What's on the fridge?

An add-on option
Audiovox recently came out with its $150 homebase combination message center, including a dry-erase white board, and 7-inch digital photo frame that can be attached to a stainless steel refrigerator using adhesive tape that comes with the unit.

It can also be placed on the countertop as a stand-alone unit, or be put on the wall.

The homebase has an audio feature for recording messages through a built-in microphone. Another homebase model, due out soon, comes with a built-in camera for recording video and audio messages. It will retail for $200.

“The Audiovox product is a pretty good example of a product that really updates the standard message board and brings it into the digital age by allowing members of the households to leave messages to one another,” said Herbert.

“And it’s at a price point that I think most consumers would find pretty attractive.”

Audiovox Audiovox's homebase message center and digital frame ($150) can be added to the fridge door.

In 2000, when Web surfing still was relatively new and all the rage, LG came out with a fridge that had Internet access via a touchscreen on the refrigerator door.

The unit cost around $8,000, and never caught on. It may have been ahead of its time, and in a pre-wireless era, it was more cumbersome to use than today’s products.

“It’s not so much that consumers weren’t ready for the technology, but the technology wasn’t quite ready to deliver some of the features and capabilities that would be both useful, and at a price point that would be attractive,” said Herbert of the Consumer Electronics Association.

More affordable processing power, displays
Current efforts, such as those by LG and Whirlpool, though “are really designed to take advantage of now-more affordable digital displays and processing power,” he said.

Both companies decline to discuss sales numbers of the refrigerators with personal tech on the doors.

LG LG's refrigerator with a 15-inch high-definition TV also has an FM radio and a weather station built into the doors.

LG’s HDTV fridge is still available at "select regional dealers,” said John Weinstock, LG’s vice president of marketing for digital appliances.

The refrigerator also has a DVD connection on the top of the unit. A four-inch screen with a weather and information center is above the ice and water dispenser.

The information center holds 100 pre-loaded recipes from the Culinary Institute of America, and weather forecasts are delivered via a wireless pager network.

“We think it has been a great example for LG to really showcase the brand as something that’s really driving technology in the kitchen,” Weinstock said.

The company’s new wall ovens “take our LCD technology and uses that with a touchscreen LCD,” he said. “That’s just another example of how we’re able to leverage technology across our multiple divisions and bring it into the appliance arena.”

When the Clio Vu computer is made available for the centralpark this year, it will have a wireless connection and can be removed from the fridge for stand-alone use. There’s no word yet on cost.

“In the past, refrigerators with computers had versions with a wired connection, which presents its own challenges,” Hamilton said. “And most people don’t want to be typing while they’re standing up. So, wireless is key.”

And, there are no illusions that the Clio Vu, made by Data Evolution Corp., will take the place of the family computer.

“It will provide the primary functions that people want to do with a computing device in the kitchen — surf the Internet, e-mail, manage a calendar and shopping lists,” Hamilton said, “We’re mindful that you’re probably not going to want to do PowerPoint with it.”

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