Firmware malfunction spoils food stored in Samsung smart fridges
Coming up next: an unwanted fridge restock.
Image by Bloomberg | Getty
- A faulty SmartThings firmware update left some Samsung smart fridges unresponsive in South Korea.
- Owners reported lights turning off, panel screens freezing, and fridges appearing offline in the SmartThings app.
- The issue appeared to affect Bespoke AI 4-Door fridge models released in 2024 or later.
- Samsung stopped the update and plans to send engineers to repair affected appliances.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
Samsung smart fridge owners were left with bricked appliances after a firmware update. The company says it has taken measures to fix the issue.
A firmware update caused Samsung smart fridges to malfunction, leaving users’ food spoiled.
The issue occurred after the SmartThings update, which caused the fridges to become unresponsive.
The situation was first reported by smart fridge owners in South Korea on September 22nd, right before the country’s mid-autumn harvest festival, Chuseok.
On Samsung Electronics' online product community, members shared more details about the outage.
The unsuccessful update caused the devices' LED lights to turn off, and the internal panel screen displayed the message: "Checking SmartThings app during update,” reported Star News Korea.
Meanwhile, the SmartThings app showed the fridges as being “offline.”
The update appeared to affect Samsung’s Bespoke AI 4-Door fridge models released in 2024 or later.
Samsung's response to the issue
Considering the flood of complaints the company received from users, Samsung suspended the firmware update, which caused a number of users to have their food spoiled in unresponsive fridges.
The company is also set to deploy service engineers to repair the affected devices, ideally by September 24th, according to ZDNET Korea.
However, it’s been noted that the repairs might take longer.
A Samsung Electronics spokesperson said the company stopped the update after learning that “the software had been mis-distributed,” and that it will try to fix the situation before the Chuseok holiday.
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User reactions
While the problem seemed to affect only Samsung fridge owners in South Korea, the situation sparked an online discussion among Reddit users from other parts of the world.
Some users were quick to share their own experiences with Samsung appliances, with many opposed to the idea of a home appliance powered by AI.
“This is what we get when we start buying appliances that have the job to do ONE thing, and slap a computer with internet to make it work,” wrote one user.
“I once had a dishwasher from them. Worst ever. Stay away from this brand for appliances, folks,” added another.
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Some users also took the opportunity to poke fun at how restricting AI can be in this case.
“‘I can't let you eat that, Dave,’” jokes one Redditor.
“You ran out of food tokens. Your monthly allotment resets Thursday, October 1st at 19:21 (7:21 PM New York, NY GMT-4),” wrote another netizen.
“The same fridge that Samsung promised wouldn’t show ads, which then started to show ads. Haven’t bought a Samsung device since,” wrote one user, referring to the company’s program that shows ads on certain Samsung Family Hub refrigerators.
