[onewhippedpuppy]

Originally Posted by Grimm

I work in the appliance industry and sit on the advanced product development steering committee. Trust me, consumers will expect, at a minimum, all high end appliances to provide some basic level of connectivity. Your generation might not want that, but the younger generations all will expect it. Read about the Internet of Things to get some background.

All our appliances will connect to the Internet to provide monitoring, basic controls, and, most importantly, remote connectivity for service and support. It's already happening.

With that professional background, how about sharing some tips to find an appliance that doesn't NEED to connect to the internet for diagnostics? I understand the usefulness of a tech being able to diagnose via the internet, but would much rather have one that doesn't break to begin with.

As for the other features, I find it hard to believe that anyone cares about having an internet browser on their refrigerator when they have a far superior device in their pocket. It will be much like car infotainment systems - within a year the system is obsolete and inferior to a smartphone app that is continuously updated, running on hardware that is replaced by the user every two years. My wife and I am 35, and I in particular am very tech aware and work in a high tech industry. I could not be more indifferent to the internet features of my fridge. I do, however, greatly care about quality construction, clever features to allow it to store my food more efficiently, attractive industrial design, and reliability. So when I buy a new higher end model, likely within the next six months after we remodel our kitchen, I won't be looking for any of the features that you mentioned. On the contrary, I will avoid such pointless features because they add complexity and cost and reduce reliability. So there's my opinion from a focus group of 1.