[Nextgrid]

Why is there no user-facing firmware update/recovery feature, so that at least tech-savvy users can resolve the issue themselves? Or a reset feature that reverts to the factory firmware located on a separate, read-only chip?

Ah yes, it's to prevent people downgrading or running "unauthorized" firmware when they inevitably start adding user-hostile "features".

[wubbert]

A better question is, why do microwave ovens now need internet connections and software updates?

[anonymousiam]

I have a new "smart home" with a couple of GE convection ovens that are Internet-connected. In the 2+ years that I've owned them, I've never used the Internet control features. The ONE feature that might make Internet connectivity useful would be setting the clock. Unfortunately, the clocks cannot be set or updated via the Internet. WORTHLESS!

[sizzle]

This is what is wrong with IoT, the one obvious feature that would end the annoying song and dance of updating daylight savings time on appliance displays, isn't even a offered. Do these old school appliance companies do a shred of user research?

[zepearl]

About clocks:

I hate to have to change the time of the oven twice a year. It annoys me :P

I have a nice, cheap, small alarm clock by my bed which gets the current time over air (some sort of radio signal, probably https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_clock ) => works great, in the past it maybe needed up to 30 minutes or so to do an initial update of its time after a change of batteries, but then it always worked perfectly.

Why aren't more appliances using that? Shouldn't even an oven, maybe having a small antenna embedded in its front, be able to get that signal?

[pixl97]

I have a whirlpool 'smart' oven and it does appear to use internet time, or at least the time from the app.

About the only thing it's useful for is to remind me when its preheated.

[ncmncm]

Whirlpool refrigerators are designed so that the light inside fails after a year, requiring replacing a >$100 power controller board. If you let your thing connect to the internet, it will be able to dispense with actually burning out a part, and can just stop working under program control.

[no-s]

>Whirlpool refrigerators are designed so that the light inside fails after a year, requiring replacing a >$100 power controller board.

I’ve run into several microwave controllers with a similar misfeature. All used the same controller board despite being different makes and models. The part that controlled the light was a plug-in board on the controller and a short in the light socket could blow a diode on it. Bad design since burnt out incandescent bulbs often fail with a short. The plug-in replacement cost ~$8, but nobody seems to stock it, only The whole controller board at ~$175.

[belval]

That seems excessively evil, so the fridge breaks if you don't connect it to the Internet?

[ncmncm]

My (Whirlpool brand) fridge has no ability to connect, and broke.

I took out the power controller board, unsoldered the two resistors that burned and put on higher wattage rated resistors. The light sort-of works now: it makes several seconds to turn on, dunno why.

Probably the right fix would be to replace the board with a custom design with just a little transformer and a diode.

[narrator]

Your smart oven failing to work when your country is sanctioned could also be a feature.

[thebeardisred]

To this day I wish things like WWV (https://www.nist.gov/pml/time-and-frequency-division/time-di...) worked better. Folks from Ninja Networks attempted to use something like that on their DEFCON 17 badges (https://www.wired.com/2009/08/hacking-the-defcon-17-badges/) but it required folks to be stationary too long to sync time.

Seeing as most major appliances are stationary it would have struck me as a good fit (with the exception of time zones / DST).

[gumby]

> but it required folks to be stationary too long to sync time.

I don't understand this constraint as it was possible to buy wristwatches that could do this back in the early 1990s and probably earlier (that was when I saw one for the first time).

[toast0]

Wristwatches often have at least sometime outdoors where signal propigation is going to be way better.

[jws]

A model number search reveals that it can be controlled by Google voice commands and there is an app which presumably does something.

It is a high end (costs 12x what I paid for my last microwave) with browning elements. If that is the device you cook with you are probably wanting more out a microwave than a single big red button that says “+30 seconds” on the front. Programming your defrost, cook, and browning cycle is probably nicer on an app.

[Nextgrid]

I don't disagree, but at least if you're going to be putting software on there, do it properly and leave an escape hatch.

[rasz]

Gives them opportunity to force some kind of MRR on you. Newspaper subscription for fridge mounted screen, recipes subscription for ovens, sky is the limit.

[jhbadger]

Obviously this is a good example of what can go wrong with it, but there is a real benefit to updating software in an appliance, just as there is in say, a gaming console. It used to be that when a console or appliance was shipped, that was it. If there were bugs, there were bugs. Couldn't be helped. Now bugs can be fixed.

[noveltyaccount]

I have a few Bosch appliances internet-connected. Getting a push notification when the fridge/freezer door is open is nice if you're not near enough to hear the unit beeping. And when a timer elapses on the cooktop I get a push - again, nice if I'm not within earshot.

[DougN7]

I’m uncomfortable being out of earshot/sight of the cooktop while it’s on. What if a fire starts?

[noveltyaccount]

Simmering rice on induction doesn't worry me in the least

[k_sze]

“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” - Ian Malcolm, Jurassic Park

[apexalpha]

I mean I can think of a few options:

- Pre heat oven remotely

- Check on the food remotely

- Have (and update) settings for specific food?

I mean it's not the worst thing to connect online.

[zepearl]

I would never ever dare to preheat remotely (and having an open Internet connection that has the potential to allow that would be a nightmare for me).

My current owen actually forces me to at least open once the hatch before allowing it to be switched on (I guess that it's to force me to check if anything was previously left inside).

[currency]

Being able to turn on cooking appliances remotely couldn't possibly go wrong[0].

/sarcasm

[0]https://www.nfpa.org/Public-Education/Fire-causes-and-risks/...

[blacksmith_tb]

Agreed, the only useful connected functions I can imagine are "isOvenOn?" and "turnOvenOff" but even then I would be nervous about relying on either...

[wil421]

My wife and I both work from home and a lot of times have meetings up until 5. It would be nice to be able to start the oven so I could get my kids food into a preheated oven right at 5.

[jandrese]

Who preheats a microwave oven?

[rainsil]

It's a combination microwave/convection oven.

[criddell]

Also voice controls, although these days you should be able to do that on the device.

[JasonFruit]

They most emphatically do not need them, but they have them nonetheless.

[dangerface]

How else do you automate the hot pocket delivery system. What is this 2010? Do you expect me to order hot pockets myself like some sort of pleb?

[kurthr]

Also, where is the cannon/trebuchet attachment!

Hot Pockets are aerodynamically designed to be delivered directly to the mouth for most destructive effect. Short (napalm like cheese), medium (gaseous effect), and long term (myocardial infarction) impacts are improved at higher ordinance deliver rates.

[goldenkey]

When hotpockets are on a bagel, you can have hotpockets anytime!

[jaywalk]

It's probably more about cost savings than anything else. Why add a USB port and the associated functionality required to do manual updates when it's got a fantastic remote update capability?

[jjulius]

To be fair, if we're talking about cost savings, it would be a lot cheaper if they didn't bother with paying devs to push firmware updates to a fucking microwave that should just work on it's own.

[Nextgrid]

It doesn't need extra hardware. Most routers have some rudimentary TFTP boot mode that can be accessed by powering it up while holding a certain button. The device already has Wi-Fi, so the same mechanism can be used - if powered up in recovery mode, it'll scan for a specific SSID and then TFTP boot from a specific IP on there.

[gpvos]

The percentage of microwave users that could perform such a trick rounds down to zero.

[rootusrootus]

Eh, I think you're being uncharitable. My 80 year old mother could definitely figure out how to hold down a button while turning the thing off and on. We've been living with some version of that reality for decades.

[ajford]

I wonder if that percentage of tech-savvy "elderly" is going up over time. I know I remember hearing that about anything computer related 20 years ago, but many of the people in the upper age ranges now lived with computers for a majority of their life.

My grandma is not tech savvy, but can follow directions pretty well. My spouse's grandma is tech savvy to a certain level and manages her own computer and photo library. I know either of them would likely be able to hold down a button and follow some set of directions to join a wifi and upload a file.

[mauvehaus]

25 years ago, we were all bitching about having to program our parents' VCR for them. In 25 more years we'll be asking a teenager how to get TikTok beamed directly into our brains like they're doing.

[gpvos]

Also to set up a wifi network with a particular SSID and a device on that that runs a TFTP server?

[rootusrootus]

My mom is pretty adept with her iPad. If she was instructed to download an app, load it, and then stand in the kitchen after doing the button-push on the microwave, it would be completely within her ability. She knows what a wifi network is, she knows the password for hers. She is definitely slowing down a bit with age, but she rarely requires me to come over and help her with such things, at most she just asks for more confirmation these days before she says yes to a prompt.

That last part could also be because I harp on it every time the topic comes up, that under no circumstances should she be answering yes or ok to any random prompts that she isn't very familiar with already, and please call me if she's at all questioning the legitimacy of what she sees.

[Zancarius]

If it has a companion app for a phone (which this appears to be), you could easily have the phone do this for you. Not unlike setting up a wifi hotspot.

Just have support walk them through a menu on their phone for an "advanced" feature they just tap on, then hold the button on the microwave. Voila!

(Granted, I did tech support long enough to know this isn't easy; if someone can follow instructions, however, it should be doable.)

[Nextgrid]

So is the percentage of router users... and yet those debug modes are there because they cost nothing and can be useful in "oh shit" moments like these.

[macintux]

A router being down is potentially catastrophic for a household/business. Certainly more important (under most circumstances) than a microwave oven.

[sebazzz]

True, but is still easier than to replace the PCB or the entire unit. A technician might need 15 minutes to do the procedure.

[aeyes]

As a consumer I want a button which I can press for 10 seconds to reset the device to how it came out of the box. That should include any firmware updates because remote bricking happens all the time.

[ChrisRR]

Or more likely because that costs money to implement

"never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"

[someotherperson]

That's on a personal level. As far as companies go, it should be "never attribute to stupidity which is adequately explained by malice."

This also goes for assuming good faith -- when companies reach a certain size, the mantra instead becomes "always assume bad faith."

[jjulius]

>Or more likely because that costs money to implement

Kinda like how paying devs to push firmware updates to a damn microwave costs a lot more money than making a microwave that just works and doesn't need OTA updates?

[pixl97]

Yes, but you cant sell the 'regular' microwave for more because its special. And there is no way to sell marketing data with a regular microwave.

[yk]

I agree, the actual question is, why don't run they point of cooking ads already?

[beeboop]

I'm personally waiting for DRM protected hot pockets, to know I'm getting genuine Hot Pockets (TM) in every bite.

[buildbot]

They honestly probably didn't think of it, or it was the lowest priority in Jira.