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this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2026
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I don't understand "smart fridges". There's an ad I keep seeing about one that is just... stupid. It's like the guy goes to the fridge door and instead of opening the door a little screen shows him what's inside. Wow, so useful? I could maybe get it if it showed someone out shopping and they couldn't remember if they had milk so they could check their smart fridge but I still think it's dumb. Lol. Not every appliance needs to be "smart".
That's one reason. They can also track what you put in and take out to track the age of things for food safety. Notifying you of things that have been in there too long, or that you need to replace.
Since many people no longer use film cameras, they replace the old need to use a magnet to put a photo on the fridge. Instead able to just show a never ending slideshow of everything.
Replacing the old whiteboard or notepad for messages to the household.
Able to search and walk you through recipes on the screen itself, even notifying whether you have the ingredients on hand. to make something.
Letting you play and control music while cooking, or even making/receiving phone calls or even video calls on some models.
They are by no means necessary, but neither is your smartphone. 20 years ago a very tiny percentage of people had Internet on their phones. 30 years ago, few people had cell phones at all. Yet not having a smartphone nowadays is basically impossible while living in modern society, it is possible but nearly no one does it. All of it is about increased convenience.
Most of those would have been better marketing ideas than the ad I was speaking about lol. I just bought up the grocery store one because, marketing wise, I think that's something everyone could relate to. Staring at a screen instead of opening the door isn't particularly relatable 😅 start with the basics.
There's a difference. I couldn't work without my smartphone - I couldn't actually do my job and live. That's very different than a smart fridge lol.
I think in the world we're in where everything is online all the time, recorded, uploaded, collected, targeted, etc. we can be more selective about where we actually need to involve technology and where it's really just not enough of a benefit to bother. Not everything needs to be connected to the internet or be "smart", AI etc. That might look different for different people but I think as individuals we don't need to buy every single appliance to have smart features just because it exists 🤷♀️
Here’s the thing. Almost everyone has a smartphone because their utility is undeniable, even to folks who dislike them.
The smart fridge? There’s a little utility, but they’re never going to become ubiquitous like smartphones IMO. Most people are still fine with a regular fridge.
Yep. I've thought about letting my smart phone go but it's actually a far harder thing - I need a smart phone to make my livelihood most importantly. Also overseas family, friends. The most I can do is switch it off for a while.
Smart appliances like fridges, washing machines, etc are for the most part a luxury. I think we're at a point where we need to stop engaging with the internet in every aspect of our life so yeah those unnecessary ones are easy to omit 😅
I'm sure the fact there's only like 3 non-smartphones available anymore has nothing to do with that. /s
I know quite a few people that would prefer not to have a smartphone if there were good alternative options. People that just make calls and text, and nothing else, not even basic email.
Tell them to check out Sunbeam Wireless
If I could ask my fridge whether I still had a produce when I'm in a grocery store, I would do it all the time. Stop complaining about features that are actually trivial to implement that could benefit people. The only problem is that the companies piggyback on them for enshitification.
Lol the cost of them doesn't seem to reflect how easy they are to implement. And yes considering you can't get the product without engaging with the companies... Then I will continue to express my dislike for the whole movement of including the internet in every facet of our lives because it's intrinsically tied to shitty companies.
that's not trivial, and your fridge can't do it. not with good accuracy. at best it can show you a picture.
For that use case a picture would be good enough tbh. Still not going to buy a smart fridge because it sounds stupid to me, but it's gotta cost less than 20 bucks per fridge at scale for the hardware to do it, so it's pretty trivial.
even the system that does that would be insane to run on the same voltage as the condenser (make-cold part). computers are cheapest to build cheapest to run and most durable for low voltage. so basically you'd have the wall plug go straight to a split where one side (the smart bits) steps down to like 1/50th-1/100th depending on your wall voltage, and the other runs the fridge parts.
I could see it easily costing 200 in parts and labor to do it well. electronics get weird with temperature, you'd need to build the cameras into the walls without sabotaging insulation, defrost cycles mean water exposure. its not completely trivial. and that's not what most smart fridges do anyway.
I wasn't implying that my use case was trivial, but general smart fridge features, like having a camera inside, an LCD panel on the outside, and having and esp32 or some other SoC to drive them are trivial. But manufacturers use those to spy and force ads on the consumer, which is why the association with them is negative.