NU12 Idea #12 by Mariko Franca “The Cool Ref”

I found myself staring at our refrigerator one very hot Saturday afternoon and I wished I can stay inside it even for couple of hours just to cool myself.  This led me to thinking about other things our refrigerator can function as and below are the things that I came up with:

1.  Room cooler – We do not have an air-conditioner at home and we have to rely on the electric fans to cool the room.  What if the ref can also help cool the room?  I'm thinking that as the inside of the ref cools so will its outer part.  The appliance can have a switch button that provides you the option to do this or just keep the cool inside especially on already cold days or when no one is in the kitchen.4

2.  Expiry date alarm – You can input digitally the expiry date of the things you put inside your ref.  An alarm (i.e. beep, flashing red light) will go off to warn you that an item will be expiring soon.  You can set the options as to when you want to be informed (i.e. one day or one week in advance).  If your house is wifi-enabled and you have a smartphone, you can also have your ref send you a warning (i.e. text message) so that you will be informed even when you go on vacation. 4

3.  Auto-grocery list – I believe that every household has a particular set of goods that are regular refrigerator grocery items.  In our house for example, we should always have bread, eggs, Yakult, cheese, and fish.  My dad sometimes fail to check what is it that we still have in stock and so end up with too much fish or vegetables which would eventually go to waste.  The auto-grocery list system will have a screen and keyboard.  The system will be installed in the ref door.  What you first need to do is type in the items that your ref should always contain.  You need to update the system whenever you put in or remove an item.  Imagine a digital inventory system.  Then before you leave for the grocery, you can press the 'send' button and you will receive the auto-grocery list in your smartphone.  You can also set the system to send you the list at a particular date and time.  For example, if it was for my dad it would be every Sunday at 1PM which is when he goes to the grocery store. 4