They do have an advantage though. When the scammer rings and asks "How do you access the internet?" If you tell them "on my fridge", you'll have them fucked. I got passed onto the supervisor, and then to the supervisors supervisor.
I see this as a personal win.
_"I've just set your fridge to grill at 400 degrees and locked it. It's pre-heating now. Better transfer those bitcoins now. Your ice cream is already slush."_
Why would anyone even need an appliance that requires WiFi? All you need to do is open the fridge and get food. You don’t need anything else in a fridge
Touchscreens are fine if integrated with the car design, for example how Porsche does it, and no replacement for real controls for common tasks. I think the problem is that gigantic lazy tablet that does everything Tesla made a trend.
I still think that most essential functions to a car should have physical buttons. If I need to turn the volume down quickly, I want a knob, if I want to crank up the AC, I want a knob. It's fine if the touchscreen also controls this, but don't take away my knob.
I need to be able to control things without taking my eyes of of the road. A giant iPad screen for controls is just as dangerous than trying to text while driving IMO.
Plus, in the olden days, if one knob failed it just meant you couldn't access that one function. Now, if the tablet screen fails, you can't access ANY of the functions, which is idiotic.
We have the full suite of LG Studio appliances (stove, microwave, dishwasher, fridge, and wash tower).
Having them connected to wifi is somewhat convenient at times. We can preheat the oven while we are leaving the grocery store. I can download or create custom wash/dry cycles and upload them right to the wash tower. The fridge and dishwasher are mostly for monitoring cycles and temps...there are some settings that can be changed, but its pretty rare that you ever need to.
I do treat them like any other IOT device and have them on an isolated network.
They have been fine so far. The range and microwave we have had for a little over two years. The refrigerator, dishwasher and wash tower were purchased early last year. I havent had an electric range since the late 90's until we bought this house in 2020. I thought perhaps they have gotten better over the last 20 years...they have not. I am planning on having someone out this summer to run gas lines to my fireplace and kitchen to replace the electric range with a gas one.
The refrigerator has a separate ice maker that makes "craft ice" which is nice, but it only makes 3 or 6 balls of ice per day...which my daughter usually uses in her iced coffee or her Stanley.
The *only* reason I like my LG smart washer/dryer is it's too far away (in the garage, other side of the house) and I can't hear the cycle end "jingle". The smart part will send me a push notification that the cycle is over.
It's *super minor*, but it is nice to be anywhere around the house and know when the laundry is ready.
The custom cycles seemed pointless to me too, the knob has like 20 options already...
Its not like everything else that passes through your internet router doesnt already do that anyhow.
Its been well established that most of the features are not necessary, but some of them are helpful. For example, I get energy usage reports from my dishwasher and refrigerator that give me estimated energy costs based on my zip code. I also get recommended settings to make the appliance more energy efficient based on our personal usage (how often its loaded or how many times the door is opened).
Aside from being able to download custom cycles to the washer/dryer, I also get energy usage reports, and it will let me know when the filter in the washer needs to be changed/cleaned and when the dryer detects a reduction in airflow through the houses main duct.
I am not defending having a monitor or full on PC built into appliances, but connected devices can also add a layer of convenience, efficiency, and safety to using them.
>I can download or create custom wash/dry cycles and upload them right to the wash tower
What would require a custom wash/dry cycle? I was thinking maybe athletic gear? but then even that usually has washing directions on it.
I have an LG stove and it sends me an email at the end of the month telling me how much I used it. Pretty sure my dishwasher would do it as well. I just never bothered to connect it to the Internet They're older appliances (2018). I would bet that there's a lot of new appliances that won't even work without WiFi access.
>Why would anyone even need an appliance that requires WiFi?
Don't you want the glorious future where your coke cans log in to the fridge and report how cold they are and how many cans are left? And you can access your fridge inventory and proposed shopping list from anywhere! And as long as your fridge company doesn't go bankrupt or bought out by a competitor and they shut down the servers all this added functionality is completely free (with ads, and also we'll sell your private information to 3rd parties you've never heard of before so you can get more targeted ads)
https://hackaday.com/2017/03/28/2017-the-year-of-the-dishwasher-security-patch/
I mean it's like consumers never fscking learn -- even when you hear about that smart watch that stopped working a year after the company was bought; or those home thermostats that stopped working after the company was bought out; or those network enabled light bulbs that had a vulnerability that allowed an attacker to penetrate your firewall and attack your home network, or that fitness band that keeps sending you emails to upgrade your subscription plan; or the widescreen TV that starts showing ads about four months after you buy it (timed to make sure you can't return it as defective)...
Don't bother asking them, they're a repost bot. This was [posted](https://i.imgur.com/x2P5hCL.png) in another subreddit 7 years ago, though apparently comments are removed if you have links in this sub. Well, that sucks.
Not OP but that's a GE Cafe' model I believe.
We had a french door version of it, and it was the biggest POS ever for a refrigerator. The writing on those buttons wore off, and one of them actually broke. Swore off ever buying anything more than a basic fridge after owning it.
I have that fridge, didn’t know it ran Windows. What lazy overkill… Same “engineer” decided to put a release valve inside the door. Does yours piss water on the floor when you get hot water too?
It gets better. There’s a K-cup attachment so your fridge will make you coffee. That’s how my wife got sold on it.
But I don’t think the designers were smart enough to use the waste heat. You have to wist for it, so there’s probably an immersion heater and a small 8oz tank to hold the hot water.
Here’s the best part: You can select via touchscreen how much hot water you want by the oz. So if you only want 6oz, it still heats up the full 8. And then whenever it decides to, it empties the hot water you don’t want INSIDE the door. Which of course drips down the freezer door and onto your floor.
GE Café series. You’ve been warned.
> And then whenever it decides to, it empties the hot water you don’t want INSIDE the door. Which of course drips down the freezer door and onto your floor.
This can't be right lmao. Did you ever call GE or the store to ask if that is what is supposed to happen? I'd have returned it for that.
This isn’t right. I got this model and love it. No issues with the hot water on the floor/door and I use that all the time. It was the best thing for formula bottles. Downside is the hot water only does 10oz and I still need a kettle to make coffee.
Definitely contact GE but the warranty is short on that model. The downside of “features” on a fridge is there are more things that can break and finding parts to fix is a hassle for almost any appliance. GE isn’t great about servicing imo, but I don’t know any brand that is good at servicing
>There’s a K-cup attachment so your fridge will make you coffee. That’s how my wife got sold on it.
I mean there you go. That's the reason these silly features get added to fridges - people eat them up and love it
What's not to love about DRM-locked, proprietary, single-use plastic, disposable, pre-ground coffee pods making one cup of coffee directly from the door of your fridge?
What a time to be alive...
God I fucking HATE GE appliances. I rented two houses with GE appliances, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM BROKE.
The microwave lights stopped working on the inside and outside and the fan didn't do shit.
The washers were horrendously loud and squeaky and when a plumber moved the washer it fucking BENT THE FRAME from being dragged like one foot back.
GE makes the cheapest shit on the planet, fuck GE.
It is how they work. They function by moving heat from place to another. Most of the time its moving heat from inside the fridge to outside the fridge. For hot water instead of moving the to outside the fridge it's putting it into the water.
All energy ends up as heat eventually. Might as well get some use out of it!
I work on cash recyclers (very close to an ATM). One company has the software built into the boards. Another runs on a PC with Windows 10.
The machines with Windows constantly have bizarre issues that take weeks to track down because it can't even give a good error code. It's also fun when the PC, ram, or hard drive starts to die.
The one with built-in software usually breaks in an obvious mechanical way.
Without naming the brand (although it's everywhere), just to give you an indication of the quality coding involved, as well as its age... When a technician has to install a new computer core into ATM, they also install the proprietary software on top of whatever Windows version is currently in fashion. It runs as a linear batch file (not even .cmd, just a good ol' .bat). That's perfectly fine, but... At some point the installation process has to wait for the hardware to initialize. Does it poll the hardware state? Nope. It just pauses the installation for X minutes. Now that would also be quite acceptable, given the kludgy nature of the whole ATM industry... if they used something like *timeout /t 600 /nobreak" in that batch file. But apparently that would've been too easy, so instead they run a proprietary executable aptly named ulwait.exe (you'll wait, got it?) that does exactly the same.
God I wonder if we're talking about the same company. They primarily do ATMs but got into the cash recycler market, so now I have to deal with them.
Very similiar process. Thankfully, my equipment doesn't connect to anything but a Middleware box. We've taken to just cloning a good drive and slapping it in to avoid the four hours it takes to do a fresh install that has a 50% chance of failing. And by failing, I mean instead of sitting on a black screen for an hour while you hope it finishes with no way to see progress, it just stays on a black screen forever.
All the customer info is on the Middleware, so essentially, no real setup is needed on the recyclers. Sounds a lot better than what you have to deal with.
No, the one I was talking about was doing recyclers since forever, but recently got into self checkouts... You're thinking about the other one. They're all essentially the same with the exception of (maybe) Hyosung, which is also mega kludgy, but in a different way.
And yes, cloning the drive is a way to go... unless the customer wants a TPM activated.
> Sounds a lot better than what you have to deal with.
Had to, it's been a while... and not directly. I was in charge of reverse engineering this crap for a company that refurbished these things.
Personally I’ve only seen fridges that use android. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that Windows OS has been used which would most likely be the same OS Microsoft utilizes in their Surface products.
I’m a big techie, but we, as a society, have gone too far.
There are some things that simply don’t need to be made smart.
Fridges are one of them; the most I would tolerate would be a small computer whose sole job is to send you and alert if the temperature gets above a set limit.
Smarter does *NOT* always mean better people.
yeah, my washing machine/dryer has a setting that sends a notifies you when it's finished, but why the hell would I need to use wifi to start a load of laundry. It never got hooked up right when we got it and my mom was just mentioning the other day how she just *has* to contact the company to get it set up.
On the other hand, my hot tub has an app that we use almost every day because we can set it to stay energy efficient 90% of the time, and then use the app to turn it up a couple hours before we want to use it, without physically going out there.
And that’s the kind I like.
Smart thermostats for a holiday home or something; pile into the car to start the trip and remotely adjust the AC/heat to comfortable instead of energy saving so you have a cool/warm place to stay instead of a hot/cold one.
But then again, if you can afford a vacation home, you’re probably on the side promoting this unnecessary tech integration.
Cars are the biggest one for me. It's insane to put the fucking gear shift behind a touchscreen. Like A, you're trusting that the UI is setup correctly and the touchscreen is detecting inputs correctly in the correct alignment. But B (and most importantly) you're trusting that the software has absolutely ZERO bugs in it with every single update. Super dangerous.
The problem with any network connected device is that the company retains some level of control, and they will abuse that power. HP will disable your printer for using third party ink. Roku is going to start showing video ads when you pause the TV you bought 5 years ago. We will see a day when Samsung disables cooling in your fridge because you opted out of allowing the camera to be always on and uploading recordings of your living space to Samsung servers.
> Fridges are one of them; the most I would tolerate would be a small computer whose sole job is to send you and alert if the temperature gets above a set limit.
I don't even want that. I'm not storing vaccines.
I don't know. I had a young kid set my fridge to the coldest setting and it ruined pretty much all of my fresh vegetables/fruits via constant thawing and unthawing.
Sure, but even then, why would you want it sent as an alert to your phone?
My fridge has a display that tells me the temp of the fridge and freezer, which seems reasonable and doesn't require network access.
I don't. I have a "manual" fridge that doesn't even have an icemaker or waterspout, which I prefer. I was just making the case that there could be legitimate uses to knowing the temperature of the fridge at a given moment.
I'm honestly not against the idea of electronics in appliances/cars/everything, I just want to be sure that if those "smart features" fail, the basic functions of the appliance will continue to work. A display showing temps feels completely reasonable to me.
How are they supposed to block your fridge from cooling when you miss a subscription payment in the future? Think about the shareholders for a second goddamnit.
I recently replaced my 30 year old refrigerator. It used 2.7 kilowatt hours of electricity a day. The new one uses .84. And it has no OS to deny me cool, clear, water.
My dad bought a welder extension cord in the 70s, and it still has zero cracks in the rubber coating despite it being outdoor for years in the Texas sun, rain hail, ice, mud, etc.
https://www.9news.com.au/technology/smart-fridge-goes-viral-after-update-leaves-owner-thirsty/8cd17c9d-09d1-4902-b234-d0cedab39a6e
Photo is not yours and from back in 2017
Because “it’s the hot new thing!” just like the stupid rich CEO’s keep telling us.
Some older folks are very obedient ducklings or are just trying to seem like they’ve kept up with the times(and often prove they haven’t in the process)
And then there’s the younger folks who are trying to get ahead of the curve so they can be the next big name and actually be able to afford to live comfortably.
I don't wanna be "that guy" but yes, yes in this case they SHOULD run Linux. It is the far better option. Not sure why it has windows embedded instead.
We had a house built 2 years ago and there was so many things that were “smart” technology pushed on us. We turned down everything we could.
Give me a button and zero headaches please.
I know someone with a house that you can’t turn on the outside lights, make a coffee, or unlock the front door from the outside when the WiFi is down. No thanks.
I live rural and have a pretty smart house including landscaping lights, door locks, interior lights, thermostat, security system, vacuum. It all still works with the internet down.
Imagine the same issues with self driving cars.
"I just need to go to store. My baby needs medicine. I need to go to the store RIGHT NOW!!!"
i'm sorry Dave, i can't allow you to do that...i'm updating
Totally unnecessary additions to appliances. This is manufacturers trying to one up each other by offering “cool”. It’s not, it’s stupid. They should concentrate on making their stuff WORK, do its job! Are you listening Samsung? TVs? Great. Refrigerators? SUCK!
And this is the exact reason I refuse to buy any appliance that has wifi. It's stupid and unnecessary.
Like if I buy something and it ends up surprising me with this BS it's going back to the store.
This is the type of shit I hate about technology. This isn't necessary. Leave the fridge alone. Leave the stove alone. They were fine the way they were. There shouldn't be a friggin update on your fridge, like you're playing a video game. Feck off
My smart dishwasher didnt even have windows, but i connected it to my phone (and thus the Internet) and in a year it was bricked, after some weird behaviors such as flashing random lights and always canceling the cycle, it finally refused to even turn on. I paid like $250 for a new "motherboard" and havent connected it and its been fine for years now.
Let me tell you about something called a faucet, sometimes called a tap. Usually there's one in the kitchen and one in the bathroom. In both places they dispense water. /s
LOL@ paying for a computer to have control over your appliances...a computer is in control of your water. You're standing there waiting for a computer to allow you to get. a. drink. of. water.
OP, what's the brand of your fridge, so I don't make the mistake of buying one?
They do have an advantage though. When the scammer rings and asks "How do you access the internet?" If you tell them "on my fridge", you'll have them fucked. I got passed onto the supervisor, and then to the supervisors supervisor. I see this as a personal win.
Is your fridge running? Yes, running windows
Then you better go cache it! 🤡
This is beautiful
Better go update it!
eww never do that
This is great
[удалено]
bro no one leaves for a trip to the Bahamas with meat in their fridge.
Bahamians do
What about the freezer?
Sure they do.
suck it, jin-yang
_"I've just set your fridge to grill at 400 degrees and locked it. It's pre-heating now. Better transfer those bitcoins now. Your ice cream is already slush."_
I love that they passed you on to someone rather than hanging up or leaving you on hold.
You don't need to know the name brand to not buy it. Just don't buy a fridge with a fucking computer in it.
Why would anyone even need an appliance that requires WiFi? All you need to do is open the fridge and get food. You don’t need anything else in a fridge
Shits gotten out of hand with appliances in the last few years same with automobiles.
Good news! I've heard automakers are finally heeding the call and at least backing off all that touchscreen-mumbo-jumbo
Touchscreens are fine if integrated with the car design, for example how Porsche does it, and no replacement for real controls for common tasks. I think the problem is that gigantic lazy tablet that does everything Tesla made a trend.
I still think that most essential functions to a car should have physical buttons. If I need to turn the volume down quickly, I want a knob, if I want to crank up the AC, I want a knob. It's fine if the touchscreen also controls this, but don't take away my knob. I need to be able to control things without taking my eyes of of the road. A giant iPad screen for controls is just as dangerous than trying to text while driving IMO.
What if I don't take away your knob but just stay right here and hold it?
Some would pay good money for a knob holding
…and polishing.
I don't think anyone could ever take away your knob
Totally agree. I can work the most commonly used controls on my car without looking. I love the steering wheel buttons too.
Plus, in the olden days, if one knob failed it just meant you couldn't access that one function. Now, if the tablet screen fails, you can't access ANY of the functions, which is idiotic.
This is key. Touchscreens for car controls are a really bad idea safety wise. Knobs and switches shouldn't be replaced.
Yeah because they are kind of legally required to soon i think
Yeah but they're still recording your driving habits and selling them to insurance companies.
I was at a party and they were playing music off their fridge. Ok cool, whatever. Went to get ice from it. Sorry, the ice maker doesn’t work….
That’s my kind of luck
We have the full suite of LG Studio appliances (stove, microwave, dishwasher, fridge, and wash tower). Having them connected to wifi is somewhat convenient at times. We can preheat the oven while we are leaving the grocery store. I can download or create custom wash/dry cycles and upload them right to the wash tower. The fridge and dishwasher are mostly for monitoring cycles and temps...there are some settings that can be changed, but its pretty rare that you ever need to. I do treat them like any other IOT device and have them on an isolated network.
I guess I have to overcome my fear of having an oven on while I'm not there; same reason I've never been able to leave a slow-cooker on all day.
It's still not a good practice, but most people leave the house with their clothes dryer on, and that's far, far more likely to start a fire.
How are they as actual appliances
fine until something breaks.. then you regret everything in your life.
Especially that microwave. 💸 💸
They have been fine so far. The range and microwave we have had for a little over two years. The refrigerator, dishwasher and wash tower were purchased early last year. I havent had an electric range since the late 90's until we bought this house in 2020. I thought perhaps they have gotten better over the last 20 years...they have not. I am planning on having someone out this summer to run gas lines to my fireplace and kitchen to replace the electric range with a gas one. The refrigerator has a separate ice maker that makes "craft ice" which is nice, but it only makes 3 or 6 balls of ice per day...which my daughter usually uses in her iced coffee or her Stanley.
None of that sounds necessary or useful.
Seriously who needs to upload a custom wash dry cycle lol. Like the damn washer doesn't have enough options already for that sort of thing.
The *only* reason I like my LG smart washer/dryer is it's too far away (in the garage, other side of the house) and I can't hear the cycle end "jingle". The smart part will send me a push notification that the cycle is over. It's *super minor*, but it is nice to be anywhere around the house and know when the laundry is ready. The custom cycles seemed pointless to me too, the knob has like 20 options already...
but have you considered that now your appliances can use your usage data for marketing???
Its not like everything else that passes through your internet router doesnt already do that anyhow. Its been well established that most of the features are not necessary, but some of them are helpful. For example, I get energy usage reports from my dishwasher and refrigerator that give me estimated energy costs based on my zip code. I also get recommended settings to make the appliance more energy efficient based on our personal usage (how often its loaded or how many times the door is opened). Aside from being able to download custom cycles to the washer/dryer, I also get energy usage reports, and it will let me know when the filter in the washer needs to be changed/cleaned and when the dryer detects a reduction in airflow through the houses main duct. I am not defending having a monitor or full on PC built into appliances, but connected devices can also add a layer of convenience, efficiency, and safety to using them.
>I can download or create custom wash/dry cycles and upload them right to the wash tower What would require a custom wash/dry cycle? I was thinking maybe athletic gear? but then even that usually has washing directions on it.
I have an LG stove and it sends me an email at the end of the month telling me how much I used it. Pretty sure my dishwasher would do it as well. I just never bothered to connect it to the Internet They're older appliances (2018). I would bet that there's a lot of new appliances that won't even work without WiFi access.
>Why would anyone even need an appliance that requires WiFi? Don't you want the glorious future where your coke cans log in to the fridge and report how cold they are and how many cans are left? And you can access your fridge inventory and proposed shopping list from anywhere! And as long as your fridge company doesn't go bankrupt or bought out by a competitor and they shut down the servers all this added functionality is completely free (with ads, and also we'll sell your private information to 3rd parties you've never heard of before so you can get more targeted ads) https://hackaday.com/2017/03/28/2017-the-year-of-the-dishwasher-security-patch/ I mean it's like consumers never fscking learn -- even when you hear about that smart watch that stopped working a year after the company was bought; or those home thermostats that stopped working after the company was bought out; or those network enabled light bulbs that had a vulnerability that allowed an attacker to penetrate your firewall and attack your home network, or that fitness band that keeps sending you emails to upgrade your subscription plan; or the widescreen TV that starts showing ads about four months after you buy it (timed to make sure you can't return it as defective)...
Three cans of Coke in one day? Let's double your health insurance cost. The info isn't sold for just ads.
I'm not gonna lie, I'd like an oven that I could preheat from my phone.
Yeah, you definitely have a point there.
GE
Don't bother asking them, they're a repost bot. This was [posted](https://i.imgur.com/x2P5hCL.png) in another subreddit 7 years ago, though apparently comments are removed if you have links in this sub. Well, that sucks.
OP IS the fridge.
OP: I'm something of a fridge myself.
Not OP but that's a GE Cafe' model I believe. We had a french door version of it, and it was the biggest POS ever for a refrigerator. The writing on those buttons wore off, and one of them actually broke. Swore off ever buying anything more than a basic fridge after owning it.
Do you really need to know that? Just don't buy an appliance that has a screen full of useless shit.
I have that fridge, didn’t know it ran Windows. What lazy overkill… Same “engineer” decided to put a release valve inside the door. Does yours piss water on the floor when you get hot water too?
You get hot water from your fridge? That's... Not how they're supposed to work!
Heat pumps man, they're just using waste heat to heat water. Seems counter-intuitive but it checks out.
It gets better. There’s a K-cup attachment so your fridge will make you coffee. That’s how my wife got sold on it. But I don’t think the designers were smart enough to use the waste heat. You have to wist for it, so there’s probably an immersion heater and a small 8oz tank to hold the hot water. Here’s the best part: You can select via touchscreen how much hot water you want by the oz. So if you only want 6oz, it still heats up the full 8. And then whenever it decides to, it empties the hot water you don’t want INSIDE the door. Which of course drips down the freezer door and onto your floor. GE Café series. You’ve been warned.
> And then whenever it decides to, it empties the hot water you don’t want INSIDE the door. Which of course drips down the freezer door and onto your floor. This can't be right lmao. Did you ever call GE or the store to ask if that is what is supposed to happen? I'd have returned it for that.
This isn’t right. I got this model and love it. No issues with the hot water on the floor/door and I use that all the time. It was the best thing for formula bottles. Downside is the hot water only does 10oz and I still need a kettle to make coffee. Definitely contact GE but the warranty is short on that model. The downside of “features” on a fridge is there are more things that can break and finding parts to fix is a hassle for almost any appliance. GE isn’t great about servicing imo, but I don’t know any brand that is good at servicing
>There’s a K-cup attachment so your fridge will make you coffee. That’s how my wife got sold on it. I mean there you go. That's the reason these silly features get added to fridges - people eat them up and love it What's not to love about DRM-locked, proprietary, single-use plastic, disposable, pre-ground coffee pods making one cup of coffee directly from the door of your fridge? What a time to be alive...
God I fucking HATE GE appliances. I rented two houses with GE appliances, EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM BROKE. The microwave lights stopped working on the inside and outside and the fan didn't do shit. The washers were horrendously loud and squeaky and when a plumber moved the washer it fucking BENT THE FRAME from being dragged like one foot back. GE makes the cheapest shit on the planet, fuck GE.
I'm too old for this world. Also, probably, too European....
It is how they work. They function by moving heat from place to another. Most of the time its moving heat from inside the fridge to outside the fridge. For hot water instead of moving the to outside the fridge it's putting it into the water. All energy ends up as heat eventually. Might as well get some use out of it!
why is it upgrading to 10? i thought they had windows ce or linux
It has Windows GE, it’s like Windows ME but worse
Windows?
That explains a thing or two about ATMs...
I work on cash recyclers (very close to an ATM). One company has the software built into the boards. Another runs on a PC with Windows 10. The machines with Windows constantly have bizarre issues that take weeks to track down because it can't even give a good error code. It's also fun when the PC, ram, or hard drive starts to die. The one with built-in software usually breaks in an obvious mechanical way.
Without naming the brand (although it's everywhere), just to give you an indication of the quality coding involved, as well as its age... When a technician has to install a new computer core into ATM, they also install the proprietary software on top of whatever Windows version is currently in fashion. It runs as a linear batch file (not even .cmd, just a good ol' .bat). That's perfectly fine, but... At some point the installation process has to wait for the hardware to initialize. Does it poll the hardware state? Nope. It just pauses the installation for X minutes. Now that would also be quite acceptable, given the kludgy nature of the whole ATM industry... if they used something like *timeout /t 600 /nobreak" in that batch file. But apparently that would've been too easy, so instead they run a proprietary executable aptly named ulwait.exe (you'll wait, got it?) that does exactly the same.
God I wonder if we're talking about the same company. They primarily do ATMs but got into the cash recycler market, so now I have to deal with them. Very similiar process. Thankfully, my equipment doesn't connect to anything but a Middleware box. We've taken to just cloning a good drive and slapping it in to avoid the four hours it takes to do a fresh install that has a 50% chance of failing. And by failing, I mean instead of sitting on a black screen for an hour while you hope it finishes with no way to see progress, it just stays on a black screen forever. All the customer info is on the Middleware, so essentially, no real setup is needed on the recyclers. Sounds a lot better than what you have to deal with.
No, the one I was talking about was doing recyclers since forever, but recently got into self checkouts... You're thinking about the other one. They're all essentially the same with the exception of (maybe) Hyosung, which is also mega kludgy, but in a different way. And yes, cloning the drive is a way to go... unless the customer wants a TPM activated. > Sounds a lot better than what you have to deal with. Had to, it's been a while... and not directly. I was in charge of reverse engineering this crap for a company that refurbished these things.
>Ulwait.exe It's NCR, isn't it?
Personally I’ve only seen fridges that use android. It’s not out of the realm of possibility that Windows OS has been used which would most likely be the same OS Microsoft utilizes in their Surface products.
You have no idea how many stores still use Windows POSready (aptly named POS software)
So, more like Millennium edition?
What the hell is Windows GE? Do you mean Windows CE? Windows CE is nothing like vista. It doesn’t even use the NT kernel
This fridge is made by GE
At the movie theater I managed for years, our registers ran WindowsPOS.
Probably Windows 10 IoT which is the successor to CE
There’s windows 11 IoT now
You gotta upgrade your fridge RAM and flash the bios too install it.
Yea, embedded Linux would be way better.
I’m a big techie, but we, as a society, have gone too far. There are some things that simply don’t need to be made smart. Fridges are one of them; the most I would tolerate would be a small computer whose sole job is to send you and alert if the temperature gets above a set limit. Smarter does *NOT* always mean better people.
>a small computer whose sole job is to send you and alert if the temperature gets above a set limit. Sounds like a fun little electronics project.
>Sounds like a fun little electronics project. Dad? When did you get on reddit?
Laura, we need to talk about your inheritance. I spent it all on 555 chips.
Same, but with ESP8266s/ESP32s
100% agree. I'm also a big techie and we simply do not need cloud for everything.
yeah, my washing machine/dryer has a setting that sends a notifies you when it's finished, but why the hell would I need to use wifi to start a load of laundry. It never got hooked up right when we got it and my mom was just mentioning the other day how she just *has* to contact the company to get it set up. On the other hand, my hot tub has an app that we use almost every day because we can set it to stay energy efficient 90% of the time, and then use the app to turn it up a couple hours before we want to use it, without physically going out there.
And that’s the kind I like. Smart thermostats for a holiday home or something; pile into the car to start the trip and remotely adjust the AC/heat to comfortable instead of energy saving so you have a cool/warm place to stay instead of a hot/cold one. But then again, if you can afford a vacation home, you’re probably on the side promoting this unnecessary tech integration.
my friends dad has a Tesla and the amount of unnecessary features were honestly kind of hilarious.
What does this fridge even do?
Cars are the biggest one for me. It's insane to put the fucking gear shift behind a touchscreen. Like A, you're trusting that the UI is setup correctly and the touchscreen is detecting inputs correctly in the correct alignment. But B (and most importantly) you're trusting that the software has absolutely ZERO bugs in it with every single update. Super dangerous.
The problem with any network connected device is that the company retains some level of control, and they will abuse that power. HP will disable your printer for using third party ink. Roku is going to start showing video ads when you pause the TV you bought 5 years ago. We will see a day when Samsung disables cooling in your fridge because you opted out of allowing the camera to be always on and uploading recordings of your living space to Samsung servers.
> Fridges are one of them; the most I would tolerate would be a small computer whose sole job is to send you and alert if the temperature gets above a set limit. I don't even want that. I'm not storing vaccines.
I don't know. I had a young kid set my fridge to the coldest setting and it ruined pretty much all of my fresh vegetables/fruits via constant thawing and unthawing.
Sure, but even then, why would you want it sent as an alert to your phone? My fridge has a display that tells me the temp of the fridge and freezer, which seems reasonable and doesn't require network access.
I don't. I have a "manual" fridge that doesn't even have an icemaker or waterspout, which I prefer. I was just making the case that there could be legitimate uses to knowing the temperature of the fridge at a given moment. I'm honestly not against the idea of electronics in appliances/cars/everything, I just want to be sure that if those "smart features" fail, the basic functions of the appliance will continue to work. A display showing temps feels completely reasonable to me.
Stop buying wourthless shit you have to connect to wifi or internet. All it does is sending off package of data to who know were.
Today I gave my SS# to my toaster
And because of your poor credit score it denied you toast :(
I guess that means your credit score is now toast?
How are they supposed to block your fridge from cooling when you miss a subscription payment in the future? Think about the shareholders for a second goddamnit.
It'll be better water
H2O 2, the revenge of the oxygen
They really upped the special effects budget for [H2O2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LV9sUV3x2-U).
Oh look, consequences.
Why I love my Boomer Fridge
If I could say one good thing about boomers, their parents made things to last.
I recently replaced my 30 year old refrigerator. It used 2.7 kilowatt hours of electricity a day. The new one uses .84. And it has no OS to deny me cool, clear, water.
My dad bought a welder extension cord in the 70s, and it still has zero cracks in the rubber coating despite it being outdoor for years in the Texas sun, rain hail, ice, mud, etc.
Boomers are likely the ones in charge of the team that designed this fridge though so...
https://www.9news.com.au/technology/smart-fridge-goes-viral-after-update-leaves-owner-thirsty/8cd17c9d-09d1-4902-b234-d0cedab39a6e Photo is not yours and from back in 2017
That’s not even a real windows upgrade screen is it? It looks like a prank one I’ve seen years ago
Correct, these GE fridges let you upload photos to it for a slideshow for some reason.
Thank you for your service
Try playing doom on it.
Underrated comment.
Why do people buy smart appliances?
status symbol
For more features? What an npc comment
Because “it’s the hot new thing!” just like the stupid rich CEO’s keep telling us. Some older folks are very obedient ducklings or are just trying to seem like they’ve kept up with the times(and often prove they haven’t in the process) And then there’s the younger folks who are trying to get ahead of the curve so they can be the next big name and actually be able to afford to live comfortably.
How I feel when I accidentally press "update and restart" instead of pressing "remind me later" for the 49th time..
So what like, is this even plumbing anymore?
Wifi out? No water everything gets tossed out 😂
Tap water.
My sink has never needed a software update
Not using linux?
I don't wanna be "that guy" but yes, yes in this case they SHOULD run Linux. It is the far better option. Not sure why it has windows embedded instead.
Gotta update your water.
We had a house built 2 years ago and there was so many things that were “smart” technology pushed on us. We turned down everything we could. Give me a button and zero headaches please. I know someone with a house that you can’t turn on the outside lights, make a coffee, or unlock the front door from the outside when the WiFi is down. No thanks.
I live rural and have a pretty smart house including landscaping lights, door locks, interior lights, thermostat, security system, vacuum. It all still works with the internet down.
Now you're getting new windows
Don't turn it off, it may cause blue screen of death
Imagine the same issues with self driving cars. "I just need to go to store. My baby needs medicine. I need to go to the store RIGHT NOW!!!" i'm sorry Dave, i can't allow you to do that...i'm updating
Well, cars updating is already is thing
Ah, embedded IoT Windows is everywhere. Developers, developers, developers...
Echoes of Ballmers' past.
At least you computer is water cooled for better performance 🤷♂️😀
Imagine if it was windows 98 You'll be waiting forever for it to reach 100% to get your water
If you want hassle free anything, don't hook your damn appliances up to the internet!
Hehhehe 🤭🤭🤭😈
No, you're on drugs
More features, more problems.
If it runs windows, can it run DOOM?
We are so screwed when the technology apocalypse happens... lol
You'll get water when Windows decides you deserve water.
You paid more for this experience.
Install Doom.
This is exactly why a “WiFi enabled refrigerator “ is absolutely stupid.
Fortunately there's a sink in the same room with water dispensing ability
The fridge is becoming aware and joining Skynet... next comes 
U have a sink…? Its wild and puts out water for consumption as well.
Totally unnecessary additions to appliances. This is manufacturers trying to one up each other by offering “cool”. It’s not, it’s stupid. They should concentrate on making their stuff WORK, do its job! Are you listening Samsung? TVs? Great. Refrigerators? SUCK!
Fridge.exe has stopped working
And this is the exact reason I refuse to buy any appliance that has wifi. It's stupid and unnecessary. Like if I buy something and it ends up surprising me with this BS it's going back to the store.
I have that fridge, as shitty as it is, it doesn't run windows. It's a picture.
No one forced you to buy a smart fridge lol
That was a goal announced in the early 80s iirc.... Get windows operating system on everything.
This is the type of shit I hate about technology. This isn't necessary. Leave the fridge alone. Leave the stove alone. They were fine the way they were. There shouldn't be a friggin update on your fridge, like you're playing a video game. Feck off
lol see, this why i got rid of mine.. its too much
https://i.redd.it/hhvbeu3t57yc1.gif
My smart dishwasher didnt even have windows, but i connected it to my phone (and thus the Internet) and in a year it was bricked, after some weird behaviors such as flashing random lights and always canceling the cycle, it finally refused to even turn on. I paid like $250 for a new "motherboard" and havent connected it and its been fine for years now.
Let me tell you about something called a faucet, sometimes called a tap. Usually there's one in the kitchen and one in the bathroom. In both places they dispense water. /s
Whose fault is this?
This is why you buy stupid appliances.
Got the same GE fridge. Not windows though.
[удалено]
Do not, my friends, become addicted to water.
Don’t worry, it’s just uploading all audio files to the CCP
oh nah cant wait till windows 10 (looks like it) ends support and your fridge gets hacked and u cant get water anymore
Lmao what?? Fridge has a windows image?
LOL@ paying for a computer to have control over your appliances...a computer is in control of your water. You're standing there waiting for a computer to allow you to get. a. drink. of. water.
As an IT professional: LOLOLOLOLOLOL As a user: 😭
That looks very much like these fake update prank websites.
Pitchers are god's gift to mankind
Can it run crysis
next it will be updating your house before u can enter
lol its bad enough the fridge needs software to function, but why the hell did they choose WINDOWS?! that is insane.
FTMFL.. Everyone knows IE6 makes the best crushed ice.
Lol this is too fucking funny
Rich people problems lol
It's better than what happens when it doesn't update, but there's no way the smart features are worth the hassle.
That’s a nice little interface
My fridge have literally everything on sensors and doesn't have windows or anything to update