Reports from CES have highlighted a couple of product introductions which, whilst perhaps being “cool” to some (no pun intended) they seem a bit South of pointless to us. An oven with an Android touchscreen and a fridge freezer with Evernote integration.
First up we have an oven from Dacor that has Android enabled ovens complete with obligatory touchscreen that can do way more than most people will probably ever need. Of course touchscreens on ovens are, these days, nothing particularly new as many manufacturers have used them such as Amica, CDA, Whirlpool, Gorenje and many more so this isn’t especially fresh. What is new is the embedding of the Android OS into the panel controlling the oven.
A short video posted by Engadget here shows a demonstration of some of the features of the oven but we have to wonder, who has the time to muck about like that when you just want to slam on a pizza or chicken nuggets for the kids? Apart from which, who would pay the premium for what is, really, just a fancy control system and a bunch of features most people will likely never use?
Cool? Debatable.
Useful, probably not.
Next up our old friends over at Samsung HQ have been dreaming up new ways to sell their fridge freezers once more or, is that dreaming up new ways to get press coverage with useless and largely pointless features. Anyway, we digress…
Not content with slapping a touchscreen contol above the ice and water dispenser last year Samsung has now integrated Evernote into the panel to tell you when you forgot to get eggs for tonight’s dinner apparently, according to the video posted by Engadget here of this new fridge freezer.
For those that don’t know what Evernote is, it’s a fancy “to-do” list and a heap more things that allows you to manage and keep track of tasks and ideas. We don’t think that its creators had fridge in mind when they designed it though, just saying.
For the vast bulk of the population however we suspect that this is yet another largely (completely) pointless use of technology in a domestic appliance that most families would probably never use beyond the initial “wow, this is cool” moment after delivery and installation of the new fridge freezer.