Follow Slashdot stories on Twitter

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror
×
Technology

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."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

GE Fridges Won't Dispense Ice Or Water Unless Your Water Filter 'Authenticates' Via RFID Chip

Comments Filter:
  • by paralumina01 ( 6276944 ) on Friday January 24, 2020 @08:26PM (#59653868)
    Can't even get a drink of ice water from the fridge without DRM. Ain't it grand?
    • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Friday January 24, 2020 @08:28PM (#59653874)

      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...

      • Ours will too. This is just one brand. Nice straw though.
    • Fuck them all.

    • 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?

    • 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 ... ]

  • by dgatwood ( 11270 ) on Friday January 24, 2020 @08:34PM (#59653900) Homepage Journal

    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.

    • 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.

    • "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.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by EvilSS ( 557649 )

      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.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by Cederic ( 9623 )

        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?

      • 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.

    • 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.

    • I find it hard to believe someone would die from drinking tap water unless they're in Flint, MI or somewhere with a similarly tainted water supply, and standard water filters don't filter lead anyway as far as I know.
      • Correction: that was my insulated point of view, I read some other comments, I wasn't thinking about third world countries.
  • Better solution... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by An0nYm0u5c0wArD ( 6251996 ) on Friday January 24, 2020 @08:36PM (#59653904)

    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.

    • by darthsilun ( 3993753 ) on Friday January 24, 2020 @08:56PM (#59653962)

      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.

    • 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.

      • by CaffeinatedBacon ( 5363221 ) on Friday January 24, 2020 @10:52PM (#59654190)

        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.

      • I have the impression that this fridge thing is an ersatz religion for americans.
        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 :P and no ice dispenser, I don't drink ice in drinks. The few ice I need is in the freezing compartment.
        And probably you would be even more scared to see how empty the fridge is.

        • 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.

        • by Cederic ( 9623 )

          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.

    • by hey! ( 33014 ) on Friday January 24, 2020 @09:32PM (#59654026) Homepage Journal

      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.

      • I don't have an ice dispenser on my fridge. That probably makes me a socialist in a lot Americans' eyes...

        Oh, grow up. It ain't that.

        • by hey! ( 33014 )

          It certainly has nothing to do with the labor theory of value or production for use.

          • 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.

      • 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'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

        • 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

          • 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

            • by hawk ( 1151 )

              >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

      • 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.

      • 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.

    • by mschaffer ( 97223 ) on Friday January 24, 2020 @09:47PM (#59654054)

      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.

      • If you want a superior fridge, buy a chest freezer and change the thermostat. It will use about 10% of the leccy of a normal upright fridge: https://www.newlifeonahomestea... [newlifeonahomestead.com]
        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          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.

          • 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.

            • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

              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.

        • All true, but chest fridges/freezers are fucking awful to deal with, things get piled on top of each other and invariably what you want is at the bottom. We got rid of our large chest freezer just last year.
    • by Vanyle ( 5553318 )
      Just run your RO system to your fridge, then you have cold and clean water.
    • by piojo ( 995934 )

      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.

      • by Cyberax ( 705495 )
        There are RO systems with remineralization cartridges. They produce clean and tasty water. I used one on Hawaii (Maui), since the tap water there is full of chalk and tastes off.
    • 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.

    • 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? 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

    • by gtall ( 79522 )

      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.

  • by goombah99 ( 560566 ) on Friday January 24, 2020 @08:44PM (#59653930)

    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.

    • Hmmmm. I just had a hot water heater installed. I didnt even see 'smart' models except for very high end and instant systems. Either you have super high end local ordinances, or you got fucked.
    • 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

    • They have plans! :P

    • If it was an energy saving smart water heater, the savings were probably funded by your local electric company or government, like some led light bulbs.

      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.
  • by AlanObject ( 3603453 ) on Friday January 24, 2020 @08:52PM (#59653948)

    Some new product manager over at GE trying to prove himself got printer-cartridge envy.

    • probably the same guy in charge of East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming...

    • GE appliances are just a licensed name now, it's Chinese company owned since 2016. Just like RCA, Magnavox, Westinghouse, forget any goodwill that name once had and pick another brand.
  • by djp2204 ( 713741 ) on Friday January 24, 2020 @08:54PM (#59653956)

    And this is why. I donâ(TM)t need my fridge, toaster, oven, etc connected to the internet. No one does.

    • 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.

  • by williamyf ( 227051 ) on Friday January 24, 2020 @09:30PM (#59654022)

    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

    • 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".

  • by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Friday January 24, 2020 @09:35PM (#59654028)

    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.)

  • Honest question: Does it force you to change the filter or can you just drill a hole through the filter without disturbing the chip and use that forever?
    • Yes you could do that, but then you obviously don't get filtered water, a feature that you paid money for. CEOs of companies that pull crap like this need to be put against a wall and blindfolded.
    • 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.

  • by williamyf ( 227051 ) on Friday January 24, 2020 @10:56PM (#59654202)

    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

  • by kenwd0elq ( 985465 ) <kenwd0elq@engineer.com> on Friday January 24, 2020 @11:39PM (#59654272)

    ... 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]

  • I owned a Sears brand fridge with an ice maker.I bought it 'cause the one I had stopped working and didn't want to toss all my food. I had to drill a hole through the wall to access a hosebibb (faucet) to attach a water line, buy the copper tubing to go to the ice maker, etc. The thing overflowed so I shut off the water supple and used ice cube trays instead.
  • 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.

  • 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.)

  • Why the FUCK do we have to hack our stuff to keep it working? Fuck this world.

"It takes all sorts of in & out-door schooling to get adapted to my kind of fooling" - R. Frost

Working...