Who would have thought? Customers of Samsung fridges are not happy about ads their smart fridges started to show

Do fridges, toasters and other household appliances may come with “smart functionality” or wireless connectivity these days. In the case of some, TVs for instance, the functionality may also be used to display advertisement to users and collect data about users.

Samsung recently announced that its smart fridges would start showing ads. A software update introduced the feature and first reactions of customers are not exactly glowing.

The company introduced the change for some of its Family Hub refrigerators in the United States. This turned the screen of the device into a vehicle for ads. And who does not love ads, especially for items that cost thousands of Dollars?

Techspot reports that the update introduced new Terms of Service and a Privacy Notice that covers the addition of advertisement. Samsung’s smart fridge displays the ads on the fridge’s screen. It appears when the screen is idle, which likely means most of the time and only if users have selected certain themes, including weather, daily board, or color.

Users may enable certain themes to avoid ads for now. If the cover screen is set to art mode, which displays photos, then no ads are shown. A setting to fully disable ads is not provided, but users may block certain ads from reappearing.

You could disconnect the fridge from the network, but might not be able to use most of its functions in that case.

Samsung says that the advertisements “are designed to enhance value for owners”. I’m pretty certain that most owners would beg to differ.

Maybe next time, it would be better to buy a “dumb” fridge or other items, especially if the provided functionality is not adding value or has the chance of being turned into something that is highly annoying or invasive.