GE Fridges Won't Dispense Ice Or Water Unless Your Water Filter 'Authenticates' Via RFID Chip (boingboing.net) 241
JustAnotherOldGuy writes: Count GE in on the "screw your customers" bandwagon. Twitter user @ShaneMorris tweeted: "My fridge has an RFID chip in the water filter, which means the generic water filter I ordered for $19 doesn't work. My fridge will literally not dispense ice, or water. I have to pay General Electric $55 for a water filter from them." Fortunately, there appears to be a way to hack them to work: How to Hack RWPFE Water Filters for Your GE Fridge. Hacks aside, count me out from ever buying another GE product if it includes anti-customer "features" like these. "The difference between RWPF and RPWFE is that the RPWFE has a freaking RFID chip on it," writes Jack Busch from groovyPost. "The fridge reads the RFID chip off your filter, and if your filter is either older than 6 months or not a genuine GE RPWFE filter, it's all 'I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't dispense any water for you right now.' Now, to be fair, GE does give you a bypass cartridge that lets you get unfiltered water for free (you didn't throw that thing away, did you?). But come on..."
Jack proceeds to explain how you can pop off the filter bypass and "try taping the thing directly into your fridge where it would normally meet up when the filter is install." If you're able to get it in just the right spot, "you're set for life," says Jack. Alternatively, "you can tape it onto the front of an expired RPWFE GE water filter, install it backward, and then keep using it (again, not recommended for too much longer than six months). Or, you can tape it to the corresponding spot on a generic filter and reinstall it."
Jack proceeds to explain how you can pop off the filter bypass and "try taping the thing directly into your fridge where it would normally meet up when the filter is install." If you're able to get it in just the right spot, "you're set for life," says Jack. Alternatively, "you can tape it onto the front of an expired RPWFE GE water filter, install it backward, and then keep using it (again, not recommended for too much longer than six months). Or, you can tape it to the corresponding spot on a generic filter and reinstall it."
What an awesome future we live in (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What an awesome future we live in (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, my fridge will happily chill water (in bottles) of any brand or even the high-quality tap water I get here. Of course, I do not live in the US...
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I'll give you a nice big tall glass from my tap and see how you like it.
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You actually verified the quality of your tap water, or you just take your government's word for it?
You actually verified the quality of your bottled water, or you just take the marketing department's word for it?
Fuck those guys (Score:2)
Fuck them all.
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And I guess you're an idiot. Which is pretty much on-point for an anonymous coward.
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As you kick back and enjoy some crystal clear water courtesy of the $100 filter you just had to buy because the $100 filter you had for 3 months decided to not let you have any water, why not catch up on the rerun of today's 2 minute hate on your telescreen?
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Can't even get a drink of ice water from the fridge without DRM. Ain't it grand?
Just wait until they start RFID chipping the individual Hydrogen and Oxygen molecules...
[ ... ya, ya, don't give them any ideas, but I'm copyrighting all combinations of H2O+RFID ... ]
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
Way to completely miss the point. Sure, it's an easy fix now, but what happens when they stop supplying the bypass modules? Do you think they offered this information to people shopping for refrigerators?
I cannot wait for something like this to happen to you, at an inconvenient time, after you just wasted money on parts that should work just fine.
Re: What's the big deal? (Score:3)
Some GE exec is reading this and thinking "... we should really DRM those compressors ..."
Re:What's the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that the problem can be worked around easily does not erase the fact that the manufacturer went out of it's way to create the problem in the first place. It doesn't erase the fact that the manufacturer seems confused about who owns the fridge.
I'm going to take this as fair warning to think and investigate very carefully before I buy a GE fridge. If they're willing to do this now, there's reason to think they may do it again and make it harder to work around next time. If I'm going to pay good money for a new fridge, I'd rather not have to start with the workarounds even before the warranty expires.
Re: What's the big deal? (Score:2)
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The former, yes. The latter is EXTREMELY unlikely. It might leak, and it might clog, but that's about the extent of it. If either of those causes deeper problems with the fridge, they deserve to have excess service calls. Of course, they probably get excess calls for people putting in a generic filter complaining that it's not dispensing water anymore.
I'll bet they don't provide an unlock code for the fridge once the warranty expires.
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I'm not sure you understand the issue at hand. The cold water/ice maker system is a set of very thin tubes and small pumps. A bad filter could clog the stuff with carbon which is near impossible to flush out once it dries or worse yet, clogs one of the pumps and burns it out.
It didn't used to be this bad, you can get quality off-brand filters from places like Home Depot but Amazon doesn't have nearly the quality control and they offer filters shipped from China direct at half the price of a good off-brand f
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So you put the bypass module in, and install a 3rd party filter on the water line that feeds the fridge. You still get filtered fridge water and don't have to buy expensive GE filters - problem solved.
Have people really become so helpless these days that they can't figure basic home maintenance tasks? Shit, just wait until he has a drain back up.
Way easier to pick a different manufacturer.
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Or you just buy third party water filters as usual. I mean really? I'm sure the third party toner and ink companies have plenty of experience with lockout chips, so
Re: What's the big deal? (Score:3)
Your city tap water might be fine, but the pipes in your house -- especially if it's a few decades old -- are another matter entirely. Mine are full of pink gunk that's probably s. marascens biofilm in a matrix of god-knows-what. The water looks fine, but once you've re-plumbed a kitchen or bathroom & seen what's inside the pipes, you'll never drink unfiltered water again.
And... god forbid... if you have a WaterPik & fill it with unfiltered hot tap water because it doesn't sting as much... don't EVE
Waiting for someone to sue for wrongful death (Score:3, Interesting)
I can see some situation where someone can't afford the name-brand filters, starts drinking tap water, gets sick, dies, and his or her family sues the manufacturer for contributory negligence leading to a wrongful death.
In the meantime, I'll just add GE to my list of appliance manufacturers whose products I will no longer buy.
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I can see some situation where someone can't afford the name-brand filters, starts drinking tap water, gets sick, dies
Well, in the US that is a real risk.
and his or her family sues the manufacturer
Yep. Definitely the US. In Europe, they'd sue the water utility.
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In Europe, they'd sue the water utility.
...in the hypothetical case of dying from drinking water, you mean.
Re: Waiting for someone to sue for wrongful death (Score:3, Insightful)
Here in Australia nobody would get sued because what the fuck shithole country can't supply clean water to its citizens?
Re: Waiting for someone to sue for wrongful death (Score:2)
Re: Waiting for someone to sue for wrongful deat (Score:3, Insightful)
a) This event isn't exactly a regular occurrence.
b) Ash is not much different to silt. It'll get handled no different.
c) Ash might make water murky, but it's perfectly safe to drink.
d) Shadenfreude over the fires is not cool. You're a dick.
Re: Waiting for someone to sue for wrongful deat (Score:2)
So, the original point was a jibe against te crumbling water infrastructure in the US and the atrocious political handballing of same. Your response has been to fixate on bushfires in Australia.
Seems a nerve got touched.
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Here in Australia nobody would get sued because what the fuck shithole country can't supply clean water to its citizens?
Apparently, the U.S. -- Flint Michigan [wikipedia.org].
[ in case that wasn't already your point ]
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"I can see some situation where someone can't afford the name-brand filters, starts drinking tap water, gets sick, dies, and his or her family sues the manufacturer for contributory negligence leading to a wrongful death."
I can see some situation where somebody croaks and they blame Lasko for causing the breeze that apparently knocked him dead. Maybe it's time to put locks and encrypted computer chips inside Lasko fans.
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I can see some situation where someone can't afford the name-brand filters, starts drinking tap water, gets sick, dies, and his or her family sues the manufacturer for contributory negligence leading to a wrongful death.
In the meantime, I'll just add GE to my list of appliance manufacturers whose products I will no longer buy.
Just FYI GE sold the appliance division to Qingdao Haier in 2016, so also add Haier, Fisher & Paykel, and Hotpoint (if you are in north America), and Hoover (if you are in Europe), and Candy Appliances (Italy) to your list too.
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Nobody was drinking filtered water back in the 80s and nobody died
Ah. About that..
Much of the planet still struggles to source clean drinking water, with severe health effects on the local populations.
Haven't you seen the rise in life expectancy over the past few decades?
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Have you been living unde a rock [wikipedia.org]?
Plus water can also get contaminated with all sorts of stuff later on if you don't handle and store it properly. While I wouldn't want a DRM fridge, unlike say toner cartridges, this is one example where it's somewhat justifiable given the potential liability. The last thing GE wants to see is a story about how some fake Chinese filters killed a bunch of their customers with fish flu or whatever.
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starts drinking tap water, gets sick, dies, and his or her family sues the manufacturer for contributory negligence leading to a wrongful death.
Suing the wrong entity. However much I despise DRM, I despise frivolous lawsuits that target the entity with the most money more and I hope such a lawsuit gets thrown out.
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Better solution... (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't buy stupid fridges with waste-of-space features like water dispensers. Get a good reverse-osmosis system to mount by your kitchen sink, and have a better fridge without a lot of its storage capacity taken up by stupid water and ice systems. Ice is stupid anyway. Just chill your beverages directly.
Re:Better solution... (Score:4, Informative)
Get a good reverse-osmosis system...
Last I heard, R-O systems waste a lot of water. Sometimes just a good activated charcoal filter is more than enough.
And if my water is good to begin with (yes there are places that have good water) then I don't even need that.
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The water need not be wasted. It can be used for irrigation or piped to the toilet.
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So, instead of having your capacity taken up by dispenser (which mostly takes up useless door shelf space anyway), you can waste fridge space with drinks that could've been stored in your pantry? Yeah, that makes sense. I'm guessing you must never have anyone over, because an ice dispenser keeps guests from laughing at your ghetto fridge which still uses ice trays.
Here's a better suggestion: just don't buy a stupid fridge that uses DRM in its water filter.
Re: Better solution... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm guessing you must never have anyone over, because an ice dispenser keeps guests from laughing at your ghetto fridge which still uses ice trays.
Here's a better suggestion: just don't buy a stupid fridge that uses DRM in its water filter.
Superior suggestion: get better friends.
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I have the impression that this fridge thing is an ersatz religion for americans. :P and no ice dispenser, I don't drink ice in drinks. The few ice I need is in the freezing compartment.
You probably would be scared how small my fridge is, barely a bit taller than me, barely reaching the breadth of my shoulders, hm, is it actually taller? No water dispenser, I have tap water
And probably you would be even more scared to see how empty the fridge is.
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I'm European. My house has an American-size fridge, as it seemed like a good idea at the time. We had to take the kitchen door off the hinges to get the monster through, and never could get the door to go back on properly. Our houses just aren't designed for such appliances.
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My fridge is in a cupboard under the breakfast counter.
I don't even have ice trays in the freezer, but my friends and visitors don't want ice in their drink anyway. You don't put ice in tea, coffee or beer.
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My friends aren't idiots who like ice.
We get it, you don't like ice. We also get that you're lacking in social skills and the apparent ability to understand that lots of people might like things you don't like.
Re:Better solution... (Score:4, Interesting)
Having an ice dispenser is a nice feature ... if you're an American. As far as I know, Americans are the only people who prefer everything they drink to be iced.
I don't have an ice dispenser on my fridge. That probably makes me a socialist in a lot Americans' eyes, but in truth I am a different kind of social deviant; I'm a cheapskate. Statistically ice makers are the largest source of service problems in American refrigerators, and ice maker problems are a major reason people end up buying new units.
I do enjoy the ice maker when I'm visiting someone else's house.
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Oh, grow up. It ain't that.
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It certainly has nothing to do with the labor theory of value or production for use.
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Does it need to? 'Socialist' has turned into a generic political insult now, devoid of all connection to the original meaning. I've been called a socialist online for posting a comment advocating for gender-neutral restrooms.
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I'm from Korea. People there also prefer their drinks iced if possible (in summer). If you research it, I think you'll find that it's got nothing to do with being American. People who live in warmer climates prefer their drinks iced.
I assume you're from Europe? Half of Europe sits at the same latitude as Canada [williams.edu]. The southern U.S. states are
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People who live in warmer climates prefer their drinks iced.
Only if they have no fridges to store the drinks inside.
Using ice comes from the time when the drink was warm, warm as ambient, and you put ice inside to cool it. Now it is just a habit ... and not really a preference.
The southern U.S. states are actually at the same latitude as North Africa and the Middle East. So your average temperatures are significantly cooler than in most of the U.S.
Wrong. But not relevant anyway.
The average is irrelevant. R
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Using ice comes from the time when the drink was warm, warm as ambient, and you put ice inside to cool it.
This is an indisputable fact, since ice-cooling predates refrigeration.
Now it is just a habit ... and not really a preference.
Speak for yourself. A refrigerator cools around 3 - 4 degrees Celsius, but a 50% ratio of ice:water will produce a 0 degree water (I don't have a source but I know this because I've always wanted to open a restaurant and took food safety courses. Refrigeration temperature is regulated by law and 50/50 ice/water is one method for calibrating food thermometers).
I'm actually Canadian, but I'm from a fairly southern part and the summers can
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>I don't have a source
You *should* know from high school chemistry that the *only* possible temperature of a stable/equilibrium mix of solid and liquid is the freezing point, and that the only possible temperature while boiling is the boiling point . . .
hawk
The best solution (Score:3)
Having an ice dispenser is a nice feature ... if you're an American.
It's also a nice feature if you are Canadian. However, we have the advantage of having one built into our climate rather than our fridges. The standard practice here when having a party is to keep the beers out on the deck in a cold box which has enough insulation to stop them getting too cold and freezing solid.
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That probably makes me a socialist in a lot Americans' eyes, but in truth I am a different kind of social deviant; I'm a cheapskate.
Cheapskates transcend political boundaries - we’ve got plenty of them in America too.
What is with refrigerator designers these days? (Score:5, Informative)
I recently purchased a refrigerator. Every appliance salesfloor was crowded with refrigerators that had large outside dimensions, but after the two ice makers, the water filter, dispensers, multiple zone drawers, and user interfaces there was almost no usable volume left over for what needs to go into the 'fridge. It's ridiculous. Had to order a custom one with just the doors and only one ice maker.
Ridiculous.
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Chest freezers are a pain to use though. The stuff you want is always at the bottom, or you can only fill out about 20% to avoid that problem. Plus you have to bend right down.
Maybe look at Samsung or European models. Unless they make them different for the US market they sound like what you want. Mine has just one cold water dispenser and it doesn't take up much room.
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We’re actually shopping for a fridge right now. There are plenty available without water or ice dispensers, even here in America.
We’d always gotten by using good old fashioned ice cube trays - until a couple years ago, when I got into making cocktails. But a dedicated countertop ice maker works better if you want to generate a lot of ice in a relatively short amount of time, and they are inexpensive.
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I just use one of those insulated cups (Zojirushi are the best but other brands are okay) and keep what I want to drink in the fridge to chill.
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It's just a rental status symbol
Yeah, I was surprised when I found out how many Americans rent their fridge.
I was shocked when I found out that this costs them more every 2-3 months than I spent buying mine.
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Get a good reverse-osmosis system to mount by your kitchen sink, and have a better fridge without a lot of its storage capacity taken up by stupid water and ice systems.
I'd opt for a good ceramic filter with a layer that gets heavy metals and a carbon layer for organics. The jury is still out on whether drinking a high proportion of distilled/RO water is bad for you, but tentatively the evidence says yes [stackexchange.com]. Plus the ceramic is way cheaper per gallon and doesn't waste water.
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Re: Better solution... (Score:2)
Pure water will leech nutrients and minerals from your body and you end up peeing them out.
Lots of people keep repeating this, but there is no good evidence for it. You'll pee out some minerals regardless of what kind of water you're drinking, but there isn't going to be a significant difference between tap water, filtered water, and RO water.
The reason for this is pure water is considered a universal solvent. It will bond with pretty much anything
You can remove the word "pure" and that statement still holds. Your counters don't suddenly become cleaner if you spill distilled water on them instead of tap water. This kind of magical thinking almost makes me think of homeopathy. You're not going to c
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Screwing up the osmotic gradient on your cells is a real thing, and this is how water poisoning occurs.
Of course, that's an acute effect, not a chronic one. You don't usually chug a couple gallons of water in nothing flat, do you?
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but there isn't going to be a significant difference between tap water, filtered water, and RO water.
Because you are used to us supplements. Which most people don't.
The deadly dose of destilled water is surprisingly low ...
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Don't buy stupid fridges with waste-of-space features like water dispensers. Get a good reverse-osmosis system to mount by your kitchen sink
I see you have completely failed to understand the purpose of a fridge and its use.
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Ice is stupid anyway.
Hard to make a decent cocktail without it.
But don’t buy the GE cocktail shaker - I hear it won’t dispense your cocktail unless you’ve made it using GE-dispensed ice.
Isn't GE Appliances now Chinese? (Score:2)
Isn't GE Appliances now Chinese? As in owned lock, stock and barrel by Hier?
Regardless, I still have my 90's vintage Frigidaire made in USA.. it don't *care* what filter is in there, if I press the water trigger, waters comes out. The only time it fails is when there's no power or water, duh.
Wow we have truly reached peak stupid. Individuals may have higher IQs than in the past, but empirical evidence points at people as a whole being massively stupid and getting worse with every passing year, with every
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From wikipedia: On June 6, 2016, Haier & KKR acquired GE Appliances for $5.6 billion. Under the terms of the sale Haier would have the right to use the GE brand name until 2056.
Haier has several other companies under its umbrella: GE, GE Profile, Café, Monogram, Haier and Hotpoint.
I just bought a smart water heater from Home Depot (Score:5, Interesting)
I actively did not want a "smart" water heater. But surprisingly it was 20% cheaper than the IDENTICAL model without the smarts.
I'm still trying to figure this out. I see two possibilities. One is that no one wanted these vulnerable IOT vectors on their home network so they had to discount them. I'm hoping for that. But the alternative is that somehow they are monetizing the time series of my use or something else much worse like peeping at my network.
When I there's a comparable non-smart water heater what do I mean? If you have ever worked on fixing your own water heater you know they are really simple and the design hasn't changed in 50 years. (not exaggerating). The smart ones are just the old ones with a few sensors and a wifi strapped on. Sensors detect moisture and temperature. that's it!!!!!!! the actual power circuit isn't part of it. So they are no different bu do have some added sensors and a wifi.
so no reason they should be cheaper. Yet they are. massively so.
These smart toasters are just some sort of cancer you cna purchase for your house.
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Damn, I remember there was a series of videos on Youtube from a man who would smash old computers, furniture, well just about every consumer product under the sun really. All while making moronically funny rants*. I loved the channel, it was one of my favorite guilty pleasures.
This guy was smashing a Commodore PET which I wasn't very happy about, but he was ranting "Come on' you are supposed to be smarter than me" as he continued demolishing it with a golf club.
I would like to do the same w
Frak toasters! (Score:2)
They have plans! :P
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Or if its was a normally stocked item and you had to special order the plain dumb version, it will almost always be more markup on non-stocked items.
I know what gave them the idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Some new product manager over at GE trying to prove himself got printer-cartridge envy.
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probably the same guy in charge of East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming...
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No smart appliances for me (Score:4, Insightful)
And this is why. I donâ(TM)t need my fridge, toaster, oven, etc connected to the internet. No one does.
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This has nothing to do with internet-connected devices. This is an RFID chip in the filter, which is read by the refrigerator, just like Keurig 2.0 coffee machines check for RFID tags in the coffee pods.
GE Appliances is a WOS of Chinese giant Haier (Score:5, Informative)
Just a friendly reminder, GE Appliances is a Wholy Owned Subsidiary of Chinese giant Haier. The sale was done in the mid '00
For what is worth
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I thought Haier was Chinese for "HP" - and that they had introduced a new money-making idea that they could use with their "ink cartridges".
Not a problem (Score:3)
I've been using the filter bypass in my Samsung refrigerator ever since we were done with the filter it came with.
There's no way I'm paying inflated prices for OEM filters that "expire" multiple times per year. Instead, I just got a cheap Culligan under-sink filter at a big box store and put it on the water line to the fridge.
The cartridges cost less than $20 and last a full year. They have 10X the capacity of the OEM refrigerator filters and half the price, for 75% to 95% savings, depending on whether time or capacity is the limiter. Even if I used knockoff Samsung-compatible filters in the fridge from questionable Amazon vendors at 1/3 the price of OEM, it would still cost more than the external filter. (This is the scenario GE seems to be aiming at with its DRM chips.)
The cheap under-sink system probably isn't the most effective filter on the market, but our city water is already pretty good, and the filter removes all the chlorine taste. (I think Culligan also sells better cartridges for the system at somewhat higher price points.)
question (Score:2)
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It comes with a 'dummy' filter that just plumbs in-pipe to out-pipe. So your options are to pay excessively for branded, chipped filters, or else to have no filter at all. The 'fuck you valve' is in the fridge, not the filter.
The hacks all involve putting a generic filter in place, then removing the chip from that dummy filter and fixing it somewhere near to the RFID sensor. So the fridge sees a dummy filter module, even though it's actually got a filter in place.
Water filters, an experience from Venezuela (Score:4, Interesting)
I live in Venezuela. As you may have heard, tap water here is not optimal.... In case you missed it, here is a relevant link:
https://science.slashdot.org/s... [slashdot.org]
I have a GE fridge (pre Haier aquisition), no RF stuff, simple MFW filter, and the filtration system has been a lifesaver here. Here, normal water filtration cartridges are not certified, but the GE ones are. The trick here is to use dual filtration. First I use an APS217 equivalent filter that I can find in Venezuela with few problems, cheap and cheerfull. This (I hope) converts the crappy Venezuelan tap water to Crappy American tap water equivalent. Then comes the expensive MFW one inported from the USoA in the frige*.
Being that I had bariatric surgery, if anything nasty were in the watter, i would end up in the E.R., but thus far (since 2004 with fridge, since 2012 with surgery) everythig A-OK.
A word about water filters. Maintenance of the filter is vital. After about 6 months or a certain number of liters, the activated charcoal (which is the main "ingredient" of the filter) loses most of its adsorbent capacity (its capacity to retaing the chemicals in the water) and also acts as a settlement point for bacteria, and as the filter gets cloged with particles, the water pressure will be lower and more particles will be able to pass by random chance... also, if you leave a filter installed for too long, or install it incorrectly, the gaskets may fail, and the filter could leak. Believe it or not, there are people who make mistakes (don't we all from time to time?) during installation and have their filters leak.
So, I see where GE is comming from, trying to to make sure that you install the filter in the right position, and that you change it when it need to be changed (neither sooner not later) by using and RFID chip, and that you use quality filters**. So the are actually protecting the clueless. Of course, the fact that you have to use their expensive filters is just icing on the cake for them...
If you use the hack described in one of the links, using the RFID chip of the bypass, the fridge will not keep a tally of the time the filter has been in operation or the # liters filtered. Also, you can not be sure that the filter is a quality filter (being that GE is a magnet for class action lawsuits in case the claims in the filter are not true, I guess GE Apliances will be more carefull with their filters than "Bob&Al's discount filters for 'chiap'"). If you are capable of doing all of that yourself, all the power to you.
Myself, I love the convenience of the little led in the fridge's door telling me is time to change it, and already did my homework about filter brands, price and certification... Did you see how the author of the Hack went to the cheaper priced filters without regards for certifications? Most people are like that. If you stay in the walled garden of GE, you know you will get (expensive) quality filters.
The hack's author first recomendation was only NSF 42, while the second One was NSF 42 and 53. He never mentioned NSF 401, for example, let alone more stringent standards... for things like this:
https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
And talking about ripoffs, an original MFW filter in a Venezuelan store (not afiliated with GE) costs U$D100! In a USoA store (say, bestbuy) or at Amazon, it costs about U$D50. The Amazon Basics ones cost about U$D 25 (depending on NSF certifications), but some sleuthing, related to me checking the NSF certification # of my amazon filters, led me to the same filters for only U$D 15 (not amazon branded, but from the same factory).
If I had to do my filtration system again, knowing what I know now, I'd go for a fridge with no Ice maker or water dispenser, but I would replicate a similar (but more modern) setup under the sink. A f
As If IT Were Only Yesterday (Score:3)
... In fact, it WAS only yesterday when /. ran a link to a fictional story from Cory Doctorow about an IoT toaster that required the user to use the approved brand of bread.
https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
Ice Maker (Score:2)
To all the Internet of Things Fans... (Score:2)
Are you happy now, you fucking numpties?
Anybody who believes this is as bent over and bum-blasted as consumers who buy this kind of crap are going to get hasn't been paying attention to what's happened to personal privacy and consumer rights and in the past 30 years. About the only adage still standing is "caveat emptor". Sadly, idiots who buy appliances that have access to the internet are too stupid to understand what that means.
Filter earlier (Score:2)
Why feed your fridge dirty water to begin with? You should install a filter before the fridge. (Ideally a big one that covers all your water uses.)
Fuck this world (Score:2)
Re: Its not DRM it is time keeping. (Score:3)
Does your nanny still tell you when you have to go to the bathroom?
Re: Its not DRM it is time keeping. (Score:3)
My fridge simply has a button that you press to reset when you replace the filter. Months later, a light comes on telling you to replace it. Alternatively, as the filter ages the water flow drops significantly, so it is easy to tell when you need to replace it. No chips needed, generic filters off Amazon work great for 1/3 the price.
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So we're throwing more electronics in the landfill just to skip having a reset button in the fridge?! In what universe is that a good idea?!
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So the argument here is that you get to enjoy 1 less button-pressing every 6 months. That convenience costs you an extra $32 per filter, and the inability to dispense water until you pay it.
How innovating.
Re: (Score:2)
What is "anti-customer" about knowing when the filter is replaced on time
The fact that the time is completely arbitrary based on some expected amount of usage, And in fact will likely last much longer than the "6 months", because they have to make a ridiculous overestimate of the amount of usage to come up with that 6 months number to tell everyone; Number of gallons that can pass through the charcoal filter before its pores starts getting clogged and the flow rate goes down, and effectiveness decrea
Re:Its not DRM it is time keeping. (Score:4)
it is anti-customer to disable the customer's property. it is anti-customer to force buying a filter that is overpriced by a factor of three.
For over a century filters of all kinds have been replaced as needed by inspection and by standards enabling market choice.
Re: (Score:2)
My central air informs me when the filter needs changing too. Then I change the filter and press a button on the touch screen. No chip on the filter, just press a button.
Interesting how the GE fridge "just happens" to refuse to dispense water or ice at all unless you use a "genuine" GE filter with the chip that costs 4x more than the same filter without a chip.
So if the GE didn't absolutely refuse to dispense water AND it had a way to tell it to restart the timer using a generic filter, you would have a poi
Re: Not recommended? (Score:2)
I guess that's the difference between living in a state where government is actually doing things for the people (gasp >>) and a state like Michigan where Rethuglican leaders are just screwing the residents.
The only difference I can see is that you get to feel superior and act like a jackass based on your political/ideological beliefs. Water quality in Michigan is great overall; one city had some serious problems. Providing drinking water is a municipal responsibility and - surprise surprise - that city has been controlled by the democrats for at least 40 years.