Purple People Eater Pieces

A Frightfully Fruitful Crumble From The Crypt

As we move closer to the best holiday of the year (no objections! - they'll just fall on deaf ears), it's time to start looking at creepy party recipes to feed a crowd of little ghouls, gremlins, goblins, or what have you.

Every year we try to conjure up at least one new spooky recipe. This year's is a dessert - purple people eater pieces.

It's a little bit pie and a little bit dump cake, and it's also a whole lot of mess if not carefully contained. So do be cautious in serving this one to littles or the spill-prone.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries

1/2 cup frozen dragon fruit

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup water

1 teaspoon lemon juice

1/4 teaspoon five spice

1 container refrigerated biscuit dough

Tools:

large covered pot or Dutch oven

bowl

spoon

measuring cups and spoons

knife

cutting board

Begin with your blueberries - just scoop them out into a bowl. Your measurement doesn't have to be exact. Just get somewhere in the ballpark of a cup and a half.

Add the dragon fruit pieces to the blueberries. We know dragon fruit is not something you find in the produce aisle on a regular basis, but even in the middle of nowhere we were able to pick some up frozen at a big box store. We've also had the opportunity to grab fresh dragon fruit at a local family grocery store. If you don't have the same luck, fear not! Any red- or pink-hued fruit can sub in. Strawberry, cherry, cranberry, pomegranate, guava... Just know the color may not be so vibrant. Dragon fruit is rather exceptionally in-your-face pink.

Measure in your brown sugar and your five spice. We know the five spice doesn't look like much, but just a little of this stuff makes an impact. You'll know it's there.

Dump the bowl into the dutch oven. Measure the water into the same bowl to take up as much of the sugar, spice and fruit juice as possible, and pour it over the fruit and spices in the pan.

Turn the heat on low and give everything in the pan a good stir. The sugar should dissolve right off the bat, but it will take a bit for everything to heat through.

While waiting for it to come up to a simmer, grab your biscuit dough and pop the container open. Split them apart and put them on the cutting board, and cut your biscuits into pieces. We start with roughly quarters, then trim down a little from there. In our experience, there's always one biscuit in the package that's about three times the size of the rest on one side and squished down paper thin on the opposite. That one gets cut into a great many awkwardly shaped chunks.

Give the contents of the pan one more good stir, then drop your funny-shaped biscuit pieces on top of the fruit mixture. From this point on, do not stir.

Once you have your biscuit dough on top of the fruit, increase the heat to medium-low. Cover the pan and allow it to simmer untouched for 15-20 minutes. Stay close to the pan - the smell is the best indicator of when it's done. If you can smell the fruit and spices getting fragrant without lifting the lid on the pan, it's close to done. If you have a clear glass lid that's not too fogged up, it should look syrupy between the pale biscuit pieces.

When you feel like it's ready, turn the heat off and lift the lid. Allow it to breathe and set for five minutes before serving.

Serve in heaping scoops, with or without a little ice cream.

As our spooky culinary adventure comes to a delicious conclusion, we hope you've enjoyed crafting and savoring "Purple People Eater Pieces" as much as we've relished sharing this unearthly treat with you. Let us know over on our Facebook page how it was received! 

Halloween is a time for enchanting flavors and mysterious gatherings, but it can also be a season of unexpected surprises. If, amid the spectral celebrations, you find yourself in need of a visit from one of our trusted repair technicians at Appliance Rescue Service, don't hesitate to reach out at our website or by giving us a call ((214) 599-0055). Just as we've crafted this bewitching dessert to delight your taste buds, our skilled technicians are ready to ensure your appliances continue to perform their culinary magic, ensuring your celebrations remain seamless and your spooky feasts flawless. Wishing you a hauntingly good time this Halloween season!

Additional Reading:

Chocolate Pecan Cake for a Special Date

Sweet Veggie Tropical Curry

Explaining the Basics of Appliance Recycling

Why It Matters To You And The Planet

Imagine a world where every home, every neighborhood, and every city makes a conscious choice towards a greener, more sustainable future. A world where your old appliances, once destined for the scrapyard, find new life and purpose, reducing your energy bills, lessening the load on our aging power grids, and shielding our fragile environment from harm. This world isn't a distant dream; it's within reach, and the key to unlocking this greener reality lies in something you might have never considered - appliance recycling. In the pages ahead, we'll unravel the complexities of this vital practice and show you how, by recycling your appliances, you can become an eco-warrior, an economic champion, and a guardian of the planet. Welcome to the beginning of a journey towards a brighter, more sustainable tomorrow.

Unveiling Appliance Recycling: A Green Solution

Courtesy of Vlada Karpovich

Let's start by clarifying something: recycling, surprisingly, can mean a couple of different things when it comes to appliances. It might mean the resale or reusing of a unit, or it might mean the breaking down of the unit as far as possible and reselling the valuable scraps while everything else is sent on to a landfill. This second option is especially problematic, as it does not contain or safely dispose of the hazardous chemicals contained within the refrigerator. Our point here is that "recycling" can be a vague term that does not always line up with best environmental practices.

It is important to figure out how to recycle your appliances and how to do it safely, as the outcome is directly tied to your future health and that of everyone else. We all know that at this point.

The concept of reduce, reuse and recycle has probably been drilled into our collective consciousness for 30 plus years at this point - at least in the United States.

What most people don't know, though, is that recycling doesn't have to just be paying somebody else to take the appliance off your hands. In fact, there are several ways that recycling appliances can actually benefit you. By working with us through this four post series, we'll show you how you can benefit from recycling appliances, how the environment benefits, your partners you can look to in the process, and how to go about it.

Eco-Warriors Wanted: The Environmental Impact of Appliance Recycling

Now that we've told you why you want to be involved with recycling, let's take a look at the environmental impact of it.

The most obvious benefit of recycling household appliances is personal energy savings. The lower bill is nice, but especially nice is the knowledge that you're helping reduce overall usage in your area. 

Think of how often during the summer Texas has rolling brownouts because of the age of our electric grid. How often do you have to prioritize utilizing your washer versus running your air conditioner? Now think about if every household was able to switch over to modern, efficient, energy-saving appliances. Given that household appliances are among the biggest draws on the electric grid, you can see how beneficial this could be to Texas as a whole.

Now we won't say that industry, agriculture, entertainment venues or schools don't have their own impact on the grid. However, those things are much larger than our purview here at Appliance Rescue.

Recycling your major appliances allows for the recovery and reuse of materials. For every appliance that gets recycled and broken down, that's one less that has to be created from scratch. The energy isn't put into mining new materials from the Earth; the fuel isn't used for processing those materials. Instead, what has already been used can be reused, and the hard workers in our factories and appliance sections are still able to be paid.

Another benefit is that the recycling of these parts reduces the emission of harmful substances that negatively impact our ozone layer. 

In Texas, we are acutely aware of the heat every summer. You have days at a time where you're told "don't go outside if you can avoid it," because it is just that hot. We are more acutely aware of this than people in some of the farther north areas of the country. Part of the reason for the growing heat year-over-year is the impact we've already made on our ozone layer.

While we cannot go in-depth into all of the myriad things (both caused by humans and caused naturally by cycles within the Earth) that are affecting the ozone layer, we can say that the materials used within major appliances do affect it if allowed to just release into a landfill. If we could stop adding to that, we won't say that it's a miraculous cure for the heat - but it is one less step toward making it any hotter.

Another topic to consider is E-Waste. For the last decade or two, the concept of e-waste has started to filter into our understanding of recycling and issues with the environment.

Courtesy of Pixabay

Many of us wouldn't look at our appliances and think that they would be contributing to this problem. After all, e-waste is from things like cell phones, computers, tablets and gaming consoles - not your refrigerator or your oven, right?

Nope! As we shift towards smarter appliances, this means that your e-waste also includes your appliances. There are circuit boards within your stove. There are tablets built into your refrigerator. If you've got Wi-Fi connectivity, that requires its own set of bits and bobs built in, which means another layer to be conscious of when disposing of your appliances.

However, all of this e-waste contains valuable resources that can be reprocessed and reused. Metals, glass, plastics: all of these can be returned to a purified state and reused for making other materials, either for new appliances or for something else entirely.

Think back to science class as a kid. One day, if you were lucky, your teacher pulled out this beautiful silvery liquid to show the way that it could collect on surfaces, be manipulated, and then group back together easily at room temperature. And then, at the end of the display, you were told that although it looked like fun, it wasn't. It was definitely not something you could play with bare-handed because it would get into your skin, then into your bloodstream and from there into your brain.

Or maybe you remember learning about the story of Alice in Wonderland and the dark reasons why the Mad Hatter is mad in the first place.

Yes, we're talking about mercury. Mercury is in many older models of refrigerators; more of them than you might think. Unfortunately, when old refrigerators aren't recycled properly, that mercury does leech out of them and into the ground below. Then it works its way into the water, which then goes into the plants, on into animals... And while it does take time, just like microplastics, it eventually ends up in what you're eating. Even for all of our best attempts at eating organic, or fair trade, or vegan - without taking care of where materials are disposed of, it still circles back around. Everyone - elders from even the most isolated tribes all the way to scientists studying in their labs - will tell you on every level, everything is connected. Unfortunately, that means that if you feed the water table mercury, you will eventually be feeding it to yourself.

A final point to consider is that recycling major appliances or even minor ones as we'll cover in a later post, does not simply benefit you. It doesn't just benefit the planet. It also greatly impacts our economy in a positive way.

With the amount of trash that gets collected just in a single year, there is an amazing amount of job security. You need people to sort everything. You need people to handle the processing. You need people to handle extraction. All of these (and so many more) are necessary jobs that would not exist if not for recycling. More importantly, the industry can stand to grow further, given how little is actually being recycled as of right now.

By recycling your major appliances as a consumer, you are telling the industry as a whole that this is something that matters. You are saying that you want to ensure it continues, and that it is worth their time and resources to see it done more often or more thoroughly.

Not only do you support jobs when you recycle, you also support the creation of a circular economy. When things are broken, they have multiple options. Right now, you might look at it and see there are only two choices: take it to a landfill (and probably pay a fee), or call somebody like us and have it repaired.

But what about when it gets to the point that even our best technicians can't keep your appliances running any longer? It might not be that we don't know how to fix something, but instead that we don't have the materials or tools, or that the parts simply are not being made for this model any longer. At that point, a circular economy says, instead of sending this off to a landfill to become just another piece of garbage (taking up space and not having any use), the next step is to break it down. Take every single piece and material that we can out of this. Instead of having to purchase new, raw materials from a company that's going to rip them out of the Earth, we can reuse what we've already harvested. The circular economy is good for you the consumer, it's good for the economy of the United States, and it's good for the planet! Three wins in one.

Leading the Way: The Responsible Appliance Disposal (RAD) Program

If you've been paying attention, you might have noticed that at several points we touched on how few people or industries or companies recycle right now. We've also mentioned that recycling does not always mean the best environmental practices.That is where the Responsible Appliance Disposal, or RAD, program comes in.

They are a leader in responsible recycling practices. The RAD program was developed by the US environmental protection agencies partnership, launched in 2006 to protect our ozone, cut greenhouse gases and benefit communities like ours.

The RAD program recognizes partners all over the country who are committed to collecting and disposing of old appliances using the best practices. These partners are going well beyond what is currently required by federal law.

 They take on the responsibility to recover things like insolation foam out of  end-of-life appliances. They also collect the less efficient models of appliances from the secondary market. From here they work with recyclers to ensure that the materials are handled properly and broken down safely to comply with federal law. 

Together, we've uncovered the immense potential of appliance recycling and its profound impact on our world. As you embark on your journey towards a more sustainable lifestyle, remember that Appliance Rescue is here to support you every step of the way. When your faithful appliances are in need of care, trust our expert technicians to breathe new life into them, ensuring they serve you for years to come. Let's make recycling a part of our daily lives and embrace a future where both our planet and your appliances thrive. Join us in this eco-conscious mission, one repair at a time. 

You can reach out to us via our contact page or by giving us a call ((214) 599-0055). You can also connect with us on Facebook. 

Additional Resources For Things We’ve Mentioned Throughout :

Waste | Take Care of Texas

https://www.epa.gov/rad/responsible-appliance-disposal-rad-partners-affiliates-recyclers

Additional Reading: 

https://appliance-rescue-service.com/blog/appliance-disposal2023

The Labyrinth of Limescale

Understanding, Locating, and Conquering the Calcified Culprit

Scale, it's a word that carries an air of mystery and intrigue, a term that defines simplicity and demands a closer look. While it might seem like a dry term, the realm of scale is a multifaceted puzzle, filled with mineral deposits, intricate chemistry, and solutions waiting to be discovered. In this article, we’ll begin to explore the enigmatic world of scale, unravel its mysteries, understand its origins, and uncover the methods to combat it.

Unraveling the Enigma of Scale

The term "scale," according to Dictionary.com, is described as "a coating or incrustation, as on the inside of a boiler, formed by the precipitation of salts from the water." It's not the most straightforward definition, is it? However, Wikipedia offers a more tangible explanation: "Limescale is a hard, chalky deposit, consisting mainly of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). It often accumulates inside kettles, boilers, and pipework, especially in areas with hot water. You can also find it as a similar deposit on the inner surfaces of old pipes and other places where hard water has flowed."

Courtesy of MSDinc

It doesn’t sound that scary does it? But if you’ve dealt with it in your home you know that it’s a pain in the neck to try and combat. So, what does all of this mean? When rainwater goes into the ground, it dissolves minerals in the rock and carries them into your home's piping. In essence, scale is a stubborn buildup of minerals, primarily calcium carbonate, that tends to show up in various nooks and crannies of our daily lives, particularly in water-related installations.

Where Does This Mysterious Culprit Emerge?

Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Having delved into the nature of scale, let's explore where this frustrating substance tends to make its presence known. Brace yourself; scale can appear almost anywhere where water gathers. We're talking about pipes, showerheads, faucets, fixtures, the bottom of your water heater, the bathtub, the toilet, sinks, and even tiles in wet areas. It doesn't stop there; it can also find its way into small appliances like coffee makers and kettles, and even humidifiers. In short, scale has a knack for infiltrating and establishing its presence wherever moisture is abundant. If your home has hard water, such as if you’re living off a well, or at a country house, you’re in even more trouble as scale will show up in your dishwasher, your refrigerator, your steam oven, and your ice maker.

The Quest to Descale: An Odyssey of Solutions

Faced with this challenging issue, the question naturally arises – how can one rid their living spaces of this unwelcome guest? Vinegar and citric acid often serve as the first-line, natural solutions, calling back to simpler times when household remedies reigned supreme. Yet, the stubbornness of scale has given rise to an entire industry, offering a plethora of products and methods for descaling.

A simple online search for descaling products can bury you with in a mountain of choices. You'll find hardware stores offering innovative DIY installations and retail giants like Walmart providing pre-packaged solutions. Don't forget the trusty old CLR Rust Remover, a tried-and-true choice found on the shelves of Lowe's. There are dozens of options, and all of them have people who swear by them.

Two of our favorite techniques for descaling are vinegar or ice & salt.

Vinegar is a technique that takes a bit of time to see it work, but it’s effective. For your dishwasher, your washer or your coffee maker, you’ll want to run varying amounts through at least once, before rinsing them with an empty run of just water.

Dishwasher - Take a dishwasher-safe container and fill it with white vinegar. Set that on the top rack of your empty dishwasher and run a regular cycle to disperse the vinegar throughout, making sure that you don’t add any detergent to the machine.

Washer - Add 1 cup of white vinegar to an empty washing machine and run it as normal.

Courtesy of Wikimedia commons

Coffee Maker - For a 12 cup pot - Pour in 4 cups of undiluted vinegar and 6 cups of water to an empty reservoir. Let that sit for 30 minutes and then run a full brewing cycle. Dump the pot, and run the 2-3 more brewing cycles of just water until the smell of the vinegar is gone.

What if you need a cup of tea right now though? Or you need to boil water right now and your kettle is the fastest method? In that case, you can dump a large cup of ice into your kettle, pour ⅓ c of water and ¼ c of salt into the kettle. Swirl the kettle around vigorously until your ice is melted, and pour it out. If you regularly descale your kettle, this should do the trick. If not, you might need to repeat the process another time or two.

The Diverse Descale Demands

It's essential to remember that not all scales are created equal, and the methods to combat them should be equally diverse. Items that can be submerged, like dishes, glasses, showerheads, and removable faucet parts, can be soaked in vinegar or cleaning chemicals overnight and then cleaned to remove the scale. An effective trick is to run vinegar through your dishwasher on an empty one-hour cycle, a solution that has proven itself through personal experience.

Additionally, there's a thriving market for spray-on descalers, catering to those searching for quick, hassle-free solutions. The array of choices in this category can leave anyone feeling somewhat bewildered.

Conquering the Scale Beast: A Whole-House Approach

While we've explored individual solutions and targeted remedies, there's a compelling case to be made for a comprehensive approach to scale eradication. The idea of descaling your entire household's plumbing might sound like a formidable task, but it promises long-term freedom from scale's tyranny. A comprehensive guide from Landmark Home Warranty suggests such a technique, offering a detailed blueprint to tackle the scale epidemic at its roots. We can’t say whether it works or not, having not tried it ourselves, but if anyone out there has, we’d love to hear!

But what about the major appliances in your home? Your dishwasher, your water heater, and your washing machine are all at risk of falling prey to the scale. These appliances are not only essential but often expensive to replace. When scale infiltrates their systems, it can lead to decreased efficiency, increased energy consumption, and even costly breakdowns.

If you're facing issues with your major appliances due to scale buildup or any other problems, Appliance Rescue Service is here to help. Our team of experts specializes in appliance repair and maintenance, ensuring that your appliances run efficiently and smoothly. Don't let scale disrupt your daily life. Reach out to us at our website or give us a call at((214) 599-0055), and we'll take care of your appliance concerns. With our help, you can keep your appliances running like new and enjoy peace of mind in your home.

Additional Reading

Why Aren’t My Dishes Getting Dry?

Dishwasher Tips: Help Your Dishwasher Clean Better – Just in Time for the Holidays!

Icemaker Not Making Ice? This Could be Why

Ladle Love: Wholesome Potato Leek Soup Recipe

Discover the Cozy Comfort of Homemade Potato and Leek Soup

The colder the weather, the more likely we are to have soup on the table for lunch or dinner. We're sure you've heard it before, but we always do seem to transition to soup as a staple around November.

There are a great many types of soups to choose from, so we rarely feel bored with them. This one is hearty and heavy and sneaks in some veggies. Feel free to use it as a sauce over some grilled chicken if you prefer a larger portion of protein. As the recipe is here, if divided into eight servings, each serving will have just under five grams of protein. Anyone on a higher protein diet should make some tweaks.

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon marjoram

2 tablespoons thyme

1 tablespoon parsley

cracked black pepper to taste

2 leeks, white only

4 cups chicken broth

1 cup instant potatoes

1 cup half and half or whole milk

Tools

large, heavy-bottomed pot

measuring cups and spoons

spoon or ladle

knife

cutting board

blender

As always, begin by washing the veggies! Those leeks will harbor a lot of hidden dirt, so a surface wash isn't going to do the trick. Definitely give it a surface wash anyway, then grab your cutting board and knife.

Since we're only using the white part of the leek here, go ahead and trim off the leafy part. You can save it to make some soup stock later, or (if you're less soup-obsessed than we are) you can just toss it. Once the leafy part is removed, trim off the root end and make a lengthwise cut up the length of the leek. You don't have to cut all the way through; we only normally cut to about the halfway point. The goal is to create some space to fan the layers enough to let water flow through. Then just hold your leek under cool running water until you've rinsed out all the layers. You can give it a little squeeze if you think it's holding on to some water. Repeat with the second leek.

Return to the cutting board and get chopping. We usually just target quarter inch thin rounds, but it really doesn't matter how you cut your leeks. They'll just be going into the blender later.

While you work on the leeks, pour your olive oil into the heavy bottomed pot and add your dried spices. Let them simmer in the oil on low heat for a few minutes while you chop.

Once the leeks have been chopped, give them a quick once-over looking for any dirt you missed. If you find anything, there's a good chance there's more than you see at the moment. It's safest to just toss the cut leeks into a colander and run them under the tap one more time. Dirt will really ruin dinner, so definitely double check before moving on.

After you're sure there isn't any dirt left, go ahead and add the leeks to the pan. Let them saute with the oil and spices for five minutes. 

Once your five minutes are up, cover the leeks with the chicken broth, give it all a stir, and let them simmer for another 15 to 20 minutes. Feel free to find another quick task to take care of. Soup is forgiving like that.

The next step will be to remove the pot from the heat. Let it cool off for about ten minutes. Putting really hot things into a blender is a recipe for disaster, so do not skip this step or try to hurry it along.

After your short cool down is finished, pour the leeks and broth into the blender. Make sure you get all the leek pieces out of the pot and into the blender. Put the lid in place and hit puree, or whatever similar function your blender has. Let it whirl until you're sure the big chunks are broken down. If you started with larger pieces of leek, this step may take a little longer - but with quarter inch slices, we ran the blender for a minute and a half.

Empty the blender back into the pot, and turn the heat on as low as it will go. Measure your instant potato flakes and add them slowly to the pot, stirring them in as you go. You'll get a pasty consistency once they're all added, but don't worry; there's one more step.

As the soup comes up to heat again, stir in the milk or half and half. We used one cup here, but if you'd prefer your soup be a little thinner, feel free to add more, or to give it some additional chicken broth. Again, soups are forgiving. Do what you will.

Serve it in a crock with some cheese melted on top like a French onion soup, serve a shallow bowl with breadsticks or toast, pour it over a protein, keep it as a side for dunking vegetable sticks...

Now, if you find yourself in a situation where your trusty kitchen appliances are in need of a little magic, just like the enchantment we bring to your recipes, remember that our expert repair technicians at Appliance Rescue Service are here to ensure your appliances continue to work like a charm. You can reach out to us at our website or by giving us a call at ((214) 599-0055). A glitch in your kitchen tools doesn't have to cast a shadow on your culinary adventures. Reach out to us, and we'll have your appliances humming smoothly once more, ensuring your soup-making endeavors remain effortless and the flavors of your creations truly enchanting. Wishing you many warm and delightful soup-filled days ahead! 

Additional Reading

Lazy Weekend Mushroom Pie

Sausage Bread to Get You Rolling 

Say Goodbye to 'Dumb' Appliances: Samsung's Bold Move in 2023

Samsung  To Stop Shipping ALL ‘Dumb’ Appliances At End of 2023

Have you ever pondered the enigma of 'dumb' appliances? It's a question that has sparked bewilderment in the minds of many. To decode this enigmatic term, we must understand that a 'dumb' appliance is, in essence, an unconnected relic in the digital age—a machine estranged from the realms of Wi-Fi and the Internet of Things. But rewind the clock a decade, and these 'dumb' companions were our household norm, silently serving our daily needs. It's only with the internet's transformative power that we began to glimpse the possibilities of a smarter home. The riddle unravels further when we consider the information these appliances can unearth about us. Let's embark on a journey through the labyrinthine world of 'dumb' appliances and the audacious move by Samsung that is set to redefine our homes.

What Are ‘Dumb’ Appliances

Bespoke Refrigerator Courtesy of Samsung

So what are dumb appliances, this is our first concerning question. The answer is that a dumb appliance is any appliance that is not connected to Wi-Fi, or the Internet of Things, or is able to report back to its manufacturer in some fashion. Up until the last decade or so most appliances in the home were ‘dumb’ appliances and that was precisely the way that everybody expected them to be. But then with the advent of the internet, we realized that appliances could be hooked into the internet to make our lives easier. That gave us the rise of the smart appliance. What really separates a dumb appliance is the information that it is capable of collecting about you.

Why is Samsung Stopping, and What To Expect

As of December 2023, Samsung will no longer be shipping dumb appliances. There is no wiggle room on this. This is a hard and fast date announced by the company so that, as of 2024, all new appliances will be connected. The reason for this is that they want to be able to offer improved functionality, more efficient service calls, and a more efficient home. Imagine a home where all of your appliances are connected through one centralized system. Samsung wants to be able to offer you a central point for controlling everything which will, according to them help in cutting down on your emissions energy use, and even water use. 

Navy Steel Finished Smart Range from Samsung, Image Courtesy of Samsung

This is part of a bigger sustainability and energy-conscious play that the company is making.  It’s not just about connecting your appliances for the sake of connecting them, and you, back to Samsung, but instead, it’s about being able to enable smarter and more personalized controls. 

What Does This Mean For The Rest Of The Industry? 

This is going to mean two different things for the industry. First, as we head into 2024 and more people realize that it is no longer possible to buy dumb appliances from Samsung, other companies will see an initial boom in their sales. There's also going to be a rush to buy up older appliances as long as it's possible to find them which will cause those prices to go up over time as well. However, going forward it would not be surprising for other companies to follow Samsung's lead and begin offering only smart appliances. Samsung, as always, is looking ahead to the future and looking to see how they can control the market as any company of their size would reasonably do. 

LED Lit DIshwasher, Courtesy of Samsung

The question becomes what will other industry leaders do. Will they create smaller lines within their offerings that are all online intelligent connected devices or will they follow the trend that Samsung is setting and only offer intelligent appliances? The thing to keep in mind and we’ll dive further into this in a moment, is that your data is another source of revenue for these companies whether it is malicious or not, it is a source of monetization that they will take advantage of. And whatever Samsung can get away with, it will. 

What Is The Outcome For Homeowners Of A Fully Connected Home?

Smart Appliances: The Pros And Cons

The pros and cons will always need to be considered with any change. In this case, it is the fact that major appliances being connected has potential. If you can cut down on your resource bills when inflation is going up, why wouldn't you? Why wouldn't you if your refrigerator can keep an eye on your food to prevent spoilage and keep things just the right temperature so that your food stays good longer? Or if you can create a custom setting for your dryer so that it only runs for a few minutes knows what you need and will stop when it's done, why wouldn't you? This is what Samsung is trying to sell you.  The AI Energy Mode in the Samsung SmartThings app wants to make sure you use the most eco-friendly settings for the best results. Two examples that have been cited are being able to suggest shutting your blinds to reduce the power consumption of your AC or being able to detect the type of fabric for the clothes in your dryer. This would allow your dryer to understand not only the length of a cycle needed but also the heat setting. 

The downside is the various costs of the appliance. There’s the initial cost of purchasing a brand-new appliance upfront. It is the higher repair cost because it takes time and training to be able to understand what the different readouts mean for a smart appliance. It also means having to give up control over your information and how it's utilized. By bringing a smart appliance or a series of smart appliances into your home some pros and cons must be weighed.

Repair Costs & Reasons Why A Smart Appliance Costs More

Courtesy of Samsung

Let's tackle repair costs first right now repair costs are calculated based on the price that it takes to purchase the part, any shipping costs, and the amount of work and labor that is required for the technician to remove the old part and install the new one. Although not always considered, it is a skilled trade that takes learning and understanding, and that time just like the time of your CPA or the person that you hire to care for and create your landscape, is valuable. 

Now, let's take a look at changing over and adding in more chips to your appliances. Bringing in more complex pieces means having more pieces that can break along the process. It also means having more things that you have to look up and break down in order to understand exactly what's happening. Just because you can say oh, the appliance it's this piece that's going wrong, doesn't mean that it is automatically easy to fix. Your technician now has to know which company they need to get hold of; they need to know which pieces work in what way and what name it has because, naturally, no two appliance companies can call their parts the same thing; that would be too simple! Your technician has to be able to ensure that it's not an electrical error or a coding error and is, in fact, a  hardware error, which will then be able to be fixed. What this boils down to is that your technician's diagnostic time is going to take longer and the amount of time that it takes to figure out which parts have to be replaced takes longer. As each step gets longer, the amount of time that you, the homeowner, are charged also gets longer. As much as none of us want that to happen, it is unfortunately, what does happen with adding smart appliances in and that’s before we even get to going and changing out any of the parts. 

Your refrigerator is still going to require a compressor. Your dryer is still going to need a heat pump. Those things aren't changing, it is merely that other steps are being added. It may also, although it has not been proven yet, mean that you can only get help either directly from the company that you purchase your appliances through Samsung, LG, Bosch, etc., or from their chosen licensed technicians. This isn't a guarantee, merely a possibility that we have seen before. Where companies will require certified technicians that only they can license which then means that you the homeowner have to pay more. Again, this is something that we really don't want to have happen.

Data Safety In a World of Samsung’s Intelligent Appliances 

Your data safety, believe it or not, your phone which you are most likely reading this on right now, is collecting data about you all the time. It might be where you're living, it might be the coffee shop you're in, it might be how long you last spent looking at Facebook. But unless you have very strict settings and you take the time that most people just don't want to, to either read the terms of services or to very carefully restrict all data usage, the various Internet-connected objects within your life are connecting, collecting, and utilizing your data. 

Think about when was the last time you read the terms and services? For a website? Or even for an app your kid downloaded. Did you read through all of the legalese to see what was required and allowed by you downloading or buying it? The appliances that you purchase from Samsung from now on will be constantly doing it.

 According to Consumer Reports, they tested Internet of Things appliances across many major brands: Samsung, LG, and Whirlpool just to name a few.  They used 12 different appliances across five brands and four appliance types to see how ‘chatty’ they were. The good news is that  Consumer Reports didn ‘t find any security vulnerabilities in the products and all of the data that was sent or received was encrypted. The downside was that all of them were constantly collecting and sending data back to the manufacturer. The appliances would send anywhere from 3.4MB to 19MB of data back to their manufacturer per week.  You might think “that's nothing. That's a few photos maybe”. Except all of these pieces that were collected? They were sent as text. These were text messages that were sent, which means that they were measured in kilobytes of information if not bytes. And the tests were only using the appliances 1 time per day. (Think of how many times you open your refrigerator in a given day!?)  What this breaks down to is that in one week one of these appliances sent between 24,000 to 135,000  messages back to their manufacturer. That's everything from on-off cycles, location, door opening and closing, usage, even your date of birth. When we say every bit of information they can, we mean it. 

Like we said up top, this isn't meant as a way for Samsung to do something nefarious with your information, as far as we're aware anyway. However it is a new way for them to make money, and ultimately if you're using their tools, you don't have a choice in it as of the current state of the legal protections on your data and data collection. 

While Consumer Reports did reach out to all of the manufacturers that they tested, only Kenmore was willing to talk to them. They gave a detailed rundown on what data their appliances were testing. They gather up data on all osrts of things from power status, door open/close, filter status, cycle details, temperature information and energy usage.  Because of the connected app, we know that LG and Samsung both go further, collecting your ZIP code, your phone numbers, your date of birth, your geolocation and more. These aren’t related to the product performance and service, so the only obvious answer is market analysis and monetization of your data. 

As we venture into this new era of connected homes, the implications are significant, both for homeowners and the wider industry. We find ourselves at a crossroads, where questions abound and answers remain elusive. Yet, one thing is clear: data has become a valuable commodity, and it's a factor we cannot ignore. Our homes, once a bastion of simplicity, are now evolving into hubs of innovation and convenience, leaving us in a state of perpetual curiosity. This journey is just beginning, and the path ahead holds many unknowns. Should you encounter issues with your appliances, whether smart or 'dumb,' you can count on Appliance Rescue Service to provide reliable solutions and assistance. You can reach out to us via our contact page or by giving us a call at ((214) 599-0055). Whatever the changes might bring to home appliances, we are here for you. 

Additional Reading

Smart Appliances Or Bamboozling Buzzwords?

Smart Home - Getting Started (2022)