Internet refrigerator
LG Smart Refrigerator at CES 2011
Internet refrigerator (also known as an smart refrigerator) is a refrigerator which has been programmed to sense what kinds of products are being stored inside it and keep a track of the stock through barcode or RFID scanning. This kind of refrigerator is often equipped to determine itself whenever a food item needs to be replenished.
History
By the late 1990s and the early 2000s, the idea of connecting home appliances to the internet (Internet of Things) had been popularized and was seen as the next big thing. In June 2000, LG launched the world’s first internet refrigerator, the Internet Digital DIOS. This refrigerator was an unsuccessful product because the consumers had seen it as unnecessary and expensive (more than $20,000) and that the problems solved were obscure. For example, many juice bottles are transparent, providing a visual reminder that a purchase is needed eventually; vegetable drawers are similarly transparent and contain items often removed from packages, thus eliminating bar codes for inventory which meant manually keying in descriptions and dates. Moreover, the ability of the device to remind users of upcoming purchases when there are often multiple buyers in a household who communicate informally is not typically addressable as a use case.
Examples of Internet refrigerators
Popular culture
External links
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