Smart refrigerator

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

LG Smart Refrigerator at CES 2011

A smart refrigerator is a refrigerator that is able to communicate with the internet.[1] This kind of refrigerator is often designed to automatically determine when particular food items need to be replenished.[2]

This functionality is partly managed by human involvement,[3][clarification needed] but proposed future iterations of the technology incorporate inventory tracking for all items inside, along with a seamless payment system. This capability would involve connecting the refrigerator to an online retail store, ensuring a consistently stocked refrigerator at home for domestic use. For commercial use, additional features such as payment terminals and locks could be incorporated to manage tasks like unattended retail.[citation needed]

History

By the late 1990s and the early 2000s, the idea of connecting home appliances to the Internet (

Internet of Things) had been popularized and was seen as the "next big thing".[4] The proposed idea of a smart fridge that could keep track of its contents with "a bar-code reader within the fridge" had become popular in various technology newspapers.[5] In June 2000, LG launched the first internet refrigerator, the Internet Digital DIOS. This refrigerator was unsuccessful because consumers saw it as unnecessary and, at over $20,000, too expensive.[6]<[unreliable source?
]

Controversy

Security

In 2000, Russian anti-virus company Kaspersky Lab warned that in a few years Internet-connected refrigerators and other household appliances might be targets of net viruses or trojans in a publication: Internet Security: Emerging Threats and Challenges (Adamov, Alexander; A, Milan).[7] Examples included attacks that could make the refrigerator door swing open in the middle of the night.[8] In January 2014, the California security firm Proofpoint, Inc. announced that it had discovered a large "botnet" which infected an internet-connected refrigerator, as well as other home appliances, and then delivered more than 750,000 malicious emails.[9] In August 2015, security company Pen Test Partners discovered a vulnerability in the internet-connected refrigerator Samsung model RF28HMELBSR that could be exploited to steal Gmail users' login credentials.[10]

Support

In late 2014, several owners of Internet-connected Samsung refrigerators complained that they could not log into their Google Calendar accounts, after Google had discontinued the calendar API earlier in the year and Samsung failed to push a software update for the refrigerator.[11][12]

Examples

Internet refrigerator as seen in the science fiction film The 6th Day

References

  1. ^ "You Still Probably Shouldn't Buy a Smart Fridge". Review Geek. 27 January 2020. Retrieved 22 December 2020.
  2. ^ Jasoncave (17 March 2022). "New technologies in refrigerators iPhone Apps". Maple Leaf Appliance Repair Calgary. Retrieved 19 March 2022.
  3. ^ "What Is so Smart About a Smart Fridge?". Lifewire. Retrieved 6 March 2025.
  4. ^ Foote, Keith D. (17 December 2021). "A Brief History of Cloud Computing". Dataversity. Archived from the original on 22 August 2022. Retrieved 22 August 2022.
  5. ^ Milan A, Smart Fridge Professor. "The Deseret News - Google News Archive Search". news.google.com. Retrieved 6 March 2025.
  6. ISSN 2455-7137
    . Retrieved 22 August 2022 – via Department of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering.
  7. .
  8. ^ Harrison, Linda (21 June 2000). "Fridges to be hit by Net viruses". The Register. Retrieved 23 October 2016.
  9. ^ "Fridge sends spam emails as attack hits smart gadgets". BBC News. 17 January 2014. Retrieved 23 October 2016.
  10. ^ Neagle, Colin (26 August 2015). "Smart refrigerator hack exposes Gmail account credentials". Network World. Retrieved 23 October 2016.
  11. ^ Limer, Eric (9 December 2015). "Hilarious Tech Support Thread Reveals the True Horror of a Smart Home". Popular Mechanics. Retrieved 23 October 2016.
  12. ^ Franceschi-Bicchierai, Lorenzo (11 December 2015). "Smart Fridge Only Capable of Displaying Buggy Future of the Internet of Things". Motherboard. Retrieved 23 October 2016.
  13. ^ Henderson, Odie (4 June 2017). "Silicon Valley Recap: The Price of Dignity". Vulture. Retrieved 21 January 2022.
  14. ^ Henderson, Odie (25 June 2017). "Silicon Valley Season-Finale Recap: Servers Have Souls Too". Vulture. Retrieved 21 January 2022.