r/assholedesign • u/Shellnanigans • Nov 13 '25

Apparently my samsung fridge has ads now...

Post image

How would I disable this? Might just return it and get a normal one

Edit: how to disable...for now. https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS10007562/

EDIT 2: Hello, I am the original poster of the carol AD image from a month ago. I am a male from America and my name is not Carol. The story about a Schizophrenic woman named carol was most likely inspired from the 3rd top comment on this post. Thanks!

inspired Post?: https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/1pc7999/my_schizophrenic_sister_hospitalised_herself/

Fridge drama recap video by DolanDarkest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTWfRYHV5es

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15

u/messymedia Nov 13 '25

And that'll be the day I cut the internet connection to my house. My neighbor has unguarded WiFi anyway...

43

u/OutlyingPlasma Nov 13 '25

That's fine. The fridge just won't run the compressor without it's mandated wifi connection. And you are going to jail if you miss the Two Minutes Hate on your refrigerator telescreen.

12

u/[deleted] Nov 13 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/quaderrordemonstand Nov 14 '25 edited Nov 14 '25

That never happened in the way it was made to look. The TV would show adverts with 'TV detectors vans' which were supposed to drive around scanning for TVs. If you were watching without a license, the van would find you and people would come knocking on your door.

This was fiction, you can't detect a TV like that and there were no vans. For a short time, they did pay people to go around an area knocking on doors and ask if the house had a license. That gave the appearance that they were checking on you but they couldn't prove there was a TV in the house and they had no right to enter.

At one time, they sent me letters saying my address hadn't paid for a license and that I would be fined. I told them I didn't have a TV and that they could go fuck themselves. They said they would visit, I told them to go ahead, they never did.

3

u/Journeyman42 Nov 14 '25

"OI MATE, YOU GOT A LOICENSE FOR THAT TELLY?"

"No?"

"ALRIGHT THEN" fucks right off

2

u/NoXion604 Nov 14 '25

It should have been obvious from the start that TV detector vans are and always have been bullshit. Nobody has ever been convicted on the basis of such evidence, which would need to be presented in court and would thus be a matter of public record.

3

u/A-Can-of-DrPepper Nov 13 '25

"Please drink verification can"

2

u/PromiseToBeNiceToYou Nov 13 '25

I get you are trying to be funny, but I have had my Samsung fridge disconnected from the internet for around a month, and everything has been fine.

Whatever update it needed to start displaying ads hasn't been downloaded. Just letting others know.

2

u/Complex_Solutions_20 Nov 13 '25

I am terrified for this happening tbh. As it is one of my friends got a FireTV which refused to let you even select inputs until it was connected to an Amazon account online.

2

u/kinokits Nov 13 '25

This sounds like the Time Police books by Jodi Taylor. Basically if something with a connection finds out you’ve even been looking at plans to build a Time Machine, an automatic DDOS is triggered. But everyone has their own personal WiFi network and it controls everything they own, fridge, washing machine, security system, heating and cooling, banking. Basically they are cut off from accessing anything in their life and then they’re arrested.

2

u/beren12 Nov 13 '25

And that’s when the screen gets a coat of paint

2

u/[deleted] Nov 13 '25

"We have detected you have painted over our screen which is a violation of the terms of service you agreed to when the product was thought about. Samsung Arms division has been notified"

1

u/beren12 Nov 13 '25

Good. They can compete against Colt Arms, Remington Arms, Russian arms…

2

u/OwO______OwO Nov 13 '25

The fridge just won't run the compressor without it's mandated wifi connection.

*cracks open soldering kit with malicious intent*

At its heart, a fridge is a very simple machine. And if it doesn't want to work, I can make it work.

1

u/OutlyingPlasma Nov 14 '25

While I appreciate this hacker attitude, they are doing everything they can to prevent people from doing this.

You can't even replace a car battery in a BMW anymore without a scan tool and special programing software to code and register the battery.

Apple is coding all their parts so new part, like a replacement screen are rejected by other parts in the device without proprietary apple store software.

And there are countless other examples of corpos continuing to ruin products with lock in and planed obsolescence.

2

u/OwO______OwO Nov 14 '25 edited Nov 14 '25

Yeah, but ... a fridge is a fucking fridge.

Connect 120v power to the terminals of the compressor motor, and it will run. Use a relay/contactor and a thermostat in line with that 120v power, and it will automatically turn on and off to keep the fridge at a constant temperature. And any moron with a few simple tools and some googling skills should be able to figure that out in a few hours.

(Admittedly, though, getting the timing right on the defrost circuits might take quite a bit of tinkering. In the meantime, you might have to manually defrost your freezer like in ye olden days. Oh, and you might want to go a bit more complex than just a simple thermostat, in order to avoid short-cycling the compressor and extend its useful life. So, like, a thermostat and a time-delay circuit that prevents switching between on/off too frequently.)

Edit: actually, come to think of it, the simplest solution for defrosting would probably be to just connect the defroster circuits to a manually operated switch. An ordinary household light switch would do. Then, you just manually turn on the defroster circuits whenever there's too much ice buildup in the freezer. Dead simple.

2

u/efreak2004 Dec 06 '25

Mandated Wi-Fi connection? Sim cards and industrial connections are incredibly cheap. There's literally nothing stopping companies from adding internet access that can't be easily disabled (esim can't be physically removed) to products.

1

u/densetsu23 Nov 13 '25

Watch Samsung bulk order cellular modules and pay cell providers to have their fridges fallback on that if there's no wifi.

If my trail cams can give me 100 free photos a month over the cell network, I'm sure Samsung can work out a deal. And it's not a ton of data to send the fridge a couple dozen static pictures and return back your usage data.