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Your Fridge is getting smarter…
In the early days these devices were just normal fridges with a tablet PC glued to the front. Just having the tablet PC glued to the front did not provide any value other than provide the functionality you get from a PC. You could listen to music, maybe watch a DVD, maybe surf the internet…, but that was about it.
These fridges have come a long way. Smart fridges today can display information on what’s inside them, give feedback on nutrition and health, and interface with the rest of your house. Recently, one of the more recognized appliance manufactures released a fridge with a special web tablet. The refrigerator scans items as they go in and out, keeping an inventory of what it has available and what has been consumed. When someone runs out of certain groceries, the fridge can automatically order more from an online grocer including the convenient day and time for delivery. It also has the capability to monitor food items, and present you with nutritional information, recipes, etc.
Type of Technology – Consumer Hardware & Service
Features:
–> Removable full tablet PC which has a wireless communications range of up to 200 feet. This allows the user to be able to use the PC and also to communicate with the base station on the fridge from different locations in the house. The cradle provides a cable internet connection and an ability to charge the tablet PC when it is docked.
–> Along with handling the standard capabilities of a regular fridge (temperature control, defrosting, etc.), using the integrated tablet PC, it provides additional functionality like monitoring of contents, automatic reordering or shopping list preparation, recipe database, diet and health monitoring, etc.
–> Advanced power consumption features to help reduce the overall electricity requirements.
So, now it is your turn….is this Technology Hot…or Not?
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I’d say this is a “maybe” hot. I would use it because I never know what we’re missing when I go grocery shopping.
However, I’d be skeptical about the technology. It’d be hard to believe that the tablet would “know” what was in my fridge unless I told it everytime I went to get something. For it to be usable, the tablet would have to seamlessly figure out exactly what’s in the fridge.
The trouble I have with this technology related to two issues.
1. Fridges are not clean places. And not clean places are no place for tablet computers. Also, fridges last for 10-20 years. Ever seen a tablet last that long? If you’re planning to put an Allen Bradley PLC inside a fridge (ie literally industry strength screen and computing technology) you’ll probably find the price a tad high. And the visuals will get old pretty darn quick.
2. Humans don’t relate to either their groceries or their fridges that way. When I was working in the internet area about 10-12 years ago there were major $ spent creating ‘order on line’ grocery chains. Can you point to one that was successful? Can you point to one person who would prefer to write on a touch screen vs putting up a sticky note to scribble on?
The kitchen is a human place, not an engineer’s place. People cook there, drink there, put up pictures of their kids and strange magnets on their fridges.
It’s true that a new generation of people uses computing in different ways, but the main difference is that they take it with them. They don’t leave it on the fridge.