A Bad Update Made Samsung’s A.I. Fridges Stop Cooling
Trending Topics Jakob Steinschaden ● Covered by 2 sources
Samsung’s AI fridges in South Korea got a bad update and stopped cooling. It hit right before Chuseok, when families were loading them with holiday food.
Based on reporting by Trending Topics, Jakob Steinschaden — read the original for the full story.
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A refrigerator has one job, and Samsung’s smart fridges briefly forgot it in the most expensive way possible. In South Korea, a faulty software update left numerous Bespoke AI units dark, silent, and no longer cooling right before Chuseok, the holiday when families stock up on food.
The problem hit the RM70F and RM80F four-door models in Samsung’s Bespoke AI line. Samsung later said it had pushed an internal test version of its software to customers through SmartThings by mistake. Complaints started piling up on the company’s community forum the same evening the update went out on a Tuesday afternoon.
By the next morning, Samsung had posted an official notice, stopped the update, and set up an emergency response team. The company says repairs are free and technicians are being sent to affected customers. It is also still trying to figure out how many refrigerators were hit.
The timing made the whole mess worse. TechRadar says some customers resorted to dry ice and coolers because resets and other workarounds didn’t help. Whether Samsung will reimburse spoiled food is still unresolved, although the company is reviewing compensation and says homemade dishes are especially hard to verify.
Only South Korea was affected, and Samsung blocked the bad update before it reached other countries. That’s the bright spot, if there is one. The darker lesson is simpler: once a fridge depends on the internet and automatic updates, a software mistake can take out something that used to fail only when the hardware failed.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
Smart appliances keep selling convenience like it’s free, then act surprised when software starts running the kitchen. This is the bill coming due for connected everything: more features, more failure modes, and a lot less dignity when the fridge turns into a very expensive cupboard. A fridge should chill food before it impresses anyone with a shopping list.
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