Liebherr are now playing catch up in the arms race that is the connected fridge as both LG and Samsung slug it out for dominance in the sector with almost everyone else snapping at their heels.
Of course Liebherr who in our opinion are vastly superior in build quality, longevity and probably just about every other way to most any other domestic refrigeration producer need to answer the whole “smart” connected appliance call with something so, they’ve teamed up with Microsoft in a bid to get smarter than the competition.
Or, maybe they have sussed like us that it’s mostly just a fashion gimmick in the industry and it’ll probably fizzle out over time.
Now we could be wrong, it is after all possible for that to happen at times, but this actually looks as if it might be of use and a lot smarter than most of the things we see.
Liebherr’s calling this new generation of appliances the SmartDeviceBox. Catchy, no?
If you have a fridge with the SmartDevice capability installed it will allow you to monitor stored stuff in the fridge using internal cameras and object recognition technology.
Here’s where it gets smarter than the average smart fridge though, not only does it capture images for viewing but also recognises individual food items inside the machine.
The captured info flows automatically into an inventory list, which lets the you see quickly and clearly what is in the refrigerator from anywhere. Additional groceries can be added to a shopping list that customers can access when on the move using an app for iOS, Android or Windows devices using the SmartDeviceBox voice module.
Check out the concept thing below.
Pretty funky use of photo recognition and certainly appears more useful then most but we’d figure that’s going to come at significant cost. Given a Liebherr side by side affair will run you £2500 and up figure on this costing the best part of double that, perhaps more. Which is a lot for information that you can get by opening the door and looking at what’s in your fridge.
Thing is though, we still can’t understand how these internal view systems will overcome the problem of the packed fridge. Many of the fridges we see are stocked up as if people are expecting the zombie apocalypse tomorrow so half the stuff in it you can’t see. Including the mouldy stuff at the back!
It’s still pretty cool tech though, even if it never gets seen in the field.
But it may see life in the commercial arena as Liebherr make a lot of medical fridges and wine coolers etc so, in a commercial environment this may be a winner. But for domestic us, it’s probably not worth the expense.
