When Will Your Smart Appliance Turn Dumb? A Lack of Transparency Leaves Consumers in the Dark

This post was updated on September 27, 2024. At the time of writing, Vissani did not make smart appliances, but on September 26, the company announced a connected freezer. The freezer works through The Home Depot’s Hubspace app, which is made by a company called Afero.

Consumers are spending thousands of dollars purchasing connected appliances, but in most cases, appliance makers don’t tell them how long their products will stay securely connected to the internet. Which means that those fancy AI features or tablets on the front of the family fridge may stop working before the appliance itself does or become a risk to the security of your home network. 

Consumer Reports’ cybersecurity testing team evaluated the policies of 21 major appliance brands to discover that only three brands actually tell consumers how long they guarantee updates to their appliances’ software and applications. An additional four (all owned by Whirlpool) say they will provide updates and will notify users of updates, but do not provide a specific time frame over which they will provide updates.

An astonishing six brands don’t share any of their update policies. The rest of the brands offer vague mentions of updates, but don’t provide details. Two brands don’t make smart appliances.

Appliances may last a decade, their software may not

This is a problem. When someone spends a few thousand dollars on a top of the line refrigerator or washing machine, they expect it to last a long time. Recent survey data from Consumer Reports’ nationally representative Right to Repair Survey of 2,154 U.S. adults (August 2024) shows that consumers expect their large appliances to last an average of 12 years. Two in five Americans (38%) said a large appliance should reasonably last more than ten years. Another two in five (40%) said it should last exactly ten years.

However, none of the manufacturers we analyzed make any clear statements that they would support a connected product for the ten years that most consumers expect them to.

The longest any of the two appliance makers who have actual policies around software support promise to keep the smart features up to date is for five years. According to a spokesman, GE Appliances (which owns the GE and Fisher Paykel brands) will provide updates and support for GE Appliances and GE Appliances software two years from the original purchase date or five years from the appliances’ launch date, whichever is longer. To access this information, a consumer must download GE’s SmartHQ app and click through to the app’s End User Licensing Agreement.

Vissani, an appliance brand sold at The Home Depot, offers users connectivity through The Home Depot’s Hubspace app. This application is made by a company called Afero, which does have a robust software support policy. In Afero’s policy it promises to provide support for devices connected with its software for a minimum of 2 years after product launch. It also says it “intends to support devices for longer than that period if feasible.” It further promises that if the product manufacturer allows it, Afero will let users know a year in advance, via a message on its web site, that the product support will end.

This policy is better than most manufacturers we looked at, but it is hard to find. A consumer cannot find this information in Vissani’s publicly-facing policies or in the Hubspace consumer-facing policies. They have to look on Afero’s website, and know that Afero is the company providing the back-end software for Hubspace.

To get most of the support information from appliance makers, we had to email the companies — something that may not work for the average consumer. Additionally, statements made in a public-facing document are considered legally binding by regulators like the Federal Trade Commission. An email from a company representative to a press inquiry may not be reliable.

Asking doesn’t always work for Consumer Reports either. In the case of Sub Zero, the spokesman refused to provide any information saying that as a private company, this information is not public. “The brand simply does not discuss cyber security details beyond what is already publicly disclosed,” said the spokeswoman. 

Kenmore provided a different type of non answer, with a spokesman saying, “The Kenmore App is supported as originally launched.  While we continue to update the app, there are no plans to discontinue any of the functions at this time.” IKEA, and Viking do not currently have any connected large appliances on the market yet, so the lack of policies are understandable. For what it is worth, IKEA does share how long it plans to support its smart home hub and related products with security updates on its web site.

Consumers are paying more for less

This refusal to disclose how long a consumer can expect their connected appliances to stay secure and retain the exciting software-based functions that a consumer may have paid extra for is an example of how efforts to turn everyday devices into internet-connected computers have left a regulatory loophole that allows manufacturers to infringe on a consumers’ ability to to truly own a product.

Consumer Reports has called out how the use of software in consumer electronics and appliances tethers those products to their manufacturers, and how such software tethering can infringe on consumers’ rights, in a letter last week to the Federal Trade Commission. One of the things we asked the FTC to create guidelines around, was requiring companies to set minimum guaranteed support time frames for connected devices. 

This time frame would represent how long a company planned to provide functional and security software updates for the software and applications associated with a connected device. The security updates are of particular importance because when products are connected to the internet, they are vulnerable to an ever changing array of attacks. As new attacks or vulnerabilities are discovered, manufacturers of connected devices must update those products to ensure they stay secure. When manufacturers stop supporting security updates, Consumer Reports recommends disconnecting those products from the internet. That lack of connectivity can result in some features or functions disappearing from the device.

And consumers should know when this potential loss of features or functions will happen before they plunk down their hard-earned cash on a device or appliance. Only when consumers can see how long a manufacturer plans to stand by a connected product can they make an informed decision about what they are spending their money on. Absent this information, a consumer could spend thousands on a large appliance, only for the features they rely on to stop working in a few years.

This is not a new issue, and it’s past time for manufacturers and governments to ensure that when a consumer buys a connected product, they understand what they are getting into. Consumers have been buying fridges, washing machines and ovens with connectivity and smarts for almost a decade now. Samsung announced its first connected fridge — the T9000 LCD — at CES in 2013. The fridge had an Android tablet and connected to the internet using Wi-Fi. Consumers could use the screen to add items to a grocery list and check the weather, although at the time, there were a lot of questions as to why someone might want those features. 

As of 2022 approximately one in five Americans owned some type of connected large appliance, according to a nationally representative survey of 2,084 U.S. adults (PDF) conducted by Consumer Reports in October 2022. These appliances include washing machines, clothes dryers, refrigerators, ranges, cooktops, built-in microwaves, dishwashers, and wall ovens. 

That number is expected to grow as appliance companies continue to embrace connectivity and software. At the IFA annual trade show for the appliance industry this month, the focus was on adding AI to appliances to help consumers meal plan, manage their laundry and cook better food. But before anyone commits to a purchase of a smart appliance, manufacturers must commit to supporting them for the long haul.

Without these commitments, buying a smart appliance may become a dumb decision.

Methodology and rankings

To understand appliance makers’ end of life and software update policies we used an AI service that Consumer Reports developed to evaluate appliance makers’ publicly-facing documents such as their terms of service, privacy policies and online resources against the following rubric:

0.5 – The company only provides the length of the limited warranty of the product, or it is vaguely or indirectly stated that product support exists. 

1.5 –  (Either) The company makes indirect mention of product support or updates (With or without the inclusion of a limited warranty), but there is no defined time period. The company has a clear statement that future updates may cause the device to stop working. 

2.5 – The company makes clear mention that they provide product or technical support.

3.5 – The company clearly claims that they will provide firmware updates for the product, but there is no defined time period. 

4.5 – The company clearly claims that they will provide support and or firmware updates for the product, but there is no defined time period. The company states that users will receive a notification of update. 

5.5 – The company provides the user with a hard deadline of product support or product life. The support period is clearly and intentionally defined.   

NF – “Not Found.” This indicates that no references were found about the specific criterion being evaluated.  Effectively this is the worst case scenario and score this as a zero. In the case of IKEA, and Viking the policies were not found because the companies don’t make smart appliances.

We then followed up on those results by having a researcher search the web and publicly facing documents for the same information. Then our researcher emailed all of the listed companies to ask about their end of life and software update policies. Not every company responded, so when that occurred we went with the results of the public-facing document search. This happened with 9 companies.

If a company responded we used their statements against the rubric above to score their results as seen below. Please note that appliances achieving the highest score only have to provide a time frame for their planned software support, which could result in a company that only provides a year of support getting a score of 5.5. Consumer Reports would like to see companies provide support for a period of time that is commensurate with the expected life of the product, but our scoring methodology has to cover a wide range of product types, which means consumers should use their discretion. Transparency is the first step.