Posted by stalfosknight 10/28/2025
- fridges - toasters - TVs - home appliances - what-have-you
Whoever makes those, take my $€£¥
For everything else, there are crappier alternatives from all the consumer electronics OEMs
A webcam on Aliexpress is around 5 euros. Throw in a microcontroller that's like 2 euros on aliexpress, a 10 euro screen and you still have a 30-ish euro budget for the actual door that's probably plastic (acrylic and something like PE ?). So yeah, probably more expensive.
But that doesn't means that doesn't exists ! We can see that all the time in supermarket, but I guess their needs are different.
Notifications and Alerts: If the door is left open, or the fridge temperature is leaving safe temps, or the water filter needs changing, it can send a push notification to your phone. (Useful if something fails; or if a kid/guest leaves the fridge open by mistake).
Remote control and monitoring: You can use the camera to see the contents of the fridge. You can also adjust the temperature remotely. (Useful if you're at the grocery store and can't remember if you have milk?) It looks like they also have "AI" try to categorize these for you.
Built-in tablet: The touchscreen is basically a builtin tablet. You can use it to display photos (pulled from your online albums), show the weather, or control "smart home" stuff like playing some music on your speakers. I imagine you could also try to put recipes or cooking videos on there. You can also easily order groceries from it or add to your shopping list (with your voice).
I'd rather have a separate device for most of this, but I can understand the appeal, especially if you're not privacy-conscious.
That's probably because you're a developer, and as developers it's really easy for us to develop tunnel-vision for some reason, and really hard to see the perspective from a "regular person", the sort of person who a salesperson can say "You can now get alerted when you're low on eggs, no matter where you are!" and the person will think that's a cool feature with no drawbacks.
It has everything to do with being frugal and whether you see the utility. There is very little benefit in being alerted when I am low on eggs because I can simply open the fridge and look. I can also normally buy eggs anywhere, at any time of day.
There isn't really a problem that needs solving.
But lots of the average person don't do much of that sort of reasoning, lots of people live life basically on impulses. They buy stuff based on their feelings, not based on "does this solve an actual problem I have that actually needs solving?".
I reason about the same amount as anyone else.
> But lots of the average person don't do much of that sort of reasoning, lots of people live life basically on impulses. They buy stuff based on their feelings, not based on "does this solve an actual problem I have that actually needs solving?".
1) There is no such thing as the "average" person.
2) There is nothing special about you, I or anyone else. The fact is that everyone makes lots of irrational decisions every single day without thinking about it.
Being frugal, thinking about what you need and similar ways of thinking is not common in the real world, it's a small selection of any population that acts and reasons like that. I'm not sure what to tell except go out more in the world and interact with people outside your bubble, if this isn't obviously clear to you already.
It often is. Often out of necessity.
You are making the mistake a lot software developers and other professionals often make. Is that they think rationally and others do not. This is because in one area they are forced to think about things rationally because otherwise something simply doesn't work. This translates poorly often to outside of their field because they are often making incorrect assumptions.
I have seen little evidence that professional in software are any more or less rational, frugal than any other group of people and often they will spend their money on absolute garbage. This is so prevalent there are memes about it online.
Moreover I've seen many Software Developers and people that surround them in tech (e.g. BA, Testers, Project Managers) fall for some of the most obvious bullshit.
> I'm not sure what to tell except go out more in the world and interact with people outside your bubble, if this isn't obviously clear to you already.
So, I could say the exact same thing to you. TBH, I actually think this is projection. The way you are talking is like the way I used to talk when I was younger and had less real world experience. It should give you pause that another person has a radically different opinion, is arguing against their own group (I am a dev) and I can back that up with a decent rationale as to why I believe it.
Your argument throughout this boils down to "I think this is true, because I think other people are dumb". Which is pure hubris.
It's incredible interesting, if anything else, that I feel the same about you and could have written exactly the same thing as you seem to lack real-world experience, and probably are a bit younger than me, judging by what you wrote.
But instead, probably better to stop here and acknowledge we won't get to anything interesting after all, so thank you for your time, and maybe see you around :)
You don't think that.
> if anything else, that I feel the same about you and could have written exactly the same thing as you seem to lack real-world experience, and probably are a bit younger than me, judging by what you wrote.
IME, those who start claiming the other person lacks real world experience as an argument (like you did), is normally making up for the fact that they don't.
> But instead, probably better to stop here and acknowledge we won't get to anything interesting after all, so thank you for your time, and maybe see you around :)
We can't get to anything interesting because you ignore what you don't want to engage with. There were a huge number of presumptions you make without even realising it in your statements.
I also want to know why you think that developers are more rational? You never gave a rationale other than what boils down to "I think other people are dumb, and developers are smart". That was your entire argument.
Soon though they won't ask, LTE-M / NB-IoT, both chips and plans are becoming very cheap and unless you are living in a faraday cage it will take control away from the user completely.