit, made with huge markups by companies that make fancy-house furniture. But it sure is pretty! If (when) it fails, the staff can temporarily revert to just serving the role of that fridge, running to the butler's-pantry fridge or other cold-storage area (maybe a walk-in!) when the rich person wants something. (Also compare/contrast: in-wall wine cooler.)
• The rich person's household staff might respond to the rich person's request for more convenient access to snacks/drinks in certain areas of the house by buying + keeping stocked one or more minifridges. There'll certainly be one in the house's bar. (There's always a bar.) These are sturdy commercial-grade bricks, built by the same companies that build the ones that go into hotels; but these companies serve rich people just as often as they serve hotels, so they tend to have an up-market marque that makes the fridge look fancy while reusing the well-engineered core.
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It's probably more like a rich person will spend $50 on a pair of boots that will last 10 years, while a poor person will spend $10 on a pair of boots that will last a year. The upper middle class person will spend the $40 on a pair of boots that comes with surveillance and useless AI, while a middle class person will spend $30 for the same, except it bricks itself on the next firmware update.
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The rich person goes to an exclusive London cobbler who spends 11 days carving out a model of his feet, one for left and one for right, out of expensive hardwood. Once complete, a team of masters and apprentices carefully craft him bespoke shoes out of premium leather (straight from Italy!). When finished, the shop calls his assistant and has them delivered. It only costs about $40,000.
You, the poor person, spend $150 on crappy Nike athletic footware, that isn't sized to fit, will fall apart in 6 months (3 if you're using them for actual athletics), but are unfashionable in 3 weeks (but you'll buy them for your middle school children anyway). And you'll think you're rich doing it. Never mind that the cost was $4.75 (up x2 what it was pre-Covid) in Bangladesh, plus $0.30 shipping across the Pacific. The sweatshop worker got a cut of $0.04 for the pair.
The analogy doesn't work though, because people nowdays are paradoxically even stupider than they were in Victorian times.
Not that dissimilar to Wirecutter's advice on appliances: either buy the cheapest of the cheap because it'll have the fewest parts that can break, or the most expensive since it'll be built with high quality components and hopefully be repairable.
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/modern-appliances...
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My point was more along the lines of the fact that below a certain price point, you can't be sure whether you're paying $3500 for actual build quality and features or marketing. A $500 fridge could last forever, or it could last exactly as long as the (very short) warranty period. Also, cheap stuff may last forever in some ways, but it's been cost optimized in a million different ways that make it more annoying to use. In my case the compressor is fine, but the plastic interior has some inexplicable cracks in it and the feet broke off. But at least it will never advertise to me.
Isn't that reversed now? You can only afford the device that is subsidized by the analytics you will be generating for them while the rich person can afford to by the non-subsidized version.
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There's a midwit bell curve meme lurking here...
Boots theory yes, but there also seem to be a paradox of reliability of cheap things.
Manufacturers which are aiming at being dirt cheap and selling lots of products, have low margins and simply cannot afford too many replacements / warranty repairs. High margin products don't care, they could make you three in that price and still be ok.
The issue is that the 10k fridge is not actually any better.
The "luxury" appliances can be double that and are still shit.
Not quite accurate as a blanket statement. Munro did a very detailed tear down series of a sub zero refrigerator that’s very interesting. Youtube link: https://youtu.be/KAYj6m9QtDU
I wish more content like this existed. It’s the only type of review that is worth paying attention to.
Long story short if you live in an energy market like california the energy savings of the sub zero will likely offsets its additions cost over the lifetime of the unit.
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Depends if it's luxury or commercial. Commercial products are generally able to be fixed, but there is a quite a price premium on them.
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The old fridge had much smaller usable volume inside. Modern insulation allows for thinner walls which increases capacity. Same for modern ovens.
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Miele did the best advertising ever, and I believe it even got a news story. A woman had been using their washer for 25years and Miele reached out and asked if she wanted a new one for free, for no other reason than to upgrade. Iirc she declined as the one she had worked perfectly. I have a vacuum from them, a cheap model, been working for 12 years so far. It’s probably the only appliance brand I would trust, even if I’m sure they have bad stories too.
I got another way of looking at it: it's not worth it having appliances that last 20 years, because in that time the tech itself can and does improve a lot.
Ready example is my aunt: a very good and expensive Miele washing machine, that was made to last as things were before. But now 10 years have elapsed and modern washers come with bigger drums, much lower noises, optimized water and electricity usages, and more effective washing patterns.
But she's stuck with her old and trusty one, because she feels that it's working "like new". And she's not wrong, it works well, so it became a sort of a "golden cuff" so to speak (not knowing any better metaphor). So good and expensive, that now getting rid of it for a new one feels like a waste of money for not much gain.
She’s not stuck with her appliance unless she has FOMO anxiety, she paid for her appliance once and if it’s still working then all is good. Marginal improvements don’t justify buying the same thing over and over.
Counterpoint: some appliances reach "good enough" status and the only "improvements" are cost-cutting that makes them more fragile or less reliable.
My friend has a microwave from the late 70s. The time/power are set by turning knobs - no fiddling with a bunch of buttons and modes - the turntable is metal so it can't break. The only thing I would consider missing is a popcorn mode, not a big deal.
Edit: Another great example is toasters. Toasters have not gotten better in my lifetime and older toasters are probably more reliable than what I could buy today.
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Direct drive models are a little quieter. Modern drums are slightly larger. Many people live where there is plenty of water, so increasing water efficiency isn't very valuable. It's not worth increased fabric wear or energy consumption!
There isn't much gain. That's the point! She's got a device that's nice to use, repairable, is well-designed, and isn't serving her ads. She's fine! Really. If she wants a new washer, Miele washing machines hold value and can be resold.
She probably doesn't think about it, which is the real gift. She's free to think about literally anything else! I have an extension to the Vimes boot theory, where you don't even notice your boots when they're working like they're supposed to. Most of us aren't enlightened enough to notice and appreciate that our feet are dry. This reduced cognitive overhead increases capacity for creativity and play, which further amplifies the life outcomes of people buying cardboard-soled boots vs leather boots.
I have a similar dilemma with my car. I drive a 25-year old Lexus with a bizarre electrical glitch. The ABS sometimes goes off as you come to a stop, for no reason at all. It only ever happens below ~10mph, and only when decelerating gradually. Never happens under heavy braking. It's not a safety hazard, and honestly you get used to it. Yet, anyone who test drives this car will run for the hills because it feels spooky.
It's still a terrific car. Comfortable, well made, fast enough for all practical situations. Unusally low mileage for its age. An engine that's sought after in the tuner community. But, it's unsellable. I'm stuck with it, whether I like it or not.
The good news is that I like it. The funny news is that I took a new job that will move me to the Bay, and whatever my new employer is paying to move my car out there is definitely more than my car is worth.
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Maytag/Whirlpool washing machines in the past 10 years come with nylon hubs instead of the metal hubs they used to have. The splines wear out quickly and you’ll need to replace it. Most people will just buy another machine.
We have a high end bosch (the absolute best model of the best brand the year we bought it), and it’s been wonky for three of the five years it has lasted so far, and now rubber noiseproofing is falling out and the racks are rusting through / breaking.
Definitely keep the old dishwasher till it dies.
(The bosch is quiet and cleans well, fwiw. The magic heat free drying minerals are nice. It’s a shame they’ll be in a landfill in a few years.)
That one is sunk cost, I think golden handcuffs are for highly compensated employment.
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Theoretically it would hold its value and there would be a secondary market. Then she'd pay for the upgrade and not an entirely new machine. I wonder if that's the case for Miele.
> it's not worth it having appliances that last 20 years
Think John Deere tractors as well as adware refrigerators.
Do you really believe that a newer washer actually somehow makes clothes appreciably more clean? Quieter, perhaps, and maybe a little less water, but so much so that you'd ever notice if a persons clothes came out of a multi-decade old machine that's in good shape versus a new one, I would wager you'd never notice, and frankly every generation of machine I've owned, even the expensive ones manages to get worse, harder to repair, and last less and less time. If you've got something that works and doesn't require a dozen elves at some factory in Shanghai or Berlin to do ancient satanic rituals just to replace a knob or repair a switch, I think you'd be crazy to get rid of it.
I wonder if those expensive fridges are any more serviceable. I'm guessing someone with $10k to spend on a fridge doesn't care how easy it is to fix because they'll never do it.
I'm not sure about that. The issue that I'm having is that if I could spend $10,000 and not have fridge issues for 10, 15, 20 years I might be tempted.
The problem is that there might be problems with the equipment or problems caused by the installer.
A few years ago, we ended up replacing a Sub-Zero fridge (27 years old) with another one because the repair bills were mounting. Because of the way the previous owner did the kitchen, using any other kind of fridge other than the 2' deep, 7' high kind would have involved remodeling. It wasn't quite $10k but it was close.
At our new house, we had a repairman fix the ice maker in our current fridge. It's 17 years old and could have come off the floor at Best Buy or Home Depot (NOT a Sub-Zero, in other words) but he recommended keeping it until it failed because the quality of current appliances is not as good.
Our water heater is going to need to be replaced because it's 17 years old and showing signs that it's getting too old. I want a heat pump water heater because the gas water heater is the only gas-powered appliance we have. Trying to assess reviews of heat pump water heaters and of the local plumbing companies is not fun.
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> you can still find fridges in that price range today with a similar value proposition
Does anyone have examples of consumer fridges like this?
Is Liebherr not a thing in the US? At least in Europe all the Miele fridges are basically Liebherr with different interior setup and the Miele logo slapped on them. No smart things, unless you buy the smart box that you can attach, but otherwise they are quite reliable and solid.
sub-zero or thermadore maybe?
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> rebrands of Chinese conglomerates
Eh, I've got a very reasonably priced Haier fridge that I've had no issues with at all. Maybe I'm just lucky, and it definitely helps that there's no built in ice maker or water dispenser (those things seem to break first) but it's lived longer than the refrigerators that the rest of my family have.
I beg to differ that Samsung makes good stuff. We had a Samsung front-loading washer. The drum and the crank that holds the drum were made of two different materials, and in the presence of the water and detergent, a galvanic reaction occurred, dissolving the drum arm. Replacing the arm was $400 in parts and over 8 hours in repair time. (There's lots of YT videos of this exact repair.)
What kind of monkey designs something like that. It's obsolescence by design.
I will never buy another Samsung product.
Ours died with a “cannot communicate with board A” error. The wiring harness (yes, an irreplaceable harness) between A and B looked fine. We replaced boards A and B, which were half the price of the machine and not returnable. Same error code. We threw it out and got a Speed Queen.
Our Samsung fridge’s manual says it’ll automatically and silently mesh network with any Samsung TVs in range, use AI and hidden cameras to recognize what’s in the fridge and when we use it, then have the TV inject targeted ads into programming based on its findings.
We’ll never purchase another Samsung product.
I’m glad to have avoided it - when I moved from sharing with room-mates into my own place and had to buy new appliances, there had just been a spate of Samsung appliances literally randomly catching fire in the news. Those models have all been recalled but it put me right off.
Otherwise I might have considered them but steered well clear, and am very happy with the decision a decade later. Went Bosch for the washer and Electrolux for the fridge, had zero issues.
How long did it take to break?
Also, I'm wondering if any other manufacturer would make the crank and the drum from the same material. Wouldn't it be like $100 extra to make a stainless steel spider?
I can't recall, but I think it was about 7 years. Some will say that's an acceptable lifetime, but I think I did the math once, and estimated it was only a little less than laundromat pricing (less opportunity cost).
> stainless steel spider
like in Wild Wild West?
The problem is that we are running out of alternatives. How long until there are no refrigerators, TVs, cars, whatever that will not work without some amount of baked in advertising?
I dunno, my family started buying LG stuff for our appliances and otherwise, and none of the stuff has forceful ads on them, at least yet. Currently I think we have LG TVs, fridge, dish washer, drier, washing machine and something else I can't remember, all of them working well, has nice and fast at-home support when needed and no ads even on the TVs.
We purchased a low-end LG OLED TV in 2022. A few months ago it started inserting LG text ads with a little bullseye at the bottom of the screen while watching OTA programs or using streaming apps. It wasn't clear how to remove them without stopping the programming or accidentally triggering some other ad display, which I didn't want to do. So the text ads sat there for 15 or 20 seconds before fading away.
It's the last LG TV we will ever buy.
LG tvs have ads now. In fact, there are no TVs that are ad free at all anymore. At least keeping them unplugged from the internet usually prevents the ads… for now. True dystopia.
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My LG TV got an update which started pushing ads. I had to take it off the internet and use a Chromecast instead. But I fear it's not long before products straight up refuse to function without an internet connection, or they have their own way to access the internet you can't disable.
> Currently I think we have LG TVs > no ads even on the TVs.
Um, have you needed to change anything for your LG TVs to not display ads?
Asking because modern LG TVs seem to display ads too. :(
Saying that because I was recently looking for a TV, and considered LG, but many people seem to be having regrets now due to ads being shown.
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Same, regarding LG slowly occupying all the home appliances spaces. As long as they behave like a good guest in my home I’ll keep buying their stuff.
> The problem is that we are running out of alternatives.
But why is that? HN told me that ads were just reserved for people who refused to “pay for the product”. By inference we must conclude that for-pay products shall not have ads on sheer principle. Where’s that smug scolding at now?
B-b-because you’re using it wrong, obviously! Samsung conglomerate won’t survive without the ads, comrade! Small indie company.
Love how whenever “YouTube doesn’t block sponsor ads natively even on premium” they shut up. Ads are a disgrace and should be removed everywhere.
Depends on what consumers stand for. If enough complain. If enough get bad reviews. If enough get returned. If enough buy something else is the big one. If there are other uses where they can't (some TVs are used a safety message boards in factories - if the ads ever show in this context and someone is hurt there will be a lawsuit - so there will be some demand at any price for something without ads)
How are people still buying into the whole "voting with your wallet" crap?
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Buy commercial units rather than consumer ones.
My Samsung computer monitor is also the stuff of nightmares. Same story: useless "smart" UI features. I'm told I can use it as a dozen different things. But it sucks as a computer monitor.
Not cheap either!
My Samsung 4k 240hz OLED monitor has an absolutely gorgeous panel but if I knew I'd need to connect it to the internet and run a PYTHON script to disable some of its "features"[1] I probably would have gotten a similar LG display instead.
[^1]: https://pfy.ch/programming/disable-samsung-game-bar.html
Thank you for sharing this holy crap. I have this exact monitor and that popup drives me absolutely insane.
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That makes me sad. Many, many years ago I had a 17" Samsung CRT. It broke within the warranty period. I called their support and explained the problem. They asked for my receipt. I didn't have one, but I told them that the sticker on the back said it had only been manufactured 9 months ago, so it had to still be under warranty. Their support person agreed. They checked their inventory and found that they were out of stock on that model, and asked if I'd be OK with them upgrading me to a 19" CRT. Sure!
I was fiercely loyal to them for a lot of years after that experience.
I got their monitors from the "before" they bunged smart into everything. 2 x 4K from 2016/2017. These things refuse to die and the picture is still good.
Unfortunately all of my relatives love their phones.
I had a Samsung phone a few years ago. It had the usual un-removable crap that Android phones have, but it wasn’t bad otherwise.
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My house came with all Samsung appliances and I can't wait for all fo them to die. The dryer already went (8 years old).
I've been replacing with mid-range LG on advice of the local repair company and been happy so far. Quirky and very few features but seems well built.
Can't wait to replace the massive refrigerator and swap the gas range for inductive. Fridge is slowly going (cracked and leaking ice maker, condensation problem with deli drawer).
I now know how my mom could justify the ridiculous expense of a Subzero refrigerator (around $6k back in 2000). That thing has only needed a couple of tune ups and no parts replacements in 20 years.
When I bought my new fridge I told the sales guy I wanted the least features possible. "You don't want an in door ice maker" "How many of those have you seen that aren't broken" "not many. no through door window?" "I know there's milk in the fridge why do I need to see that there's milk in the fridge?" down and down the list. Eventually we settled on a very bare bones whilrpool french door. It's very simple. My previous fridge I could fix with a screwdriver and a piece of wire. These things push cold air from a compressor that lasts 50 years if it's not fucked with by electronics and some boxes that are all passive insulation. They were solved problems 30 years ago.
The speed queen washer that came with the house failed. The 30 year old lid switch literally fell apart. $10 on amazon next day. Took me 10 minutes and youtube to take the machine apart. It's meant to be serviced and I'm handy. I don't get engineers who won't try and fix their appliances. It's like a free weekend day entertainment for me.
8 years is pretty good. I personally like Bosch. Is a fridge with an icemaker not always problematic? How about biofilm?
What is the advantage of an inductive stove? Will they even work in the US? I think in Europe they work with 360 V if I remember right.
I realized two things:
1. You can cook nearly everything with a ricecooker. Just throw everything inside. Yes, even the minced meat on top.
2. An airfrier is better and faster than a shitty oven.
Only eight years for a dryer is definitely not pretty good in my mind. It's barely acceptable unless you have a huge family and are doing laundry daily. I had a low-end Capri (Sears house brand) that was 21 years old and still going strong when I moved away. It was serviced once, by me, to replace a fuse. If I'd paid twice as much and gotten only eight years out of one, I'd be furious.
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> What is the advantage of an inductive stove?
That you can control temperature changes better than with a ceramic hob, on par with methane stoves.
> I think in Europe they work with 360 V
No, normal 230V (or 220V)
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All inductive ranges pretty much use the same 2700 watt elements. In the US, you have to do a dedicated circuit (50 amp required but I had bigger wire pulled because of resistive heating and sag potential with some ovens triggering circuit breakers).
Inductive tends to be much more efficient than gas (which is what I have) and vastly more efficient than straight electric.
Speed Queen for washing machines. Bosch for dishwashers.
Bosch 800-series dishwashers are amazing. I’ve bought one at every house I’ve lived at, regardless of what’s installed. They’re quiet, they get everything clean no matter what, and they dry without a heating element, and without popping the front open.
Re: washing machines, I tentatively put forward LG. I bought one (and matching dryer) in the early 2010s, and it lasted 7 years before needing me to replace some balancing parts. It lasted years after that. Hoping for the same on this next move in a few days (yes, I move a lot).
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You might want to reconsider Bosch (or be careful about which model you choose): https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/i-wont-connect-my-dis...
We’ve been pretty happy with the the Speed Queen set we bought a few years ago. No IoT crap.
My parents fridge started it's life in the mid 1990's, and their freezer is probably a decade older, at this stage nobody knows. I don't think they were expensive models.
My parents are moving out of their house of ~50 years.
The garage fridge was in the house (as the kitchen one) when they moved in. The chest freezer in the basement moved with them in '77.
They have had at least three kitchen fridges in the time since the fridge got moved to the garage. I've lost track of the number of dishwashers. The current one was out of service for a few months, partially due to wifi/firmware issues. The super expensive oven clock doesn't work anymore, since it broke after the last time it was fixed for an $800 callout.
I can relate. Same for my parents. Washer and dryer still going strong after 30 years, same for the fridge which has been relegated to the basement since the paint has begun to chip. Microwave still works. And out of the three AC units they have, only one needed service. Maybe they are just exceptionally lucky compared to me. And these were not very expensive appliances for that time. I used to offer washers and dryers in rental properties for convenience, but their reliability has become so bad lately that it is not worth it.
They were likely the equivalent of $3k today. That's part of why these things don't last. Nobody wants to spend $3k on a fridge.
I bought a Samsung phone back in like 2014, and shortly after bought smartwatch to pair with it. A year later, Samsung released an update that removed the pairing functionality so my smartwatch could no longer pair. They did this in conjunction with releasing their own smartwatch and some proprietary pairing protocol.
I'm not a fan of vendor lock in, but their decision to retroactively remove functionality that I was depending on led me to never buy another Samsung product since.
Same they are off my list as well though I generally have less than zero interest in smart devices, I also have a Samsung "smart" TV as well, it asked for Wifi first time I turned it on, said "nope" connected a HDMI to a Fedora box and just use that.
I control what devices in my house connect to the internet.
I never thought I would connect my Hisense to the internet, but it turns out that it runs an MQTT broker and responds to WoL packets, so control via Home Assistant was really easy to setup and is much better than the IR blaster I was using before as response is almost instant and I can get power state so I can sync it to the rest of my living room. Most smart TVs seem to do well behind a DNS black hole, and if you're knowledgeable enough for that then self-hosting a dnsmasq instance on an old box you have lying around and pointing the TV at it is a snap.
Most modern TVs are fully controllable via their HDMI inputs. My shield and gaming systems are perfectly capable of turning my unconnected to the Internet TV on and off.
The shield also has a HA integration.
There's no need to risk an update that puts ads on the TV.
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> I control what devices in my house connect to the internet.
That’s certainly admirable, but haven’t tv manufacturers beeen caught connecting to ANY WiFi they find, if it’s open? Amongst other various dark patterns?
Your statement here kind of characterizes it as user error, but the manufacturers are absolutely hostile actors here.
> That’s certainly admirable, but haven’t tv manufacturers beeen caught connecting to ANY WiFi they find, if it’s open?
Not yet. Wouldn't be surprising, but most of the time the problem is "person holding the remote wants it to work, connects it to wifi when it offers, doesn't know that they shouldn't".
This nonsense keeps getting repeated over and over again for years now and I have yet to find a single documented case of it happening. You'd think that with all the attention, someone would've actually documented it by now.
Enough people connect their TV/smart devices willingly to the internet that there is no need for adversarial approaches like this (which are not trivial to set up - they'd need to maintain per-country partnerships with Wi-Fi hotspot providers, pay them and hope the ROI is worth it).
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Scroll up a bit, we at least have a first-person claim: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45741064
Linux box to Samsung TV here as well. It's awesome, best of both worlds. Stable Debian with Plasma DE in my case.
It's really too bad that Plasma's big picture mode is very WIP these days; once it's stabilized it should be a good option for this kind of thing
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I'm going to sell this idea to Samsung and earn me some Wons:
> When showing that the user has switched to HDMI input, show the full screen information: "HDMI1, brought to you by _____ [insert advertiser here]. Best experienced with Monster HDMI cables. Gold plated for the digital clarity."
Do not create the Torment Nexus.
(<https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/torment-nexus>)
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Until they start installing 5G modems in the things anyway. Or put a time bomb in the OS so the TV starts shutting down if it hasn't been connected to the internet after a week.
For a short while, I worked at one of Samsung subsidiaries on their TV firmware, mostly fixing Linux kernel bugs introduced by the product teams cannibalizing upstream features to serve their needs (including intentionally disabling reasonable kernel security measures that happened to be in their way). I've seen things, both technical and organizational, that led me to pledge never to give my money to that company, or have their devices connected to networks I care about. I don't trust any of it, if not due to evil intent, but just incompetence.
i would have thought "better the devil you know" here. The other manufacturers are probably doing similar shenanigans
At least with Vizio I kinda expected it. I can't imagine paying $3500 only to have it have the "benefit" of ads added after the fact.
Agreed. Showing ads on TVs is beyond the pale.
(Sorry, I just had to. In fact, thoug, I would be furious if my tv injected ads onto my source material)
I was out when they decided to change their authentication, with only two weeks notice, and (from what I read) incorrect documentation, causing it all to not work with HomeAssistant for a month [1].
[1] https://github.com/home-assistant/core/issues/133623#issueco...
> not directly connected to the Internet.
Hopefully you don't have a neighbor like me. I keep an open wifi channel. So far the only customer has been the neighbors samsung tv phoning home. I felt bad about that and blocked it. But wow are they aggressive trying to get that telemetry out.
If you're buying chips (other than Flash) made with cutting-edge semiconductor processes, your options are only Samsung and TSMC. How long will it take Samsung's foundries to start adding malicious hardware implants to their customers' designs?
Samsung makes great components and terrible appliances. Buy a monitor with a Samsung panel or a Samsung SSD and you'll be a happy camper. Buy a Samsung fridge or washing machine and your life will be hell.
> They make nice stuff.
Do they? I've never owned a Samsung phone, in large part because I was always turned off by reports that they liked to skin Android in annoying/lame ways. I have a Samsung fridge/freezer (old and not-smart), but the in-door ice maker has a design flaw that causes condensation to drip, freeze, and clog it, so we've given up on it and just make our own ice with regular old-school trays in the freezer.
I'm not going to say they make crap, but their stuff is... okay, I guess.
Samsung once sold a fantastic phone. It had a wonderful camera, a great 432 PPI OLED screen, a battery that could be swapped in seconds with no tools, a headphone jack, an SD card slot, NFC, optional wireless charging, USB 3.0, HDMI output over MHL, an IR emitter for shenanigans, heart rate and blood oxygen saturation sensors, and at 8.1mm thick it was also waterproof.
It was hackable, rootable, and it ran aftermarket ROMs like a dream.
It was the Galaxy S5, and it was released just over a decade ago.
Things have been headed downhill ever since.
I've had a few Samsung products over the years. The only one I haven't regretted is their SSDs, both internal and external. Those seem to be good. Everything else has been awful.
I'm also one of those who never buys Samsung. So when it came to a new NVMe, the main options were Samsung and WD, and I kept the track record by going with WD.
They make nice stuff? I’ve stopped buying samsung 10 years ago and even before then not a single device was decent (and I bought phones, screens, home appliances, a TV)
i have good memories of my Note 3. samsung was pretty cool back then. i bought some galaxy s 5 years ago for a lot of money, then it got splashed with water and died. stupid waste of money. i've had my current oppo for 3+ years and he's a trooper, and it was about half the price of a similar-spec samsung. samsung is overpriced shit.
>This guarantees I'll never buy a Samsung appliance.
I saw someone else’s Samsung TV with ads on the input select menu…
That was enough to pre-ban myself from any future Samsung appliance.
Even when they aren't loaded with ads, Samsung products are built to fail almost immediately. My Samsung vacuum has been a total piece of shit that's falling apart. I will never buy another Samsung product again.
Other than probably flash storage, there's never been a Samsung product that's ever been better than just throwing at least the equivalent amount of money in a fire pit and incinerating it. They've never sold an appliance appropriate even as a boat anchor, and I'm amazed at this point that people even consider buying their junk.
I've bought GE recently with good luck (GSS25IYNFSS, specifically). No affiliation, just someone who buys a lot of appliances that need to last and be simple for longevity (housing provider). My kingdom for someone who could build the old, reliable tanks of yesteryear.
https://ncph.org/history-at-work/rethinking-the-refrigerator...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refrigerator
There is no such thing as consumer GE products. They haven't existed for several decades. The name has been licensed to various brands in China, but the only thing actual GE made in it's last several decades (It suffered existence failure in 2024 after a series of spinoffs) is aircraft engines.
Anything sold as "GE" is just re-badged somebody else's crap, mostly Haier.
The dishwasher that came with my condo was GE, and when it stopped draining completely, I found the instruction manual, and it was mostly ads for other GE products. Ironically, I replaced it with a Samsung dishwasher with a clearer instruction manual and easy repair investigations.
Of course I am no longer inclined to purchase Samsung products based on this new info. I honestly think that if a company pushes an update that makes its product worse, they should be obligated to refund you 100% of the original purchase price.
Crap crap and more crap. The quality control on GE fridges is absolutely the worst of all worst. It's possible because you are working with the economy of scale that you don't see the typical problems that individuals run into. But I went through 5 in a row and every single one had a problem. Switched to LG and never looked back
LG with their faulty Linear Compressors and craft ice makers that are doomed to fail? The one with the big lawsuit for their faulty fridges?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y54QbkCtFE4
I have an LG fridge. I like it. I think the linear compressor tech is cool, even if their implementation is potentially flawed. I don't expect this thing to last a decade.
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GE's appliances business was sold to Haier of China in 2016
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I would never buy a roku tv with its built in ads. Unfortunately my partner did that for me. Most people simply don't care about this kind of stuff. If it has the gleam of newness, hell the ads are kind of flashy I don't mind em at all!
I won't buy Sony TVs any more because of their software, because it started displaying ads on the home-screen.
It's Google TV, and I don't mind ads for content on the home screen. I use a bunch of streaming services, I might want to watch whatever's up there, that's not entirely incongruous. Then about a year after purchase we started getting ads for L'Oreal shampoo and other products. Nope.
Sony acted confused when I sent a support ticket, and eventually said "Oh, that's because it's Google TV, nothing we can do about it". I replied saying perhaps they had given too much control over their tv experience to a third party. I was able to activate "App Only Mode" to make them go away, but you lose a bunch of the features and have to disable it to get to the play store if you want to install anything else.
Pisses me off. I paid a couple of thousand dollars (AUD) for that tv, I shouldn't have advertising shoved in my face.
Their TVs and phones have terrible PWM and are bad for your eyes anyway.
I’m boycotting all Samsung products permanently.
> I have one today, displaying the output of an Apple TV and not directly connected to the Internet
That's how I do it as well, and I hate that dumb TVs are getting increasingly more rare.
I know the day is coming where any new "Smart" TV will mandate you connect it to the internet to go through some initial setup process or require regular phone homes to function, and I'm not looking forward to it.
I don't want my TV to do anything except display whatever I have connected to it. It's job stops there.
Their TVs still don’t support all the HDR formats right?
Yeah - they support HDR10 (the most common HDR), HDR10+ (adds per-scene tone-mapping, but is rare to see media for), but not Dolby Vision (which requires paying a license fee to the Dolby folks).
I've heard that Netflix has added HDR10+ streams recently, but I haven't verified that myself.
That's correct. I can't use it at all with my Apple TV or Playstation 5, because the screen immediately goes dark. I don't know how to describe this exactly, but say that the TV's regular RGB display goes from 1 to 100. I'd expect that HDR would make it go from -50 to 150, or something like that. Instead, on my Samsung, it goes from -50 to 50. No amount of control fiddling can make it get as bright as it does in non-HDR mode.
Our cheaper LG works beautifully with the same inputs. The Samsung? Nope. Everything looks like the finale of Game of Thrones, even when you're looking at a soccer game played on a sunny day at noon on the equator.
> I'd expect that HDR would make it go from -50 to 150
That's not how HDR works. It expands the high range exclusively. So more like 0 to 1000 instead of 0 to 100.
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You know, the ad they display on the home annoys me and I've never thought much about it. The prevalence of ads is so much that I think I already expected it there.
hah, I also keep the samsung tv cut off from internet. It was bad enough they come pre installed with clearly sponsored apps (because they were absolute trash).
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I got a new Samsung TV recently, i don't get the huge hatred for their software. It has some free TV channels, it has apps for the streaming services, even a decent web browser and overall good features. It supports Airplay, Google Cast, bluetooth etc. The OS has some annoyances and rough edges, but its mostly fine. I let it connect to the internet but not any of my other LAN devices so it cant' snoop too much.
I just don't see the problem, and don't see how connecting a different box to watch the same things is much better than just using the OS to do that. If they did have ads on it that would definitely be a problem though.
I had a Samsung TV ten years ago. While watching Game of Thrones with friends, it overlayed an ad at the top of the screen recommending I play Fruit Ninja on my TV. I immediately disconnected it from my WiFi and have not bought a single other Samsung device since, except for one thumbdrive that I needed. Avoiding Samsung as a brand when buying electronics has been really easy as well.
I've used the built-in apps at a friend's house, and they were awful compared to the Apple TV versions. Everything was sluggish, like it was running on something without enough RAM and swapping out to an SD card. If I hadn't used anything else but that, or maybe the Dish Network DVR we had years ago, I'd probably think it's just fine. However, I have used something else, and it made the TV's own apps feel unbearable.
Imagine you're using a brand new maxed-out MacBook Pro, and someone hands you a 2013 HP laptop. The HP is... fine. It displays web pages, lets you load a word processor, and otherwise looks and acts like a laptop. If you hadn't ever used another computer, you probably wouldn't think anything of it.
BTW, I bet a Fire TV or various other options would be fine, too. I just don't have the personal experience to vouch for those. I'm not using this anecdote to shill Apple TV specifically, just to say that there are much better options than the built-in apps.
> and don't see how connecting a different box to watch the same things is much better than just using the OS to do that.
Because then you can replace a $50-100 box when it starts misbehaving (e.g. tracking and selling your information) or not getting upgrades anymore or getting slower, rather than replacing a $1000 TV.
Well, they could easily push a software update to add ads to your TV without a rollback option and disable features if you don't allow it.
If you upgrade your TV on the regular I guess you'd just buy a new one, but treating it as a dumb display guarantees you can keep using it as long as it physically works.
>I let it connect to the internet but not any of my other LAN devices so it cant' snoop too much.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_content_recognition
Well my Samsung tv I bought two years ago has gotten progressively slower and slower despite never installing any new stuff on it and only using the basic functionality, so that is pretty infuriating. Every couple of weeks I have to unplug it (because naturally a soft power off isn’t really doing anything) and it’ll be fast again for a while. When it’s slow it can easily take 10 seconds to bring up the menu.