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If You Thought Ads in Apple Maps Was Bad, Samsung is Putting Ads on $1,900+ Refrigerators

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Apple competitor Samsung has a line of "Family Hub" smart refrigerators equipped with integrated displays, and anything with a display can show you an ad. Starting later this month, Samsung is planning to take advantage of that refrigerator advertising space, and Family Hub refrigerators in the U.S. will get a widget that shows ads.

samsung-refrigerator.jpg

Samsung confirmed to Fortune last month that it was testing a "pilot program" to offer some fridge owners "promotions and curated advertisements," and now Samsung is ready to provide ads to even more users. 2024 Family Hub refrigerators will get a software update this week, and the update will bring ads to the refrigerator display when it's idle. Ads will start showing up on November 3.

Family Hub refrigerators are priced starting at $1,899, but they go up to $3,499. The refrigerators include 21.5-inch to 32-inch screens and are advertised as keeping families connected. Users can share pictures, videos, and drawings with Google Photos, get recipes, play music, manage calendar events, and buy items from Amazon. Higher-end refrigerators feature "AI Vision" that keeps track of the items inside.

The ads are part of a new Cover screen widget, and they'll be displayed alongside other information like the weather, calendar events, and news. Samsung says that users can choose to opt out of the ads for now through the Advertisements tab of the Settings menu, though that disables all widget features. Ads can also be dismissed from the Cover screen, and the specific ad dismissed won't appear again during the campaign period. Samsung says that ads won't appear when the Cover screen shows art or album themes.

Samsung's decision to include ads on the Family Hub refrigerators has come as a surprise to many customers because the fridges have been available for years now. Many who bought the refrigerator without any expectation that it would show ads will now be subject to advertising. There will undoubtedly be customers unaware that they can opt out of the ads, because Samsung has decided to turn ads on by default.

To begin with, the Family Hub refrigerators will only show ads for Samsung products, but Samsung seems to be planning to allow third-party advertisers to show ads, according to The Verge.

Apple doesn't make refrigerators, but it too is ramping up the number of places where it displays ads. Recent reports suggest that the Apple Maps app will start showing ads in search results as soon as next year.

Article Link: If You Thought Ads in Apple Maps Was Bad, Samsung is Putting Ads on $1,900+ Refrigerators
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/10/28/samsung-refrigerator-ads/
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Justin Cymbal said:
People will always complain but you don’t have to connect your refrigerator to the internet…

You can always connect it to a separate home network (that is not connected to the Internet)

Some people would rather have the advertising included - to potentially reduce the cost of the fridge itself
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... so if its to reduce the price of the fridge, when do those of us with existing units who paid full price get our rebate checks? Samsung is NEVER going to reduce the price of anything, they will only try to claim the price didn't go up as fast as it could have.
 
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Just remember that the only reason this is happening is because bad executives are in charge of these companies, and there are absolutely no systemic incentives for them to behave this way. All we need to do is replace the bad executives with good executives and all the ads will go away and everything will go back to the way it was!
 
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With all due respect if you buy a refrigerator with a giant screen slapped on the front of it, what exactly is the long-term expectation? People who want that level of tech in an appliance generally know the game, connected displays come with bloatware, data mining, and yes… ads.

I get being annoyed that Samsung turned it on by default, but acting shocked that a 32-inch Wi-Fi billboard in your kitchen might eventually be used as, well, a billboard feels a little naïve. This is the trade-off we keep making with smart everything convenience up front, monetization later.
 
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H.E. Pennypacker said:
With all due respect if you buy a refrigerator with a giant screen slapped on the front of it, what exactly is the long-term expectation? People who want that level of tech in an appliance generally know the game, connected displays come with bloatware, data mining, and yes… ads.

I get being annoyed that Samsung turned it on by default, but acting shocked that a 32-inch Wi-Fi billboard in your kitchen might eventually be used as, well, a billboard feels a little naïve. This is the trade-off we keep making with smart everything convenience up front, monetization later.
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Exactly what one would expect from a wealthy, American industrialist looking to open a silver mine in the mountains of Peru.
 
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MacRumors said:
Samsung confirmed to Fortune last month that it was testing a "pilot program" to offer some fridge owners "promotions and curated advertisements," and now Samsung is ready to provide ads to even more users. 2024 Family Hub refrigerators will get a software update this week, and the update will bring ads to the refrigerator display when it's idle. Ads will start showing up on November 3.
Click to expand...
Ads on refrigerators? I'm not sure this was a well thawed out idea on Samsung's part.
 
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