Tech industry sucks for all the reasons you said. Your perspective is not unreasonable but capitalism and how it affects consumer products is unreasonable. Unfortunately we cant change that in any reasonable amount of time at the moment.

Sticking a tablet to your fridge to make it a smart fridge does provide you the functionality you want from a smart fridge without the ads for all the reasons @cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de has mentioned above.

Those two things are not mutually exclusive.

You may want the tech industry to be better and provide the product you want to have but that doesn’t mean they have to. They haven’t shown interest in making that type of product and I don’t think that will change anytime soon.

You can be disappointed in that reality and continue your life without a smart fridge or accept Frankenfridge into your life and live out all your smart fridge fantasies. The choice is yours. Go wild… yolo!

Edit: The dealbreaker for me with the tablet stuck to a fridge would having to constantly charge it. Having a charging cord laced across my fridge would bother me to no end and so would removing the tablet every few days to charge it then stick it back on the fridge. Neither of those options work for me.

But I have never wanted a screen on my fridge so I am not bothered by my smartfridgeless existence. I don’t like too much technology around in my kitchen, or any room tbh, to begin with. I try to only buy appliances and kitchen stuff if it doesn’t have an “always on” light source like LEDs, digital clocks and such. That alone is next to impossible nowadays. How many kitchens have you been in recently that don’t have at least one always on light source on appliances or other gadgets?

That would be interesting if it were a thermal camera. Though as you point out, I wouldn't be spending extra money on such a feature.

Oh no, has technology gone too far?