Refrigerators, the Next Fad!

[mrb627]

It appears that the next wave to sweep the world of domestic refrigerators will be the dispensing of carbonated water through the door. I am all BUBBLY with excitement, NOT!

Samsung is first in line to release a French door model.

Malcolm

 

[teknikleespekng]

Really?... REALLY?

Good Grief, where does this all end? I have a regular refrigerator. I go into the stores and am not enticed at all by all the dispensing, etc of these new refrigerators. I guess Im just old-fashioned. *shrug*

 

[mrb627]

Soda stream

Seems to be a bigger rage than I ever expected...

Malcolm

 

[logixx]

 

[rp2813]

I would use that feature.  A lot.  IF it was cost effective.  But I'd not buy a Samsung in order to get it.

 

In the meantime my vintage soda siphon will suffice, although I had to adjust the shelving in the fridge to accommodate its height.

 

[washer111]

Fad Alright

Certainly a fad. Over here, Mitsubishi has decided that we need refrigerators with four doors, with two freezer compartments and a chiller drawer. I reallly dont' get how that would come remotely close to meeting energy efficiency standards.

 

But bubbly thru-the-door: Could work, but it needs to be developed by other manufacturers, as I'm betting that Samsung won't have the most reliable and tested system out there. We've had regular dispensers for years, so now, it may be time for something more!

 

[petek]

Soda Steam

What's old is new again, again. Remember back in the 80's there were at least a couple of those home soda gadgets on the market that fizzled out after a few of years. My partners niece and her family brought theirs along with them when they came for a visit soon after we'd bought the acreage around 86. It was neat and there was even a real beer "syrup" box available for it which surprisingly didn't taste all that bad. I recollect he paid quite a bit for the machine which looked like a square plastic espresso maker but once the novelty wore off those few years later you'd find lots of them for sale in the classified for next to nothing.

 

[whirlcool]

I don't think that anything made by SodaStream will taste as good as a soft drink made by a soft drink bottler. I imagine most flavors would be considered somewhat "off" compared to your Coke's & Pepsi's.

It might be fun to make your own Cherry carbonated drink or Cranberry.

When we were shopping for refrigerators about a year ago we were shocked at how deep a market penetration there was by LG & Samsung in the American market. It seems American companies aren't helping by making fewer models than they did before.

 

[qualin]

I think this is a bit of a sham actually. The pricing for sodastream "Chargers" aka CO2 bottles is nearly downright obscene.

One of those "60L" cylinders BTW sells for $43.75 CAD on Amazon... And the user is just encouraged to recycle them instead of recharge them. When you work it out, it works out to a $1.37 per litre.

Whereas, a 50 lb CO2 tank costs about $200 and costs $80 to fill full of CO2.
You can make 70 litres of pop on a pound of CO2, so a 50 lb bottle would make
3500 litres of pop.. So, for the cost of the tank and the CO2, it would cost you
$0.08 or 8 cents per litre.

When I can shove a 50 lb CO2 bottle behind the fridge and hook it up, sign me up.

I kind of figure that even if I drank 2 litres of pop about once a week, it would take me roughly 34 years to empty that tank.

 

[estesguy]

This reminds me of the short lived fad when one manufacturer put a flat screen TV in the door of a SXS. I can just hear the dinner conversation..." OK kids, dinner is over. Let's all pull up a chair and gather around the refrigerator to watch TV tonight". Does anyone besides me remember seeing those things when they came out several years ago?

 

[Chetlaham]

Kind of reminds me when whirlpool came out with the range that also doubled as a refrigerator. Looking in the sales manual it would only keep cool for 6 hours or something so the permanent notion was out the window. When it first came out the guy on the Sears floor told me they would be the latest craze. The theory behind it was you put in a cold lazania or meat in a pan in the morning,compressor kicks in to stay cool, then around 7 or when set to do so your meal gets cooked. Later when I went back to Sears I found out they had litteraly in 6 months only sold 3 out of a large shipment. A month latter after that they were on the sales floor at literaly half off, and still no takers.

IMHO I dont see this catching on in the states.

 

[mrb627]

Carbonation...

Seems that if they figured out how to do it without needing the little bottles of CO2, people would be more open to it. But I don't see this present form lasting long at all.

Malcolm

 

[iheartmaytag]

I have a sodastream and love it

The 60L recharged Carbonator is very reasonable if you take in your old one for exchange. For example if going to Wal-Mart, if you pick up a new Carbonator on the floor it will cost you $29.95. Take your empty to the service desk and exchange it it will cost you $14.99.

Some of the flavors are a bit off, but then again they don't have license for Coke or, Pepsi, but I have found the Dr. Pete is very close to Dr. Pepper if you add about 1/2 more syrup at the time of mixing.

The lemon-lime is very good, as well as the Orange, my favorite is the Cranberry-raspberry.

 

[whirlcool]

I think it was GE who made the oven that could keep things cold during the day and then start to heat later in the day just before you would get home. Wasn't it called the GE Arctica range?

 

[petek]

I think it was the Amana Polara range.

Years back a friend of mine in Vancouver bought a used "fountain" setup somewhere and installed it under the kitchen sink with a 50lb or so CO2 bottle. He got the syrup from food services type place where they sold the boxes of Coke and Pepsi and other syrups to the general public.

 

[mrb627]

Pricing

The Samsung Refrigerator with soda stream will list at 3995.00

 

Malcolm

 

[frigilux]

You know I loves me some gadgets, and club soda/seltzer water is often my beverage of choice. However...I can get a 2-liter bottle of it at Hy-Vee for 89-to-99 cents. And I could buy four large, new top-freezer Frigidaire refrigerators for $3995. So unless I win the lottery, the Samsung won't be gracing my kitchen. But just think of what a collector's item it will be in a couple of decades.

 

[Chetlaham]

If Im spelling it right:

Whirlpool Polara range

I always wonder how that got past consumer marketing reaserch.

 

[washer111]

Collectors Item?

Frigilux (or Eugene), something tells me you are gravely mistaken... I'm wondering how a Samsung (of all brands) would last that long... I suppose if someone kept it NIB - then again, it might have some sort of Samsung-ee failure between now and then... Then again, there is always the exception to the problem, as you seem to have proven quite a number of times on the forums here

 

Sorry: I have a terrible predisposition towards Samsung after seeing one of their "singing" FL machines, 4 Samsung phones and one of their microwaves at school (I refuse to use it... I prefer the "Daewoo" one, which, woo-ful as it is, is less likely to explode, IMO).