FROM the icebox of the 1900s, and the 4-door of the 2010s, comes a new ‘disco’ era for the beloved refrigerator.
Kitted out with a Bluetooth speaker and an ice machine that makes perfect spheres, LG Electronics has unveiled a new four-door party fridge.
The stylish home appliance, according to LG, can even make your food last longer with one nifty smart glass trick.
InstaView, as the feature is known, lets users check the contents of their fridge with a simple double knock on the glass to turn the opaque panel transparent.
While LG reckons this can help keep food fresher for longer, it can also hide the contents of your fridge when you have guests over for parties.
Party time
The ‘disco fridge’, called the MoodUp Multi-Door, boasts 19,000 colour combinations, which are not as energy intensive as you might think.
Three of the doors on the colour-changing fridge have LED panels behind them – which use as much energy as one LED ceiling light, according to LG.
LED bulbs typically use up to 90 per cent less energy than traditional bulbs.
Without a specified colour, the fridge has a natural shade of beige on the door panel and black at the top.
But with LG’s ThinQ app, users can change the fridge’s LED panels to any colour they want from their iPhone or Android.
They can use it to match the interior design of their kitchen, the time of day – or the type of occasion, like Christmas.
But when the party is over, or it’s just another Tuesday night in, the fridge will automatically dim its brightness in the evening by a third.
And for those moments when the midnight snack monster strikes, the fridge will glow with a warm welcome light automatically when you approach within 60cm.
‘Healing mode’
It’s not all about party mayhem.
The four-door also has a so-called ‘healing mode’ for a flowing colour display accompanied by calming music.
The Bluetooth speaker means you can beam music or podcasts from your phone to your fridge.
Or, you can use LG’s pre-selected music collection inside the ThinQ app.
As well as colours, and tunes, the fridge can display some graphics, like the time, internal temp, and calendar updates.
Longer lasting ice
The new four-door fridge, which went on sale in Europe earlier this week, has a snazzy ice machine that can spit out frozen spherical ice balls.
These ice spheres actually melt slower than cubed or crushed ice – which the fridge can also make.
This is because it has a smaller surface area.
The larger the surface area of an ice cube the more heat it absorbs.
And, of course, the more heat it absorbs the faster it melts.
LG appears to be on a mission to reduce the number of chores a homeowner has to undertake[/caption]
Smart fridge
The smart fridge is connected to LG’s ThinQ app, which is used to ‘talk’ with a variety of the company’s home appliances, from washing machines to light switches.
Users, wherever they are, can be alerted if the fridge door is open, if the internal temperature has dropped suddenly, or spiked.
They can even, through the app, tell the fridge to clean its own ice nozzle.
LG appears to be on a mission to reduce the number of chores a homeowner has to undertake, by ‘smartifying‘ the gadgets you would never have thought would get so clever just a decade ago.
But this 6″1 hunk of smart stuff comes at a cost: £3,699.00, which is around the top-end of what your average four-door fridge would cost.
Of course, this is not your average four-door fridge. This is a ‘disco fridge’.
Whether you need that in your life, or a more traditional one-colour, non-music-playing fridge, depends on how dusty your dancing shoes are.
