Knock on LG’s new fridge, and it will turn transparent or bring up Windows

By Jenny McGrath September 2, 2016

If the Samsung Family Hub refrigerator looks like a tablet stuck on the outside of a fridge, the new LG InstaView Signature refrigerator’s right-side door looks like a Microsoft Surface. The smart fridge features LG’s InstaView technology — turning from opaque to transparent — but it also turns into a computer, running Windows 10. The Signature fridge was on display at IFA 2016 in Berlin, and it shows that the connected fridge is sticking around for the foreseeable future.

Last year, we saw the InstaView at IFA. You knock on the door, and suddenly the dark face becomes transparent. The idea is that you can stare into the depths of your fridge without the door hanging open, wasting energy and warming up your perishables. It’s using the same technology for the smart version of the fridge. “It’s a new technology developed by LG. It’s a mirror that can go dark, go transparent, or can have information on top,” Claudio Scuratti of LG’s Italian appliance division tells Digital Trends.

Related Videos

Samsung introduced its Family Hub at CES 2016; it’s got all kinds of apps, from a recipe finder to a couple ways to do grocery shopping to music players. LG clearly wants to follow suit, with plans to include apps like Pandora and calendars. You’ll be able to drag stickers around the screen, attaching expiration dates to your milk, which you can see behind the screen.

LG doesn’t have a ton of details about the apps and widgets it plans to offer, however, but it wants to make it a collaborative process with third-party developers. “In the future we plan to introduce an open system,” says Scuratti.

While he says the side-by-side smart fridge should appear on the European market by the end of next year (and it will likely to come to the U.S. at some point as well), LG doesn’t yet have pricing information. Considering the non-Windows French-door InstaView has a suggested retail price of over $8,000, it will likely be a pretty pricey purchase.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics

Smart Home

Hover Hoover’s new gadget over your laundry, and it will tell you how to clean it

Hoover Washing Machine with TED

Left to our own devices, it’s pretty easy for us rubes to ruin our clothes. Even if your washing machine won’t let you use hot water for your delicates, that doesn’t stop you from tossing something frilly in with your sturdy cottons. Hoover’s washing machine with TED, introduced at IFA 2016, is a smart appliance that knows what type of clothes it’s washing and recommends an appropriate cycle.

It doesn’t exactly do this all by itself. TED stands for textile expert detector, and it’s actually a separate little device from the washer itself. You can magnetically attach it to the machine. It's about as long and wide as an iPhone 6, but curves out into a fairly bulky handheld gadget. Both the washer and TED are in prototype form right now, but Hoover says it should be due out next year on the European market.

Smart Home

Whip it good: Bosch’s new mixer knows just when to stop mixing your eggs

bosch ifa 2016 optimum kitchen machine 18

Considering Bosch recently announced a partnership with the Drop Kitchen Scale – the connected scale will sync with the appliance maker’s Series 8 Home Connect ovens – a couple of its small appliances that are making their debut at IFA 2016 are intriguing.
Measure up
Both the AutoCook multicooker and the OptiMum Kitchen Machine seem tailor-made for Drop’s software. With Drop’s app, you can set a bowl on the smart scale and be taken through each step of a recipe, moving on to the next ingredient once the device registers that you’ve added the right amount of flour or salt and so on. The Drop will soon pair with some of Bosch’s ovens, so when you get to the preheat step of the recipe, the appliance will actually turn on and set itself to the correct temperature.

Previous

Smart Home

Knock and the door shall be see-through: New LG fridge door goes transparent

lg instaview fridge lfxs30796d

We have all opened the fridge and stood there looking through its contents, all the while losing refrigerated air and the energy it represents. Now LG has come up with the perfect solution with its InstaView refrigerator.

The right French door of the fridge is equipped with a special tinted panel that becomes translucent when someone knocks on it twice. You can view all your food and save the coolness for inside the fridge where it belongs.