Samsung's $2000 smart fridges are getting ads

Posted by speckx 10/29/2025

Samsung's $2000 smart fridges are getting ads(www.ghacks.net)

54 points | 33 comments

caminante 10/29/2025|

I'm not familiar with ghacks.net, but it appears this is AI regurgitation (down to photos) from other sources [0]. The post even links to [0].

[0] https://www.theverge.com/report/806797/samsung-family-hub-sm...

mmaret 10/29/2025||

There an initiative to try to remove this: https://bounties.fulu.org/bounties/samsung-familyhub-refrige...

cyanydeez 10/29/2025|

There's even a system of governance made to protect consumers. We've just decided to make money a first-class voter.

hrimfaxi 10/29/2025||

Related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45737338

cpncrunch 10/29/2025||

I get the impression that these types of devices are owned by people with a bit too much money and a bit too little understanding of the tech.

6510 10/29/2025|

I was quite shocked when it became obvious the someone with money loved reading and seeing advertisement. They thought it was product information. Banners needed only to be vaguely appealing for them to purchase it. This behavior was further rewarded by companies sending "sample" products like, here are all 12 of our 100 euro per bottle shampoos, we hope you like them.

add-sub-mul-div 10/29/2025||

There are two aspects to advertising, there's fact and there's opinion. As long as you understand the opinion is biased, the facts can be useful. If a new pizza place opens in my town I'd at least like to know it exists, or else I might stagnate going to only the familiar places.

It's still annoying and it's unacceptable for my fridge to have a screen I can't control the content of.

cpncrunch 10/30/2025||

>It's still annoying and it's unacceptable for my fridge to have a screen I can't control the content of.

Also, and more importantly IMO, is the risk of the fridge getting hacked. I really don't want to have to worry about keeping my fridge updated, and having to throw it out after 7 years or whenever support ends.

8cvor6j844qw_d6 10/29/2025||

Would PiHole work to stop this? Seems like it should be a "easy" fix, although still a distasteful move by Samsung.

onion2k 10/29/2025||

Ads will eventually be displayed on anything that has a screen and an internet connection.

bokohut 10/29/2025||

I cannot disagree at all with this statement however I ask what about those connected devices that have no displays but still exist in our world "unseen"?

Take for example the Kohler poo cam announced a few weeks back that has no screen but maybe they secretly included a small speaker that after a firmware update will plop ads on bowl users if management is not seeing the profits from selling only the hardware. Won't that be some funny sh!t?

Or how about brain implant computers, so I ask where will the line be drawn when more and more profit at any cost appears to be the M.O.

Exciting times as connected technology that can see and hear gets smaller and smaller while battery power to weight ratio increases allowing these devices longer and longer life in secluded places.

hilbert42 10/29/2025|||

Ads are 'yesterday' on my screens and it's always been thus, and it will always be so.

Your premise will only become true if people on mass agree with it.

hulitu 10/30/2025|||

Why stop there ? You can display it directly in the brain.

pjmlp 10/29/2025||

See Demolition Man for the how future will be like.

more_corn 10/29/2025||

I’m buying a SSD this morning. Too bad I’m never buying anything Samsung ever again.

Shoving ads in my face and killing babies. Those are my two lines in the sand.

ChrisArchitect 10/29/2025||

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45737338

iqandjoke 10/29/2025||

Comparing to daily carrying $1000 iPhone's Apple Maps Ads, it is nothing.

baal80spam 10/29/2025|

Ah, good old whataboutism.

NickC25 10/29/2025|

Companies need to seriously stop with this. I don't care if they make money by selling that ad space, I'm not going to fucking buy a fridge that advertises to me and needs the internet. It's a fridge for god's sake.

Unless that fridge is given to me and installed in my home free of charge, and I get a monthly retainer for allowing the fridge to advertise to me.

I'm not paying for the privileged of being advertised to.

palmotea 10/29/2025|||

> Companies need to seriously stop with this. I don't care if they make money by selling that ad space, I'm not going to fucking buy a fridge that advertises to me and needs the internet. It's a fridge for god's sake.

If there's enough money in doing this kind of thing, you may no longer be given that choice by the market. It is under no obligation to provide the choices that are best for you.

All the manufacturers are responding to the same incentives, and if the CEO of one has the morals to resist shoving ads in all the things, it's only a matter of time until he's replaced by an MBA who doesn't. That's capitalism.

dingnuts 10/29/2025||

then the market would be ripe for someone to market a dumb fridge for a premium and undercut the greedy competitors. THAT'S capitalism

palmotea 10/29/2025|||

> then the market would be ripe for someone to market a dumb fridge for a premium and undercut the greedy competitors. THAT'S capitalism

THAT'S fairy tale capitalism. Sometimes it works that way in real life, but it very, very frequently it does not.

As soon as cost of adding a screen to a refrigerator becomes less than the ad revenue that screen can generate, you'll be hard pressed to find a refrigerator without one. They'll just be careful to avoid making it so annoying at first that it alienates customers, then do a frog-boiling exercise to slowly increase consumer tolerance for annoyance. That's where the incentives are, and the industry will follow the incentives.

g-b-r 10/30/2025|||

Yes, just as it happened with TVs and cars

heathrow83829 10/29/2025||

absolutely!

and they're now even putting freakin apps into washing machines. It's a disaster. It's getting harder and harder to find appliances that don't have all this nonsense in it.

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