Does anyone actually want the WiFi features?
Just bought a set of new GE appliances and was surprised (and mildly infuriated) to find out that the wall oven needed to connect to WiFi to enable the Air fry function. I'm trying to understand (and failing!) why I'd want to have a kitchen appliance that connects to the Internet? Do people find this to be a useful feature that makes you want to buy these over other units? From my perspective this adds:
- Complexity to the device where more stuff can go wrong and likely cost more to replace.
- Data mining back to Haier about my usage which feels to me like it's to their benefit not mine.
- Yet another app and password I need to track.
- Friction on use if I *did* want the feature. I have a few kids; do I share a password for these things for their phones or have to dig my phone any time somebody wants to use these things? Is there some sort of multi-user mode?
To be clear, we had the "same" GE Profile appliances albeit from 2013 till this week and "upgraded" to these new ones expecting mostly the same stuff with maybe some minor differences. So far, aside from looking newer/cleaner, the rest of the experience feels like we've moved in the wrong direction with regards to complexity. And hiding a feature behind connecting to WiFi and creating an account really frustrates me. It's one thing to have optional features I can opt-into, its another to force me into something I don't want to unlock a core feature with a button on the home screen.
It's very possible that this is me being a curmudgeon and grumbling about change for what feels like the sake of change. I'm deeply curious to see if anyone else feels the way I do, or if not, are you finding the Internet connected features valuable? What am I missing?