You would be asked to imagine your refrigerator cleaning itself, offering up recipes depending on whether you prefer something Italian or fancy a spicy curry, cutting down on left-overs, and even automatically re-ordering fresh food.
Such a machine apparently may become reality thanks to British researchers who claim to be designing such a ‘ fridge of the future’ which could help you save precious time in today’s hectic life. Or at least, so they say.
According to Ocado, the fridge of the future would be able to automatically place supermarket home delivery orders when required and move food near its use by date to the front of the shelves, the ‘Daily Mail’ and others have reported.
In fact, a joint team from the University of Central Lancashire and online supermarket Ocado are working hard to make such a fridge available in the market.
The planned new features include the ability for fridges to scan their shelves to see what is in stock and use this information to both plan meals and automatically place a supermarket food order, say the researchers.
The smart fridge will use “nano-articulated technology” shelf surfaces which, whilst smooth to the touch, will have millions of independently controlled micro-tiles which will manoeuvre products which soon need to be eaten to the front of the fridge.
The fridge will also monitor gases released by degrading foods and push these to the front of its shelves, according to the designers.
Ultrasound-scanning technology built into the door will allow the fridge to “swipe and capture” the food on a plate before and after mealtime, meaning it can assess what type and amount of food is wasted.
But here’s the thing… all the evidence that we’ve ever seen about appliances like this indicate that they just don’t work for people. So, we have to ask, why try again?
LG tried and failed, so did Electrolux among others and these things don’t sell because people don’t want them. People have tried home-brewed solutions with barcode scanners and they all fail for one very simple reason, people don’t want a lot of the things in their fridge replaced, they want something different and not the same food week in, week out.
You will also not, no cost. Expect it to hurt with all that promised technology in it. Hurt, a lot.
People aren’t likely to pay for it and, even if they are, they’re liable to get bored eating the same microwave meals after a few weeks. Then they’ll go shopping properly.
So, it’s bonkers.