kstrauser
15 hours 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.
Fwirt
15 hours ago
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.
analog31
12 hours ago
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.
II2II
9 hours ago
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.
nchmy
7 hours ago
where, outside of thrift stores, are you finding boots at these prices?
Retric
7 hours ago
That’s actually roughly the price range to manufacture normal shoes. “The average production cost of a single pair of shoes ranges between $10 and $50. This includes materials, labor, and overhead.” https://hevashoeinc.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-manufacture...
What you actually pay is a large multiple of that covering the taxes, shipping, sales channel, marketing, etc.
lexszero_
12 hours ago
"You are so poor that when AWS goes down, you still can get into your house" -- seen somewhere
amarant
8 hours ago
Which phase of capitalism is this? Suffering costs extra, and you'll gladly pay for it!
whatshisface
7 hours ago
"As the Party slogan put it: ‘Proles and animals are free.’" - 1984
derefr
11 hours ago
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.
fn-mote
10 hours ago
Parent was funny but almost a non-sequitor.
I appreciated the kernel of truth: industrial fridges will not come with adware in the foreseeable future. Buy industrial.
derefr
10 hours ago
I mean, my point was that there are actually three different ways you can spend a lot of money on a fridge, and it's a lot like with PCs.
You can buy:
• a big ugly powerful repairable/durable industrial one (like a server);
• an average-sized, somewhat-fancy (because high-trim), repairable/durable commercial one (like a workstation);
• or an average-sized fancy "aesthetic" one, made by a design company rather than an appliance company, that isn't repairable or durable (like one of those bespoke "sleeper desk PCs.")
The same goes for most things you can spend a lot of money on. A sound system, a vacuum cleaner, a car, etc. In each of these cases, "premium" has these same three distinct meanings. None of which involve showing you ads. But all of which have their own trade-offs. And all of which are usually quite a bit more expensive (each for their own reasons) than the highest-trim product sold directly to the average consumer by what you'd think of as a "consumer brand."
mlinhares
7 hours ago
What are the good brands of commercial/industrial we should be looking at?
201984
10 hours ago
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...
dylan604
11 hours ago
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.
kragen
11 hours ago
No, these are US$3500 fridges.
technothrasher
11 hours ago
$3500 is about 1/3 of the cost of a "rich person" fridge.
kragen
11 hours ago
There's quite a spectrum of richness. I think my fridge cost US$100 used. This new 199-liter model costs US$280 new: https://www.mercadolibre.com.ar/heladera-philco-top-mount-ci...
So US$3500 is 12 times the cost of a poor-person fridge (excluding used fridges and "oh, I just go over to my mom's house") and ⅓ the cost of your rich-person fridge, which puts it much closer to the latter.
But I wouldn't be surprised if Wolfgang Puck or Gordon Ramsay has a custom walk-in fridge that cost a lot more than US$10k.
analog31
11 hours ago
A truly rich person has never seen their fridge.
derefr
11 hours ago
Certainly, the truly rich person has never seen the main fridge their staff uses to store the ingredients for their meals.
But said rich person has at least one more fridge: a relatively-small, usually very elegant (in-wall, glass-door) fridge, located in the [badly designed for cooking, but pretty] "kitchen" that adjoins the butler's pantry [= nearest, usually secondary, real kitchen].
They use this "kitchen" to whimsically prepare avocado toast when hosting "guests" (e.g. people from Architectural Digest); or when vlogging / hosting their reality TV show about all the cooking they love doing. (At any other time, e.g. when hosting actual guests, if they want to make use of this kitchen [rather than simply speaking in their lounge until dinner is served in their separated dining room], it won't be by cooking there themselves, but rather by sitting around the kitchen island or the [probably open] secondary dining arrangement nearby, watching their private chef cook there, while they or their assistants try desperately to cover for how gimped their workflow is by having to use the faux-kitchen.)
And of course, even if the rich person does some whimsical/performative hobby cooking, the staff will have prepped and mise-en-placed anything they'll need from the butler's pantry onto the (huge) kitchen island in advance. (Like a cooking show!) So even then, they won't be needing the "kitchen" fridge. With the extreme edge-case exception of needing something to stay cool until the very moment it's needed; or needing to repeatedly chill it (think "making croissant dough", though I doubt a rich person would ever try.)
rpcope1
5 hours ago
Having been closely acquainted with a woman worth north of a billion dollars, and having met a number of people that are worth probably at least hundreds of millions, I can tell you the kitchen experience for the wealthy (maybe barring like top 10-100 billionaires) is really frankly kind of pedestrian. Are the kitchens nicer? Yeah sort of, I have fixed a bunch of stuff on a couple of certified real money mansions, and a lot of it is gimmicky stuff, some of it is good heavy expensive stuff, but honestly nothing that's doing some sort of extra magic a whole lot better than all of the plain old Whirlpool kit in my own home. Do they have help? Yeah for cleaning, and sometimes from what I've seen the one or two people helping around the house will help cook, but they're not dependent on it and it's more a "hey we're cooking for family, I need to delegate", as well as the sort of person I've met with that kind of money tends to skew much older anyways.
Maybe some nerds in silly valley like to larp as 1800s rich people with actual large numbers of staff, I don't know, but the regular old very wealthy (the sort you don't know who they are, and I think they prefer it that way) live what you would probably consider mostly very pedestrian lives. More trips? Yes. Multiple homes in nice places? Yes. A couple of nice cars and a (reasonably sized) boat? Usually. Chartered flights? Absolutely. An army of staff and never doing even basic shit themselves? Nope and no on the doing basically nothing unless they're really geriatric (and then can you blame them anyways).
derefr
4 hours ago
It sounds like you're describing idle-rich people. Which makes sense.
Yeah, if you're "rich" as in "retired", your life is usually pretty mundane. Most such people don't even live in any kind of mansion these days†, but rather just in very nice homes that are perfectly-sized and perfectly-cozy for them and what they like to do — with some verrrry long driveways, if they're in the right part of the country for that.
† (Mansions as a concept evolved from palaces; both exist mostly to provide enough rooms to host guests when some other rich person decides to pilgrimage themselves and everyone they know over to your place to stay for three months — in turn because that was really the only good way to visit someone with full amenities, back before air travel. Nobody needs to do that these days. Any modern mansion exists either as a status symbol, or because the owner likes hosting parties [or imagines they might one day host a party, but never actually does]. Mansions are especially useful, in the modern day, for people who throw fundraiser galas, like politicians.)
> Maybe some nerds in silly valley like to larp as 1800s rich people with actual large numbers of staff, I don't know,
I don't think it's SV people doing this. (The SV entrepreneurial "grindset" is a form of protestant work-ethic mindset; most tech millionaires find it hard to allow themselves to have staff. They might have a lot of people on retainer — lawyers, personal trainers, private-practice doctors, etc — but they would find the idea of paying the full salary for the exclusive use of even a maid to be a bit strange, instead preferring to just "hire a service" for that. Right up until they have a security scare, that is... but I digress.)
Rather, the personal-staff (private chef, limo driver, landscaper, several maids, etc) setup is, these days, something for the busy rich — think "runs ten businesses because they don't know how to stop", or "has an infinite queue of people needing them to make a decision about something" [politician, chaebol owner], or "thrives on fame, and so can't stand to turn down packing their schedule with ever-bigger gigs" [celebrity actors]. You find it in LA and in DC, not in SF.
These groups "have people" because they literally wouldn't be able to fit self-care into their schedule without "people."
kragen
10 hours ago
This reads like fiction rather than informed ethnography.
I think I've only been in one hectomillionaire's kitchen, though it can be hard to tell, and the only resemblance to your description is that he had a large household staff. But it wasn't his main house, and I don't know if you consider someone who isn't even a billionaire to be "truly rich".
potato3732842
10 hours ago
I've been in billionares vacation houses (like several of them in an area, not one billionares multiple houses).
They're pretty conventional.
derefr
10 hours ago
Honestly, it's mostly just my impression of how things work after watching a lot of https://www.youtube.com/@ArvinHaddadOfficial 's mansion design reviews.
kragen
10 hours ago
I'm guessing that most rich people do not want the inside of their mansions to appear on a YouTube channel, especially one about mansions. Most of these mansions do not cost even US$100M and so probably do not belong to truly rich people.
derefr
10 hours ago
> I'm guessing that most rich people do not want the inside of their mansions to appear on a YouTube channel, especially one about mansions.
1. He doesn't film these walk-throughs himself. Real-estate agents film walk-throughs of these places to try to get them sold (it's well worth it for the commission they'll make), post them publically, and then he reviews those videos.
2. The homes in the walk-throughs are always vacant; there are no actual rich people involved to worry about their privacy. (They do almost look lived-in, yes, but that's all stuff that comes with the house. Not even staged; a lot of it is "design flourishes" added by the developer to match the architectural style.)
> Most of these mansions do not cost even US$100M and so probably do not belong to truly rich people.
When this guy records a review, it's to point out the flaws in a property's architecture + developer-furnished interior design. (Because that's the professional service he offers to his clients: inspecting properties for design flaws that lower the place's perceived resale value. His videos are a demonstration of that service.)
Thus, due to needing something worth spending 10 minutes talking about, the mansions he bothers to cover are always the ones that are badly designed.
My understanding is that these mansions exist in markets, and are built at scales, such that they actually should cost a lot more than they do. But their bad design has caused them to sit on the market for a long time; and that means the seller often gets desperate and lowers the price. (This isn't speculation; he often covers the market offer-price + resale-price history of a property as well.)
That being said, they still have all the features a truly-rich-person mansion should have. That stuff repeats over and over; you recognize it like MVC in software. These places are just the architectural equivalent of spaghetti code, putting things in inconvenient arrangements (I recall a recent review of a property where you had to walk down three hallways and cross two great rooms to get from the dining room to the nearest bathroom), stacking things so that rooms you'll spend a lot of time in don't have a great view (another property built into a hill made two bedrooms sub-grade with window wells, rather than just putting the bedrooms on the other side under the living room, where they'd get a panoramic picturesque view), and so on.
kragen
9 hours ago
A lot of truly rich people live in houses that haven't been on the market for generations, or centuries, or ever. The particular hectomillionaire's vacation home I spent a few months in wasn't one of those (he's self-made) but also didn't have the kinds of features you're talking about at all. No separate hidden "main fridge", no butler's pantry, no second kitchen, no kitchen island, no great rooms, no panoramic picturesque views. It did have a dining room and bedrooms, though. It had been built as a small hotel, so it had five bedrooms (on the upper floor), an atrium, and a small swimming pool. From the street it just looked like a regular house. You could walk from the bedroom overlooking the swimming pool down the hall, down the stairs, down the other hall and dining room, across the patio, up the other stairs, and into the last bedroom, in about two minutes.
bitwize
10 hours ago
There's a midwit bell curve meme lurking here...
NoMoreNicksLeft
9 hours ago
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.
comboy
14 hours ago
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.
techpression
4 hours ago
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.
tempest_
13 hours ago
The issue is that the 10k fridge is not actually any better.
The "luxury" appliances can be double that and are still shit.
bleomycin
12 hours ago
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.
hansvm
7 hours ago
It's a little funny that, by far, the worst power and internet I've ever had [0], both by cost and by quality, has been in the Bay Area. The easiest way I'm aware of for me to cut my internet bill in half, cut my power bill 4x, have 30 fewer days per year containing electrical outages, and get back up to normal fiber speeds is to move to the Midwest.
[0] Excluding anywhere I lived for less than a couple months, like the middle of the Pacific or an exceptionally rough road trip through Wyoming.
Dylan16807
4 hours ago
I see three videos and I don't see any mention of how much electricity they use?
Looking up the fridges myself, a Sub-Zero BI-42UFD/O is rated at 693kWh yearly, and a Frigidaire FG4H2272UF is rated at 671. There's no difference.
nradov
10 hours ago
It's so crazy that even though California is in some ways the center of the technology universe we have had a dysfunctional electrical grid and market for decades. This has been an ongoing governance failure across multiple administrations and political parties. If we ever want to build stuff here and cut the cost of living then cheaper electrical power is a necessity.
pixl97
12 hours ago
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.
xethos
12 hours ago
Commercial and consumer dishwashers are only the same in that they're both called "dishwashers" and use water. The former expect little to no food, have cycles measured in minutes, and run at temperatures that would eat more sensitive dishes alive.
potato3732842
9 hours ago
You were close.
A commercial dishwasher will cut right through amounts of food that a normal residential dishwasher wouldn't touch (pre-wash is more for efficiency and to keep crap from piling up in the bottom tray of the dishwasher) and it will actually be ever so slightly less harsh on whatever goes in it (plastics are the problem mostly) because while it washes and rinses way hotter it doesn't have a stupid heating element that runs to dry things.
It will also use fucktons more water and more power and make more noise.
xethos
8 hours ago
Haven't worked in a commercial kitchen, and I've been wrong before (in this chain, no less), but how would the water be hotter without a heating element? Consumer dishwashers are plumbed into the hot water, so it can't be a difference in a direct hook-up. Without it's own heating element, I wouldn't assume it has its own built-in and ready-on-demand hot water tank, either.
My last guess is more frequent cycles, meaning hotter water already at the spigot / dishwasher outlet, similar to the consumer recommendation to run the hot water for a minute prior to starting the dishwasher?
Plastics / tupperware were actually what I had in mind lol
potato3732842
20 minutes ago
The water is hotter in a commercial dishwasher. I forget the exact numbers but it's substantially more. What the commercial dishwasher doesn't have is an "oven style" heating element running around the perimeter of the bottom (or somewhere thereabouts) to dry the dishes. Most residential dishwashers have this. This is why some dishes say "top rack only". The water coming out the top isn't any different. It's that you're moving the dish farther from the hot element. So a dish that goes through a commercial dishwasher sees higher average temp but substantially lower peak temp.
lb1lf
2 hours ago
At least the commercial ones I've been using on and off do not have a drying cycle at the end of the program; they just steam the heck out of whatever is inside, then once the cycle is through, you are expected to remove the tray with whatever you were washing and let it air dry on the bench.
This in contrast to the consumer unit at home which heats the interior of the dishwasher for 45 minutes or so after it has done its washing cycle to dry things while still inside the dishwasher.
Dylan16807
3 hours ago
Some dishwashers blow hot air to dry, some get the rinse water extra hot, some do neither.
If they're talking about the water being hotter, but not a "stupid heating element that runs to dry", then it sounds like they mean the hot air.
makeitdouble
10 hours ago
Commercial products usually require knowledge (expertise?), and have their own limitations. Even repairability can be an issue in a different way.
I don't know for dishwashers, commercial printers are expected to be serviced by the maker or affiliated business and getting parts as a mere peasant can be pretty complex. Surely rich people can just throw money at a contractor, but that's not what we're talking about I think (otherwise having a new one delivered everytime would also just work)
dylan604
11 hours ago
The old fridge had much smaller usable volume inside. Modern insulation allows for thinner walls which increases capacity. Same for modern ovens.
donmcronald
13 hours ago
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.
jdeibele
12 hours ago
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.
yourusername
an hour ago
>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.
What kind of fridge issues are you having? I just buy a $1000 Miele/Liebherr and it's fine for 10+ years. 0 repairs.
j1elo
11 hours ago
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.
grugagag
9 hours ago
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.
ryukoposting
6 hours ago
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.
elymar
an hour ago
Check your wheel speed sensors.
rlpb
2 hours ago
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.
rpcope1
5 hours ago
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.
hedora
7 hours ago
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.)
adfm
10 hours ago
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.
AlexandrB
7 hours ago
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.
com2kid
4 hours ago
Inverter microwaves are a noticable improvement over regular microwaves. True variable power instead of time slicing means I can precisely heat up almost any food evenly all the way through.
Dylan16807
3 hours ago
I often want to set my microwave within 5 seconds for small items, so no knobs for me please. And I like having a delayed start option. Modes never happen without me asking for them.
fn-mote
10 hours ago
> it's not worth it having appliances that last 20 years
Think John Deere tractors as well as adware refrigerators.
burnished
11 hours ago
That one is sunk cost, I think golden handcuffs are for highly compensated employment.
kridsdale3
11 hours ago
Sunk Cost is usually something we encourage people to avoid, but in the case of the capital infrastructure of your home, we have to factor depreciation. The aunt is not likely going to re-sell the washer for market value (like a car). It would be recycled when the new more high tech model comes in. A total loss.
MengerSponge
6 hours ago
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.
thih9
13 hours ago
> you can still find fridges in that price range today with a similar value proposition
Does anyone have examples of consumer fridges like this?
mns
2 hours ago
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.
stock_toaster
13 hours ago
sub-zero or thermadore maybe?
Retric
12 hours ago
Parents have a sub-zero that’s over 20 years old and in good condition, no idea if the new stuff is as well built.
Miele still has a good reputation, and you’ll pay for it. https://www.mieleusa.com/category/1022129/refrigerators-and-...
zdragnar
7 hours ago
> 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.
nappy-doo
13 hours ago
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.
hedora
7 hours ago
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.
stephen_g
12 hours ago
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.
_cs2017_
10 hours ago
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?
mh-
10 hours ago
> stainless steel spider
like in Wild Wild West?
0cf8612b2e1e
14 hours ago
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?
embedding-shape
14 hours ago
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.
ilamont
10 hours ago
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.
tensor
6 hours ago
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.
com2kid
3 hours ago
Not true. Sony Android TVs can have all the ads disabled. Google disables voice input as a result, but otherwise I am ad free.
SchemaLoad
6 hours ago
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.
justinclift
12 hours ago
> 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.
kelnos
11 hours ago
LG TVs do have some settings related to ads, but my solution was to just not connect it to the internet in the first place.
hexo
10 hours ago
This. Parents bought LG OLED TV. It is absolutely lovely, has super nice picture. (not an ad!:D) I insisted they never connect it to network. Probably it would be usable on network cut off from internet, but there is high probability of some mistake. I wasnt sure what happens if it got out for just a tiny bit so decision was clear. We've seen zero ads there (except the standard-ads-iterrupted-by-actual-programming).
thrill
13 hours ago
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.
bluGill
13 hours ago
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)
masijo
11 hours ago
How are people still buying into the whole "voting with your wallet" crap?
bluGill
11 hours ago
Most people don't care and so don't vote with their wallet.
gxs
11 hours ago
Also, people don't realize that sometimes it doesn't even matter
Enough people don't care, don't notice, or in the worst case, even when they do, if the companies band together and don't give people a choice, eventually they will cave and thats what i predict will happen here
In the future i suspect most people's homes will have ads, except for nerds who will have rooted their devices. and hopefully their moms.
ryandrake
10 hours ago
A lot of people have gotten so used to their entire lives being saturated in ads that they don't even notice them anymore.
bluGill
8 hours ago
there are enough people who do care to matter. Sometimes we settle for not great answers, but there are generally options for those who care.
keybored
12 hours ago
> 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?
wiseowise
2 hours ago
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.
pixl97
12 hours ago
Buy commercial units rather than consumer ones.
leblancfg
15 hours ago
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!
pfych
13 hours ago
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
kstrauser
14 hours ago
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.
LogicHound
14 hours ago
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.
SoftTalker
12 hours ago
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.
LogicHound
3 hours ago
I bought a pixel 6a and installed graphene os. I don't like their phones.
tosapple
11 hours ago
Mid range samsung phone here, great performance but even with their keyboard disabled on a non-rooted phone it still copies your clipboard on every copy/paste. I will be buying something else next time.
SoftTalker
11 hours ago
“Copies” meaning sends clipboard contents to Samsung? That’s not cool.
tosapple
10 hours ago
Haven't disassembled it yet so i don't know but when i turned on clipboard notifications i started getting two messages. One for my password manager and a second for the disabled branded keyboard.
FuriouslyAdrift
13 hours ago
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.
grogenaut
8 hours ago
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.
Beijinger
13 hours ago
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.
southwindcg
12 hours ago
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.
EvanAnderson
12 hours ago
Yeah-- I was thinking that 8 years isn't even broken-in. My old Sears dryer was 27 when I had to replace a pulley and a thermal fuse. It ran just like it was new after that. I left it with that house but, hopefully, it's still running today.
userbinator
8 hours ago
Sears (Kenmore) appliances from that era are manufactured by Whirlpool in the US.
darkwater
12 hours ago
> 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)
mynameisash
11 hours ago
A few other advantages to induction:
1. Better air quality. You don't have combustion byproducts in the kitchen.
2. More efficient than both gas and conventional electric stoves.
3. Faster to heat than gas/conventional electric (due to the efficiency improvement)
4. Easier to clean (except for glass top stoves).
I've yet to own a full-on induction stove, but I do regularly use the 120V induction hot plates in my kitchen. In fact, I use them more than the gas stove that came with my house. I'm eagerly awaiting the day that I have a full induction stove.
SchemaLoad
6 hours ago
I've had the full permanent install induction stoves and the portable ones. The in counter ones are massively better. They have much larger heated areas so you don't get heat only in the middle of larger pans. They also have a much higher top power so you can boil water incredibly fast.
But even the portable ones are preferable to gas imo.
Beijinger
11 hours ago
Actually, I was (partly) right. In Germany, they run with 400 V, I just googled it.
Never heard of this. I though 360 with 3 phases.
jcynix
2 hours ago
In most of Europe (which runs a shared grid), not just Germany, it's 230V between any two of the three wires and 400V on each line:
> For example, in countries with nominal 230 V power, the line voltage is 400 V and the phase voltage is 230 V. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-phase_electric_power
In the counter integrated induction simply gets connected with all three phases, which are available in-house anyways.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Europe_Synchronous...
smallstepforman
12 hours ago
3 phase is 380V
margalabargala
12 hours ago
Three phase consumer induction stoves are approximately 0% of the consumer induction stove market.
wvh
an hour ago
My common model IKEA stove – rebranded Siemens or Electrolux – runs at ~400v (Northern Europe). I know because it broke and I almost poked at it, until I got spooked by the warning labels. It's on its own circuit. Not an expert but as far as I know, most houses in Western/Northern Europe have a three-prong stove/oven connection in the kitchen for a ~400v feed.
SchemaLoad
6 hours ago
I'm pretty sure most of them just use a higher amp circuit. A 40 amp circuit at 230v is 9kW which is more than enough. I've also seen one particularly high end stove which used a battery to cover the extra power needed for the highest setting. Also means you could use it in a power outage.
jcynix
2 hours ago
No, they simply get connected with all three phases, which are available in-house anyway, with a standard 16A circuit breaker on each. That's what installed in our house and that's what I've seen in various holiday homes.
com2kid
3 hours ago
I can easily use all the power my largest induction burner gives me on a 240v outlet. I really want one of those battery boost units for my next big purchase.
Honestly just browning 4 chicken thighs at once is too much for 240v. (My gas range couldn't do any better!)
buzer
11 hours ago
My understanding is that many of them can be wired as 1, 2 or 3 phase at least in Nordic countries, though admittedly the ones which allow 3 are somewhat rarer especially when looking at stove top-only models (not combined stove+oven).
margalabargala
6 hours ago
As far as I can tell, there are a single digit number of municipalities on the planet where two phase power is available. Do you have more details on that I can read? There's not a ton of.info on Wikipedia and I'm interested to know more.
jcynix
2 hours ago
Take a look at the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Europe_Synchronous... power grid. You have three lines of 230V between each pair, and you can connect appliances with either two or three of the lines, depending in their power needs.
joha4270
an hour ago
That link isn't really a source for residential 3-phase power.
Almost every electrical network is 3 phase distribution, the matter under debate is if you bring every phase to each house, or if a phase reaches every third house.
Anecdotally I have never seen an electrical panel without three phases, but when I went looking it was like trying to find a source for the fact the sky is blue.
buzer
4 hours ago
If you are asking about some stoves that can be installed that way, there is for example FÖRDELAKTIG from Ikea. The manual is at https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/manuals/foerdelaktig-induction-ho..., you can find the wiring options from page 13.
hexo
10 hours ago
Good we have one. What a nice 0% we are.
margalabargala
6 hours ago
Like I said, approximately.
They exist. But mostly they are not three phase.
stephen_g
12 hours ago
It’s 400V in most of the world actually, but residential induction stoves are basically always single phase as far as I have ever seen.
Nursie
8 hours ago
I have a three-phase 'smeg'.
We have that particular model because it was literally the only induction cooktop on the market that would fit the existing hole in our stone worktop.
Quite a lot of them can be wired either one, two or three-phase when you look into their installation instructions, it's just that not that many houses have three-phase power and not many people are willing to pay to get that upgraded just for the hob.
hexo
10 hours ago
nope. 3 phase is 400V
oh-4-fucks-sake
12 hours ago
Speed Queen for washing machines. Bosch for dishwashers.
sgarland
11 hours ago
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).
flyinghamster
9 hours ago
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...
Finnucane
6 hours ago
We’ve been pretty happy with the the Speed Queen set we bought a few years ago. No IoT crap.
FridayoLeary
13 hours ago
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.
wiredfool
12 hours ago
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.
mbajkowski
12 hours ago
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.
winrid
10 hours ago
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.
FloorEgg
12 hours ago
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.
noir_lord
15 hours ago
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.
Fwirt
15 hours ago
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.
Larrikin
14 hours ago
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.
noir_lord
14 hours ago
Yep, HDMI-CEC is pretty common these days, Samsung call it Anynet+ for..reasons I guess.
Fwirt
13 hours ago
Yes, but good luck finding a way to integrate CEC with Home Assistant, or anything else for that matter. Even modern GPUs don't support it. You usually have to buy a USB dongle that MITMs the connection for a disgusting amount of money. It looks like Raspberry Pis support it, but then you have an SBC and its power source dangling off of your TV just to run a single lightweight daemon that may not even fit your use case. CEC is not designed for total control, and on many TVs it's even a bit flaky. I had to disable it on mine because misbehaving devices would randomly turn the TV off and on when I didn't want it.
05
3 hours ago
ESPHome+HDMI breakout board. Just use a spare HDMI port to connect to your TV.
bobson381
15 hours ago
Linux box to Samsung TV here as well. It's awesome, best of both worlds. Stable Debian with Plasma DE in my case.
yjftsjthsd-h
14 hours ago
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
noir_lord
14 hours ago
I just run it as a desktop and boost scaling.
No one in my family has an issue with it, use a years and years old integrated wireless mouse/touchpad and happy days, everything works as you'd expect, you can use it as a regular PC (surprisingly handy sometimes) and I can adblock the crap out of everything/use unhook to decrappify YT.
I happened to have an "old" Thinkpad (T470P, 7700HQ w/ 32GB RAM and the nvidia GPU) I wasn't using so it's left on all the time, runs the TV and serves movies over HTTP for family to watch via VLC (VLC will happily "stream" over HTTP)
One of those easy to do things where I'll never go back :).
snackbroken
12 hours ago
With KDE Connect you can use your phone as a touchpad+keyboard. One less thing to get lost in the couch cushions ;)
noir_lord
11 hours ago
I’m forgetful but it’s quite hard to lose an entire keyboard with integrated touch pad down the cushions.
monkpit
13 hours ago
> 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.
JoshTriplett
13 hours ago
> 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".
Nextgrid
12 hours ago
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).
monkpit
12 hours ago
Hmm I thought I had read it on an article posted here at some point, I could be wrong.
Nextgrid
12 hours ago
I think it originated on Reddit and it's since been parroted here in the comments on basically every smart TV thread but I have yet to see actual evidence. It seems like a trivial theory to test - disconnect from your wifi or change its password, wait for ads to suddenly reappear on the TV (evidence it got a network connection from somewhere).
Similar FUD is being spread around HDMI's Ethernet channel; a way to carry network data over an HDMI cable. I have basically never seen it in the wild on any consumer device, but even if it were, it would still require the other device to cooperate and act as a switch/router to share its connection to the TV. Yet despite that every time smart TVs and privacy comes up someone mentions this.
Izkata
9 hours ago
Scroll up a bit, we at least have a first-person claim: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45741064
netsharc
13 hours ago
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."
teddyh
12 hours ago
Do not create the Torment Nexus.
lexszero_
12 hours ago
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.
lawlessone
11 hours ago
i would have thought "better the devil you know" here. The other manufacturers are probably doing similar shenanigans
maerF0x0
14 hours ago
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.
rpcope1
5 hours ago
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.
nomel
12 hours ago
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...
somat
10 hours ago
> 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.
kragen
11 hours ago
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?
kelnos
11 hours ago
> 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.
SchemaLoad
6 hours ago
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.
distances
4 hours ago
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.
darepublic
8 hours ago
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!
toomuchtodo
15 hours ago
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...
MiddleEndian
10 hours ago
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.
TylerE
11 hours ago
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.
grepfru_it
14 hours ago
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
dingaling
11 hours ago
GE's appliances business was sold to Haier of China in 2016
vel0city
10 hours ago
Some of the old US-based GE appliance factories and engineering offices are still operating though, but iirc fridges were the first to go straight overseas.
I think washing machines and dryers, maybe dishwashers, are still designed and manufactured in the US.
vel0city
13 hours ago
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.
electric_mayhem
13 hours ago
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)
winrid
10 hours ago
Their TVs and phones have terrible PWM and are bad for your eyes anyway.
SV_BubbleTime
6 hours ago
>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.
SchemaLoad
6 hours ago
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.
AlexandrB
7 hours ago
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.
csomar
10 hours ago
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)
stOneskull
9 hours ago
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.
thewebguyd
15 hours ago
> 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.
javier2
13 hours ago
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).
SilverElfin
15 hours ago
Their TVs still don’t support all the HDR formats right?
kstrauser
14 hours ago
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.
TylerE
11 hours ago
> 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.
Dylan16807
3 hours ago
Your approximation isn't really better than theirs.
It's true that you can't go below black, but SDR has extremely bad precision below 1 nit. HDR can accurately represent scenes at least 100x darker than SDR, in addition to bright spots at least 100x brighter. https://2.img-dpreview.com/files/p/TS940x940~forums/66687985...
kstrauser
10 hours ago
You're right about how HDR should work. I'm reporting how my Samsung TV does work. It's terrible, and clearly a bug. There are many, many forum posts about "samsung hdr dark", often with random advice about adjusting the gamma, etc., that sounds like it should work but only helps a little bit.
fwip
13 hours ago
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.
Nursie
7 hours ago
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.
zaptheimpaler
13 hours ago
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.
somedude895
13 hours ago
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.
kstrauser
12 hours ago
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.
JoshTriplett
13 hours ago
> 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.
spicybright
13 hours ago
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.
hamburglar
13 hours ago
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.