An honest course of events from a power user and “the guy” for everyone I know when it comes to tech recommendations.
I am disappointed in the Samsung brand and looking elsewhere.
Tizen on the fridges has always been a stupid choice, without getting too deep into this topic the locked down state of your fridges has completely prevented innovation. Samsung, you lose your best customers by doing this, the people most likely to contribute to your ecosystem and make your fridge useful are those writing apps for free just to do cool stuff. Those people, myself included, the family tech people, are less likely to recommend your fridge because the Family Hub is truly useless. The bundled apps and services are lackluster and buggy. Aside from a collage of Van Gogh paintings I don’t even look at the Family Hub any more.
I direct up to $500k annually of spending for tech refreshes and hardware acquisition at my workplace, if I want to buy 30 Samsung TV’s I have the authority to do so. I did when the “Frame” TV’s came out.
I had the first generation Samsung Family Hub fridge fail (refrigerant system leak and compressor sent burnt oil through all the coils) 3 months out of warranty, total loss.
It’s ice maker was always faulty and horrid.
My brand loyalty and the improvements to the fridge (specifically the beverage center and ice maker) led me to buy the 32" Family Hub at it’s launch which was disappointingly only a few months prior to the “AI” upgraded version of the fridge.
The fruit infusion chamber insert in the beverage center practically disintegrated after one use of adding lemons, something your advertising material recommends. I do not want to ingest unstable plastics, your lack of testing of this is demonic.
I have your dishwasher, the top rack plastic has also begun disintegrating, it contaminates everything it touched and has been replaced.
Placing ads on the fridge was an awful choice, I have only ever used art mode but I understand other users frustration. You must undo this, there is no excuse.
Locking down the fridge and preventing sideloading (Tizen sucks but if I could code for it I’d be ecstatic) is a fundamentally flawed decision for a “tech first” fridge.
Here is what finally prompted me to speak out:
The new sound effects for “fridge open” suck. They are atrocious. My wife hates the AI voice and change from the musical tone. I went to change it in the settings but there is no such option.
You are losing tech people, the **only** people that will test and recommend your kitchen appliances.
My sister and her husband just bought a new home, I recommended a Thermador instead of a Samsung because I am done.
In my circles I will do my best to ensure nobody buys Samsung again until everything I have mentioned is remedied.
Samsung you are welcome to reach out if you want more meaningful feedback.
While I completely understand your position, please know that this is a user-to-user support forum. We're all just people who use Samsung products, like yourself. No Samsung engineers or developers will see your post. Your best avenue for this feedback is probably to email the CEO's office:
Thank you, that's an awesome link. I'll reach out further. I hope this gains traction because aside from a handful of correctable decisions I do think Samsung is the best.
