Internet Fridge Image by SplaTT via Flickr

By Bill Bennett

PC Authority’s Whatever happened to: the Internet-connected fridge? brought back memories of some stories I wrote in 2000.

It was just after the dotcom bubble burst, but at a time when there was still interest in the internet and the way it was insinuating itself in to all aspects of life. Despite huge investments and plenty of hype, internet-connected fridges and similar networked kitchen appliances never took off.

In fact they hardly sold at all. Before we look at why the product category failed, here’s the colourful intro I wrote for a The Australian Financial Review story in June 2000:

Disney’s cartoon movie The Beauty and the Beast featured a castle full of intelligent animated appliances that talked to each other. The film was made as recently as 1991, yet even at that time, the idea of loquacious brooms, smart candlesticks, chatty clocks and even intelligent teapots seemed like pure fantasy.

In fact it was eerily prophetic. Today people in laboratories, software development corporations and marketing departments are working on projects that will put an electronic brain in just about every household appliance you can imagine and provide the hardware allowing devices to talk to each other. By the time Disney’s film celebrates its tenth birthday, the first fruit of their labours will be on sale. Read the rest of this entry »