In all freezers and refrigerators all have integral plastic inner frame and the refrigerator door mezzanine both are filled with injection-type Styrofoam to keep cold. The plastic inner frames and Styrofoam are both environmentally unfriendly and difficult to recycle and wasteful a lot of energy.

A refrigerator appliance is provided including a cabinet defining a chilled chamber, a door rotatably hinged to the cabinet to provide selective access to the chilled chamber, and an inventory management system mounted within the chilled chamber for monitoring objects positioned within the chilled chamber. The inventory management system may include a noncontact scanning device, such as a three-dimensional light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensor, a camera assembly, and/or one or more weight sensors that work together to detect, identify, and locate objects positioned within the chilled chamber.

A refrigerator appliance is provided including a cabinet defining a chilled chamber, a door rotatably hinged to the cabinet to provide selective access to the chilled chamber, and an inventory management system mounted within the chilled chamber for monitoring objects positioned within the chilled chamber. The inventory management system may include a noncontact scanning device, such as a three-dimensional light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensor, a camera assembly, and/or one or more weight sensors that work together to detect, identify, and locate objects positioned within the chilled chamber.

A smart refrigerator assembly includes a refrigerator to facilitate storage of perishable items. Each of a pair of carousels is rotatably integrated into the refrigerator to support perishable food items. Each of a pair of doors is hingedly coupled to the refrigerator for opening and closing the refrigerator. Each of the doors is constructed of an electrochromic material to facilitate the doors to be alternatively opaque or translucent. In this way the doors facilitate contents of the refrigerator to be visible without opening the doors.

A method is provided for cooling a beverage in a container, the container being provided in contact with a cooling contact body thermally conductively coupled to a cooling element. The method comprises operating the cooling element and obtaining an ambient temperature of the environment outside the container and the cooling contact body. Based on the ambient temperature, a cut on temperature is defined and a temperature value indicative of a temperature of the beverage is obtained. The cooling element is operated if the temperature is larger than the cut on temperature until an end criterion is met. A higher ambient temperature may require more cooling of the beverage to ensure the temperature of the beverage is maintained between acceptable boundaries. A higher environmental temperature, requiring more cooling, means faster switching on or off. By using a switch on temperature based on the ambient temperature, more efficient cooling may be established.

A method is provided for cooling a beverage in a container, the container being provided in contact with a cooling contact body thermally conductively coupled to a cooling element. The method comprises operating the cooling element and obtaining an ambient temperature of the environment outside the container and the cooling contact body. Based on the ambient temperature, a cut on temperature is defined and a temperature value indicative of a temperature of the beverage is obtained. The cooling element is operated if the temperature is larger than the cut on temperature until an end criterion is met. A higher ambient temperature may require more cooling of the beverage to ensure the temperature of the beverage is maintained between acceptable boundaries. A higher environmental temperature, requiring more cooling, means faster switching on or off. By using a switch on temperature based on the ambient temperature, more efficient cooling may be established.

A cabinet with anti-condensation mechanism is used to control opening and closing a cabinet door of the cabinet. The cabinet includes a control module, a temperature control module, and a locking module. The control module senses a cabinet-inside temperature inside the cabinet, and senses cabinet-outside temperature and a cabinet-outside humidity outside the cabinet to generate a dew-point threshold value. The temperature control module is used to adjust the cabinet-inside temperature. The locking module is used to lock the cabinet door or unlock the cabinet door. The control module controls the locking module according to the cabinet-inside temperature and the dew-point threshold value, and controls the temperature control module to adjust the cabinet-inside temperature to be greater than or equal to the dew-point threshold value when the control module receives a trigger signal.

Provided is a sensor package in a refrigerator configured to provide information related to refrigerated food. The sensor package may include a body having a mark classified by a type of food allocated to the sensor package and indicating the type of food of a food to which the sensor package is coupled, a battery, an operation switch, a memory configured to store food information corresponding to the type of food corresponding to the mark, a sensor communication module that communicates with a display provided in the refrigerator, a sensing module that senses state information associated with the food, and a sensor control module that controls the sensor communication module to initiate communication between the sensor package and the display of the refrigerator based on the state information sensed by the sensing module.

A refrigerator comprises a storage compartment configured to store food, a temperature detector configured to detect an internal temperature of the storage compartment, a cooler configured to supply cool air to the storage compartment, a microphone configured to receive a speech, a display configured to display information, at least one processor configured to be electrically connected to the temperature detector, the microphone, and the display; and a memory configured to be electrically connected to the at least one processor. The memory stores at least one instructions configured to, when a first speech including a food name is recognized via the microphone, allow the processor to display a food list, which comprises food information corresponding to the food name and an identification mark identifying the food information, on the display, and configured to, when a second speech referring to the identification mark is recognized via the microphone, allow the processor to display food purchase information corresponding to the identification mark, on the display.

A refrigerator comprises a storage compartment configured to store food, a temperature detector configured to detect an internal temperature of the storage compartment, a cooler configured to supply cool air to the storage compartment, a microphone configured to receive a speech, a display configured to display information, at least one processor configured to be electrically connected to the temperature detector, the microphone, and the display; and a memory configured to be electrically connected to the at least one processor. The memory stores at least one instructions configured to, when a first speech including a food name is recognized via the microphone, allow the processor to display a food list, which comprises food information corresponding to the food name and an identification mark identifying the food information, on the display, and configured to, when a second speech referring to the identification mark is recognized via the microphone, allow the processor to display food purchase information corresponding to the identification mark, on the display.