this post was submitted on 23 Sep 2026
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it does, for massive user convenience. however, the more you add, the less convenience is gained from each addition, sort of like a law of diminishing returns-type thing.
What convenience? You open the door, a light goes on, it is cold or freezing cold inside depending on the door.
The end.
My parent's McClary fridge from the 1960s still runs on the original refrigerant.
Don't tell me about energy efficiency when
We are awash in renewable electricity
Building new fridges every five years filled with e-waste running garbage software requiring a networking infrastructure on top of it surely used a few joules as well.
It's not in a landfill.
I can't wait for the global energy crash, maybe we'll be calmer and wiser when gas is 100$/liter.
for one, beeping after you leave the door open for 30 seconds. considering the longevity of a fridge, adding a microcontroller that does that is more environmentally friendly.
I think you don’t need microcontroller for that?
i think you do, for the counting and beeping.
No I don’t. I can use common door switch and a time relay for that, which triggers buzzer. It cost a lot more than microcontroller, but you can do it.
Microcontrollers are cheaper then analog clocks
Yes they are, but that wasn’t the point.
beeping after you leave the door open for a few minutes, also electricity is over a quarter a kilowatt hour some places.
Y'all just leaving fridges open all day where you are? In my neck of the woods "Stop staring and pick something, you're letting all the cold out."
fridges don't always close properly
Well
A) Close it properly then. We have one of those at work, old worn out gaskets, fridge pops open when you close the top freezer, and somehow we can manage to figure out how to close it back up every time.
B) Replace your gaskets.
a microcontroller, couple sensors, and a speaker are cheaper
And yet you still need to replace your gaskets when they're failing, because the gaskets are also important to the function of the fridge.
Now, am I going to spend the $15 to get gaskets for my bosses fridge? No, that's his problem, but I can still "A) keep it closed."
Might I inquire as to what the convenience would be?
Digital display for thermostat/thermometer is nice.
Party Mode is convenient when adding large amounts of beverages (or leftovers) as it temporarily changes the compressor setpoint/cycle for a couple of hours in expectation of heavy usage.
Night mode / vacation mode can similarly change the compressor working profile to be either more quiet or energy efficient at times when it's not expecting the door to open for extended periods of time.
None of these are essential features of a fridge, but they can be convenient.
Some things off the top of my head are:
All of this only requires a really dumb microcontroller, though, not one with networking. I don't see how that could be useful until your fridge could magically track what it contains so you could ask it if you needed to buy stuff while you were shopping. I don't think we have the technology for that yet.
I think we probably do have the tech to track what's in the fridge but we'd need a camera and some kind of ai watching it always...
Image recognition will be able to figure out the obvious items, and hopefully the expiration dates, too, but it's not going to be able to figure out that opaque containers are nearly empty or identify leftovers in tupperware. It's also probably going to be unable to identify when loose produce is past its best unless it's extremely rotten.
beeping after the fridge hasn't been closed for a while, or controlling the temperature, or turn on the lights when the door is open.
Yeah that can moatly be done without one. The beeping maybe not but the temp and lights can be done completely analog. Our old fridge literally had a push switch that turned off the light when closed (20yr old fridge)
My washer/dryer is "smart" and there's no convenience there at all, honestly. It argues with me, it sits and flashes suggestions freezing the entire interface, it decides to just not do things at times. It's hella annoying.