The last thing I expect to see when I’m grabbing a late-night snack from the fridge is an ad jump-scaring me. But it looks like Samsung is banking on it. As more companies shift towards monetising ads engagements, the Galaxy phone makers recently confirmed that they're testing campaigns on their smart fridges in the USA in a pilot program.
It's supposedly meant to strengthen the value of owning one of the hardware. As expected, it's not sitting well with many customers. By the looks of it, you might have to either tweak your settings or keep your fridge offline altogether if you don't want to see them.
You can't avoid ads on your Samsung smart fridge
Early this month, users noticed unusual changelog notes in a Samsung refrigerator software update. It mentioned promotions being displayed, but at first there was confusion as to whether it was mislabeled or referring to a different product. What sense would it make to do something like that?
The finding has continued to appear on Reddit and tech forums, after which Android Headlines and Android Authority began investigating. Samsung has since responded to those outlets with a formal statement, confirming that it was indeed real.
As part of their new program, certain Family Hub refrigerators in the US would receive over-the-network (OTN) updates that enable promotions and curated advertisements on the Cover Screen when idle on certain themes, including Weather, Color, and Daily Board.
Ads do not show if you select Art Mode or Gallery/Photo themes. If you swipe one away, that particular campaign won’t return during the campaign period. Unfortunately, you can't fully disable them, unless you disconnect the fridge from Wi-Fi, which breaks its smart features.
Your fridge should receive a Terms & Conditions and Privacy Notice update as part of the software push when it's available. The program only affects Family Hub models, which are Samsung’s premium smart fridges priced from around $1,800 to $3,500 in the USA.
Related: Samsung Galaxy Devices to Help Spot Alzheimer’s with AI Health Tracking
Your $1000 fridge is making cold money for advertisers
People don’t want ads the way they want useful things. Unfortunately, their excessive appearance in many parts of our lives proves that companies do not care for what you want. Ads consume a scarce resource, which is our attention, and it comes with the cost of cognitive disruption and waste of time. An unexpected one, especially on a household object like your Samsung fridge, produces immediate negative reactions that reduces your trust in the product.
Even if an ad provides useful information occasionally, the expected value to the user is usually lower than the expected cost of interruption.
It's simply inexcusable because it's unlike TVs or streaming apps where they at least subsidize free access. It's ridiculous to spend a lot more on fridges, only to double-dip afterward. You buy the product, and then the product monetizes you again.
If your fridge shows two impressions per day, that’s 2 × 365 = 730 impressions per year per fridge. If you multiply it by one million fridges at a $1 Cost Per Mille, it's roughly $0.73M per year, excluding higher-margin possibilities such as sponsored content and targeted coupons.
It's not really much for the company size, but it's not their only source of revenue. It’s part of the larger ecosystem consisting of hardware, data licensing, and others.
