Is it worth paying extra for a smart refrigerator
No, for most households. I will give you the reasoning rather than just the verdict, because there are a couple of cases where the answer changes.
What you are actually buying
The premium over a comparable conventional model with the same capacity, finish and layout is substantial, often well over a thousand dollars.
For that you get a touch screen in the door, wireless connectivity, a phone app, and on some models interior cameras so you can look inside from the shop.
The compressor, the sealed system, the insulation and the shelving are usually the same as the model below it. You are paying for a tablet glued to a door.
The failure argument
This is my objection, and it comes from what I see in the shop.
A refrigerator is expected to last somewhere between ten and twenty years. Consumer electronics are supported for a fraction of that.
When the screen fails on a seven year old refrigerator, the part is a proprietary assembly, it is expensive, and on some models it is no longer made. I have quoted screen replacements that came to a third of the cost of a new refrigerator.
When the software stops being updated, the apps stop working, and you have a large dark rectangle in your kitchen door.
Neither of those stops the refrigerator from keeping food cold. Both are things you paid for that have stopped existing.
The cameras
They work. You can look at your shelves from the supermarket.
In practice almost everyone I have spoken to used it for a few weeks and then stopped, because looking at a photograph of the front of a shelf does not tell you whether there is milk behind the juice.
If somebody uses it a year later, that is genuinely useful to them and I would not argue. I just have not met many.
What is actually worth paying for
Compressor quality and warranty. An inverter compressor runs at variable speed rather than cycling on and off, is quieter, and generally lasts longer. Look at the length of the sealed system warranty, because that tells you what the manufacturer expects.
Layout. Where the shelves are, whether the drawers are usable, whether it fits your kitchen and your shopping habits. You will interact with this every day for fifteen years and no app improves it.
Ice maker, or the absence of one. This is the most failure prone assembly in a modern refrigerator by a distance. If you can live without one, a model without it removes the most likely repair from your future.
Water filter cost. Check the price of the filter and how often it needs changing before you buy. Some of them are remarkable, and over a decade the filters can cost more than the difference between two models.
Parts availability. Ask a local independent shop which brands they can get parts for.
The cases where I would say yes
If you specifically want remote temperature alerts. A notification that the door has been left open or the temperature is rising can save a freezer full of food, and if you travel or have a second property, that is a real benefit.
If someone in the household has a specific accessibility need that the interface addresses.
If the smart model happens to be on a discount that brings it close to the conventional one, which does happen at the end of a model year. At near parity, take it, just do not plan around the screen still working in 2035.
What I tell customers in the shop
Buy the best sealed system you can afford, in the simplest configuration that suits your kitchen, from a brand whose parts I can get.
Put the difference in a drawer. In eight years, when something fails, that money will pay for the repair, and you will still have a refrigerator with no dead tablet in the door.
