Upmarket Refrigerators

We have a Fisher Paykel in the city and in the country. We chose the country one first because of its configuration which met our peculiar needs. Loved it so much that we bought a different model from them when we had to replace our town fridge.
Although out of New Zealand, they have excellent local service people plus seemingly 24/7 phone help from NZ. Highly recommend.

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Wifi is actually a pretty standard feature these days once you get past the basic level. I don’t think I saw a single fridge without it in the general price/feature range of the one I bought.

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Good to know! I hadn’t heard of this brand before.

Interesting. Not sure why consumers want this feature so much.
My newest air purifier came with wi fi capability. I don’t use any of these features

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It allows you to run diagnostics and view things like temperature control on your phone, but beyond that I’m not sure either.

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I can understand a camera, so people can figure out who ate the last piece of McCain frozen cake. Could be useful on a work fridge. :joy:

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I want it so I can monitor fridge temps, but you don’t need it built into your fridge (and may not be able to integrate some brands into the smart home system of your choice).

I use simple Wireless Sensor Tags to alert me if temps get too high… which could be due to another PG&E power failure, a tripped breaker, fridge failure, etc.

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I hate the idea of extended warranties, but now I get them. All based on personal experience, sadly. Everything comes with WiFi; I don’t set it up. Yes, I know it has some diagnostic value, but the potential security headaches aren’t appealing to me to have to babysit. And yes, I know my way around a network.

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I really don’t like wireless anything. I think it might appeal to Baby Boomers more than Gen X.
Our Baby Boomer contractor had us replace the stereo system - CD, record player and am/fm receiver to wired speakers, with a Sonos system- which means we haven’t used it at all.

We would have to use a smartphone, tablet or computer to turn it on and off. Because of the layout of our house, the system is now in another room, and the wires to the speakers would run across the floor or over a door, so- we listen to a radio in the kitchen, mostly.

I’m already addicted to social media to the point where I’m worried my eye strain has worsened my prescription, and the last thing I need is more things that need to be checked or monitored by an app.

I keep 2 thermometers in the fridge and 1 in the freezer.

LG fridge, french door: a friend had the electronics fail and melt the top interior of the unit. Apparently it was scorched black. There was a recall for electrical, they found out later.

Our LG had the interior ice maker fail after a year, then the temperatures fluctuated from freezing produce to an unsafe high range. The coup de grace was the line for the in-door water springing a leak while we were out for a weekend and causing a $50,000 + insurance claim. Totally destroyed the kitchen flooring, surrounding cabinets, and the finished basement area beneath. The only good thing was that since we weren’t gone long, there was no mould remediation needed.

I’d stay away from any fridge that needed plumbing in. Apparently those leaks happen quite often, according to the insurance people. We now have a plain, all fridge unit from Electrolux and it is holding up well. We have an all freezer unit to complement. Much, much better for storage.

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Yep, agree.

I must have gotten ripped off.

We just recently got a fridge (upwards of 5 figures in price) without WiFi.

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Good thought. I had the same issue, but luckily either the fridge doors were not already installed or could be popped off easily by the delivery crew (can’t remember which now, 10 years later).

I got the Samsung 29 cu.ft. French door and (unlike Scott’s thinking on it, or maybe we have a very different model than his friends) have been very happy with it. I’m sure it does not count as “high end” but it’s got good space allotment, shelves are easily configurable, etc. Seems pretty uniform temp throughout the one time I mapped it, with just a bit more cold laying directly under the icemaker module. The closest model I can find to it now claims to retail at $3700.

Our 27 year old Kenmore S/S in the basement still running strong but it’s only about 22 cu.ft., and has about 60/40 split between fridge and freezer space. I’ve been happy with the fridge space, but always hated trying to find enough space to store in the freezer, then hated trying to dig to find stuff in that too-small space.

So if I was buying new today, my main 2 considerations would be configurability of the shelf/door spaces, and easy to access freezer space.

I don’t know whether I’d go for an extended warranty. I have not done so in the past with any appliance, but I’m starting to see more commenters recommending them (including in this thread). But they seem to be about 10% of the original cost (which seems high to me) just for 5 years of protection. And the compressors and refrigerant systems seem to have warranties of 10 and 5 years, respectively, anyway. So I’d be paying the seller and extra 10% in case of minor mechanical failure in the first 5 years? I’m sure the fact that I’ve been lucky with ours biases my thinking here. I guess if the ice maker died in the first 5 years, then the cost of the extended warranty would be on par with replacing it.

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Even with the doors off, we had to take the sliding doors off the door, to get it through. Less than half an inch clearance for the metal cupboard above. I also hadn’t thought about height. I’d gone into Sears only thinking about depth and width of the fridge and our space in the kitchen.

Live and learn. Had the same issue with a custom sofa that we couldn’t get into the room because it had to fit through either a door or a window. We ordered a second smaller sofa, and the shop sold our first sofa in their liquidation section.

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Not a fan of wireless audio (my hi-fi system consists of wired, bi-amped, Magneplanar 3 series with an M&K subwoofer). But that has nothing to do with wireless sensors that can send notifications to your phone when something in your home is not quite right… like you left the garage door open after leaving your house, water being detected under your sink, temperatures that can cause pipes to freeze, or motion detected in various locations around your property.

Other wireless advantages are energy savings due to lighting control based on sunset/sunrise times and motion/presence sensing, and countless others.

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A couple of decades ago the medium-sized beach town on the Sea of Cortez in Mexico we frequently visited suddenly had its big, multistory hotel on the beach. At first I laughed when I saw that every single room had a window AC unit instead of a central unit. But thinking about it, I realized that the smallish, sleepy-at-the-time town probably had plenty of guys who could fix a broken window AC unit, but not anybody familiar with a big hotel-sized commercial AC unit.
So yeah, very good point.

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I keep thermometers in my fridge and freezer too. Several of them! I haven’t gone anywhere in a very long time — as a matter of fact I stayed in completely for the first year of the pandemic — so I see the thermometers every time I open the fridge. And I have a whole lot of technology that I use and love. I’m fluent in tech; much more so than most of my compatriots. It’s in my job description… so my kitchen appliance tech choices don’t stem from a lack of capability or knowledge.

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We have had a discussion with a microgreen vendor at the farmers market. She said that her greens last about 3-5 days in an average brand refrigerator. Twice as long in a Subzero. I always thought a insulated cold box is an insulated cold box but apparently there are differences.

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Good to know, thanks.

Tangent: the Rubbermaid and Tupperware produce keepers also help extend the life of vegetables, if you have a regular fridge. :slightly_smiling_face: