196

Jakdracula@lemmy.world to 196@lemmy.blahaj.zone – 1466 points –
104

cause a motor is more expensive than a sensor.

NOW STOP RESISTING AND DO WHAT THE DEVICE SAYS OR HE CALLS THE VACUUM THAT WILL WIP YA ASS.

You don't need a motor though, there's a lever thing you put on doors to make them close, they already put them in fridges.

The true reason is that a motor or hinge or even just s thing that makes noise when the fridge is left open too long (mine has that) or whatever doesn't collect your personal data

Ding ding ding!

โ€œDownload the Smart Fridge app to utilize our Open Door Alert service.โ€

App Store: Data linked to you - ALL

Why keep the milk fresh when you can stick a tracker up the cows ass for a huge profit?

To be fair, the last time I shoved a sensor up a cows ass my gains were minimal.

is it not possible to use of those mechanical handles they put on top of regular doors in public places?

Everyone's missing the real issue. Springs, motors, or pneumatics don't matter if there's something in the way preventing it from closing. A cheap fridge on an uneven floor will close the door itself if there's nothing in the way, but if the jug of milk is hanging off the edge of the shelf with no room behind it, the door isn't closing without something getting damaged.

Additionally I might want it open for an extended period of time, such as loading or unloading a lot of items

Or, you know, a cat or child climbed in and the door closed on themโ€ฆ

Doors can have a notch in the hinge (like a car door) so that once it opens far enough it will stay open until pulled.

The doors at my work (that close due to springs) also have that notch.

$50 bucks says they didn't even think of that.

Not cloud-y enough.

Yeah, wtf. How do they get your data then?

Id reckon it's a slow play to make connecting devices more normalised and therefore make it easier to take your data. It may sound like an unrealistic dystopian future but I reckon we're gonna get alot more dystopic before we become utopic.

Edit: the app u connect through also probably spies on you but I'd reckon the other prediction is true too just not as sure sbt that onr

Easy fix just have an options menu in the cloud that you need access to to enable it. Charge for the account to login lol. I'm going to start my own fridge company now

Samsung Appliances don't have the best track record for being reliable... Something tells me if they did add something like that, within the first year it'd either break down OR work too well and result in a number of loss of limb lawsuits against the company.

That's a hilarious thought. The good ol scientists at Samsung, we could just use gravity and design the front to lift up a little, or we could add ridiculously machinery with the power to remove a limb. But they all agree gravity doesn't tick the box of new technology, therefore they have to go with the latter option.

There's usually little leveling feet that you can turn to adjust, crank them up a little higher in the front and the door closes itself.

Problem: I barely check my phone when I'm home. If I'm home, I'm usually on my laptop or watching my TV.

Fortunately, my fridge doesn't have this problem. Instead, it beeps very loudly whenever the door is open for too long.

Well... One would assume the beep is still a thing, is just an extra so if you are not near it you also get a notification.

The beeper thing costs pennies... so not exactly a cost cutting thing... But you never know.... and without knowing the model etc difficult to check.

just put a fucking spring on the fucking door (like a weak one)

My fridge is ever so slightly tilted. I can throw the door open, grab all I need, and it will close after me just on time.
Life is good.

We added some small wood pieces under the front feet to do this. Solved a lot of marriage problems with this one simple trick that actually works. Number 2 will shock you.

Simple solutions can't be sold at huge margins.

Retrofuturism: Clever houses would do everything for you, just get back and relax. Your personal assistant would get you whiskey with ice and put some jazzy vinyl for a good evening.

Actual future: You did what to me stupid human? BTW, there are 99+ notifications from our furniture and our partners. Oh, and your toilet paper subscription is due tommorow, don't think you'd get away with unscrewing the lock this time, I'd watch the shit of you!

2 more...

Just popping in as a former user to say Smartthings is fucking garbage. Use Home Assistant or any other self hosted solution. Don't waste your effort with Smartthings.

I don't hate this, but I also don't like it.

Not because it's a bad idea, or it should have been better, but because, to me, it seems like any obvious idea about how to make smart things do stuff that's actually practical like this is usually behind some walled garden, and different walled gardens don't really work with other walled gardens.

Like with having smart things (the Samsung product line) and Google home, and Philips hue smart bulbs, you now have three things all working "together" ... "In the cloud". And you're entirely limited to whatever those cloud services and/or manufacturers want you to be able to do with them....

What if I want my smart speaker to play "Ice ice, baby" whenever I leave the freezer open, and have the lights go blue and blink or something? It's two back to back horribly complicated processes to get SmartThings to talk to the "works with Google" system, same with hue, then a cludge of weird commands that work today, but next week might entirely break, all dependent on whether anything is still talking to eachother, and even if I can do all that, there's no guarantee that I can use "freezer door left open for x minutes" as a trigger for the activity.... Additionally, I need to find a way to source the song on my Google assistant, so now I need to tie in Spotify or YouTube music, or something to my "works with Google" crap... It's just a lot of work to even get to the point where you can see what options you have.

This is a fairly simple example, but still... And then I have to ask, why the hell does it need to bounce around the "cloud" so much just to perform an action on the lights in my house, for the alert from the fridge that's also in my house?

Then I also have to wonder, how many fracking devices do they expect me to put on my wifi, and how much more do I need to spend so that I don't need to reboot my wifi doesn't every other day, otherwise it drops my "smart" home things?

I can't drink the Samsung Kool aid exclusively, they don't make lights or smart speakers, I can't do the same with Google, they don't make lights or fridges, and I certainly can't with Phillips. So I'm stuck with some internet reliant thing to do the same job as a $1 magnetic sensor, a cheap speaker, and a cannibalized novelty get well soon card that plays music when you open it.... I can add blue lights that react to sound for a few dollars more and get the same effect, and not have to shell out thousands of dollars on a fancy fridge, fancy lights, hours of my frustration, and a fancy wifi system to make it all go.

..... To be fair, I've done all those things, I don't have a smart fridge, but I use home assistant, and this gives me an idea. I just need to buy one of those door/window open sensors, and I can get it done.

To clarify, I started in "smart" home stuff with some hue bulbs, partly to see what all the fuss was about, then the Mrs, while away from the hue system, complained that she had to get up from bed to turn off the lights one night and I knew I was done for. Now I have nearly 100 smart home devices, and I still have those hue bulbs. I'm waiting for them to die so I can buy smart bulbs that don't require the cloud, which I've already replaced most of the other lights in my home with. I've added smart light switches, so I can trigger scenes and automations from the wall (and keep the power to the smart lights from being turned off), and many many sensors (mostly temp/humidity/air quality)... Everything I've installed recently (about 60 IoT things) have been locally controlled via zwave, directly to home assistant, so getting something like the above done, should only need a sensor to know if the freezer/fridge was not properly closed all the way.

Anyways. Prior to migrating to home assistant, I was doing the "works with Google" dance and it was not fun, and suddenly, anytime my internet went out, I lost control over half the stuff in my home. I hate how reliant we've become on the "cloud" to do simple stuff like turn on the lights. I'm not a fan. Thus, home assistant. I have, and will continue to seek out alternatives to stuff like SmartThings, that I can control and manage locally.

My final note is: being able to adjust the thermostat, and turn on the lights from the bed/couch/wherever, is the tits. Carry on.

and different walled gardens don't really work with other walled gardens

This is why I will only ever support open standards

First genuine Too Long/ Didn't Read for me in a long time.

Have you looked into home assistant? There is a pretty solid and mature community around you managing all these different smart systems yourself.

That said, in not sure this is relevant, I'm too sleepy to read all of what you wrote. Apologies

I also like how you can make your whole house change color with the lights during the day. Blue and bright at noon, red and dim in the evening.

Or how the lights dim when I turn on the TV. Or how the curtains can be opened by just yelling open the curtains. Node Red is super nice with Home Assistant, if you want to do something more complex with the automation.

Why are your lights on during the day?

Ummm to see something? It's winter and dark...

And who can forget the classic of only having terrible layout for windows as well

Natural light is not easy to get into my apartment

Bundle that with it being winter and dark and those lights need to be on

You actually can have complete offline with Samsung Smart things and Hue, not that it's not a PITA to set up.

I've heard of this with hue. From what I understand, you basically need to take the bulbs and connect them to another ZigBee hub, since they're ZigBee under the hood.

But you have to do it using some pretty frustrating methods because they are programmed to only connect to their own hub.

IDK. Only my TV is "SmartThings" so, hopefully I can work on that. I'm not a fan of ZigBee since it shares a band with WiFi. I'd rather just get rid of them, but I have a hard time justifying the cost of replacing that many smart bulbs with basically the same thing because my brain gives me the happy chemicals when everything is organized and works the same way.

Also, the Mrs uses the hue app and I'd have to get her over to home assistant instead, it's a whole thing. Basically, I don't have very good reasons to change it, and I don't have good reasons not to, so I'm at a bit of an impasse.

I think the hue box is acting as a zigbee hub tbh, but it's been a while since I set it up.

Can we please stop connecting everything together?

If we don't network everything how will we ensure the Cylons don't have complete control over everything?

Yes, BUT I kinda want to get automated statistical analysis of my shits sent to my phone. I am talking excel sheet with graphs n stuff here.

it's a process that sadly won't be stopping anytime soon

after home appliances it's time for our bodies

Wait until they put cameras, microphones, location sensors and sim cards to a car and report everything to the corporation. Oh wait...

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Samsung is so damned gimmicky.

It's not gimmicks. It's tracking

I recognize a carnival-styled UI with a naked eye. When the UI feels like ADHD distractions, you know marketing tactics are the purpose of the toys. We know that's expectable with free web services, but costly consumer products need to offer a fully-controllable experience to exclude statistic-mining spyware.

It's a lot cheaper to install one sensor per door than it is to install a motor for every moving compartment and a sensor to see if it needs to be closed and that's just to make sure every door can be closed. A lot of extra circuitry for something they can just do on the cheap.

Doors can be designed to close by slightly angling the hinges which could be cheaper than a cloud based alarm connected to a smartphone.

hear that, Samsung? Just outsource your research and work to lemmy commenters, they know best

My 20 year old fridge closes itself if left open due to the angle of the hinges.

The only reason Samsung has the texting "feature" is to sell your data.

To have the ability to text you about an open door it would need to track your usage, have access to your phone number, and access to your home network (unless they put a sim card in there). Having access to all that means they can gather a lot of information about you will little effort.

Edit: Not to mention that by having access to your phone number they can push you ads directly to your phone. Having the screen and internet access it will have the ability to push ads on the fridge itself as well.

And who can forget that by having these smart features that means that the fridge has more systems that can (and will) fail so that you'll have to replace the fridge (or pay for costly repairs) when they do. Or the features will stop working after a certain amount of time due to a lack of security updates.

"Some features have been disabled due to your product reaching EOL. We're sorry for the inconvenience."

Smart appliances are not the future we want.

While true, unless it gains enough speed it might still not properly close by itself. And the door can also be blocked. An angled door will also be a bit heavier to open and more annoying to use. It's not a perfect solution, even if it is helpful.

Maybe an always tensioned hydraulic like on a screen door? I realize this is just self closing and not close on demand, but seems like it would get the job done.

Still haven't gotten in to the smart home stuff. Friends who enjoy it as a hobby and self host I can see the fun in it. The consumer stuff just seems like it tells you stuff that doesn't really matter, or it's controlling lights on voice command which is cool I guess, but it's not as good as a self-contained switch with instant feedback.

You can have a smart home and still keep your privacy. Home Assistant is an open source tool you install to a raspberry pi, and it lets you control your devices locally without ever sending anything to the internet.

I've been using it for years and it is really nice.

That's what my friends who self-host use, it's more utility than privacy that's holding me back though because I'd totally use this option. It's like "ugh another system to manage" after managing computer systems for work all day. I like my analog switches and a heavy knobfeel, drive a car from the 00s with all buttons.

I love my "smart" thermostat. Being able to adjust the AC or heat a few degrees when I'm leaving work so my place is the perfect temp when I get home is awesome.

I don't understand why I would want any of my other appliances to be "smart."

I love my โ€œsmartโ€ thermostat. Being able to adjust the AC or heat a few degrees when Iโ€™m leaving work so my place is the perfect temp when I get home is awesome.

We have old European radiators in this apartment. But you can attach these electric valves to it with radios. So now my home assistant can just turn the knobs when the thermometer notices it's getting too cold or hot. Very old tech combined with smart home automation...

Having my lights automatically controlled is nice. They turn on just before sunset, then I have my lamp in my bedroom turn on just before I head to bed normally so I can get straight into bed and hit a button to make the room dark.

I have a few other things connected to Home Assistant like my 3D printer and an air quality meter just to have a dashboard for how things are in my place. But I have zero interest in appliances being connected to the internet. Especially anything that could be dangerous if it malfunctioned.

You can make it smarter by attaching time delay relay.

I like that I can away from my oven while it's preheating and it will notify me when the preheat is done and being able to turn it off remotely is also nice. I really appreciate my smart lights, if ni other feature than colour changing.

they made a lazy smart fridge, work smarter not harder

Samsung dont want a lawsuit from their fridge closing on a kids head or something, but they also dont want to i stall sensors to prevent this

If it closed slowly enough you could just measure resistance or voltage of the motor to determine if it's not moving. The problem is all the other things that you need to do before you can even close a door like shutting a fruit drawer.

For what itโ€™s worth, I wish I had this feature on my garage fridge. Itโ€™s getting older and sometimes the door just doesnโ€™t close all the way. Because of the way my house is laid out, you can only hear the beep if youโ€™re in the kitchen (and even then itโ€™s not very clear) so it might sit open for hours before being noticed. Granted, this feature is definitely not worth buying a smart fridge and I probably wouldnโ€™t want one in my garage, but I wish I had something to fix that problem.

Clean the mating surfaces, that should help

And if necessary you may need to replace the rubber seal

It's usually a pretty cheap and easy fix

If the other tips don't work you could add an smart powerplug that measure the consumption and then figure out what pattern you have when it is open and then send an email or sth. (I hope such power plugs exist)

That.... That's actually a good point... ๐Ÿค”

Not really. A motor is a much more complicated device than just a sensor, and it doesn't fix if there's anything blocking the door.

..and the sensor might just be the temperature sensor itself checking if the temperature is too high for too long.

The real reason is that by convincing users to install Samsung apps they can collect and monetise personal data.

They already put pumps and motors in the fridge for ice & water.

Potentially it's for safety reasons. I'd be so scared of a cat or kid going in the fridge and it auto shutting them in

How about a spring? Think a spring might work?

A spring would quickly be annoying to deal with when you want to open the door up and possibly keep it open.

Like, sure, there are ways, but there are no perfect solutions here. A simple sensor that beeps is the best one, imo.

I'd prefer a spring. Atleast for my fridge the beeping isn't pleasant as an autistic person. Any situation where I need to keep the door open I could figure out a work around like using my elbow or asking a friend to help if I really couldn't do it. The beeping I can't work around and if I managed to remove it, which I doubt I could do, I wouldn't have anything to close my fridge or tell me when it's open

They already have a solution on most modern fridges. My parents fridge dings when it's been open too long.

What a sick burn, could have used it on Steven Hawking too.

Oh w...