[a1a1a1a1a1a1]

Having worked briefly at a major appliance company, I can say that refrigerator design is not simple. Refrigerators aren't made to just cool things down, the entire interior is expected to stay at a uniform temperature. As a result, many refrigerators have more heating elements than ovens. There's a ton of testing that needs to happen to determine hot spots, cold spot, poorly insulated areas, etc. and that's just for the cooling. Also the current refrigerant used in refrigerators (driven by regulation) is very close to propane, it has an explosion risk, so that mandates tons of specific testing. The real issue is that the release cycles of appliances are so much shorter than the expected life cycles. There are life tests for appliances, but they have to be accelerated massively, so it's not a great representation of the lifetime use of the appliances. All of that to say the data collected by an internet connected appliance is of huge value to the manufacturer. They can get data from the appliance for it's entire life, usage and performance of specific components, etc. Manufacturers are going to find as many cheap ways as possible to tempt consumers to connecting their products to the internet so they can get that data back. It's unlikely the trend is going to slow down.

[kaibee]

> the entire interior is expected to stay at a uniform temperature.

Surely this is as simple as adding a small fan so that air circulates inside?

[a1a1a1a1a1a1]

I'm not an expert in the field of refrigeration so I'm speculating a bit, but I believe the won't work because the cause of inconsistency of temperature is that the insulation isn't as effective at every part of the cabinet (probably due to shape, what components are packed around the cabinet, etc.) so moving air over those areas would cause heat to enter the cabinet faster, requiring more cooling power. That might be effective, but I think the approach that's taken is more efficient, and that's what refrigerators are all about (They move like 2-3x more heat energy out of the cabinet that is put into the compressor, fans, etc.). The less movement of the air inside the more effective the insulation will be.

It's also worth noting that just insulating better isn't really an option (without developing better insulation) because refrigerators need to have as large as possible interior volume compared to exterior volume to be competitive, what can be fit inside is a definite selling point.

[account47t83]

I believe that won't work for the same reason that I can't cool my house with one A/C window unit and a big fan