Most commonly suggested features from our questionnaire:

• As peoples food keeps freezing, the fridge should monitor the temperature of the food, Not the actual air temperature. (Idea: use a temperature-sensitive infa-red camera to monitor food temperature. Have several independantly controlled cooling elements distributed throughout the fridge. This would allow the contents of the fridge to be cooled evenly. Alternatively,install a fan inside the fridge to constantly circulate the air to avoid cool air pooling at the bottom and freezing things [in a simular way to how a fan oven creates a more even heat distribution in an oven].)
• People want bigger fridges with more organised compartments. (Idea: Have seperate compartments within your fridge, which can be independantly temperature-controlled to refelct whats in it [eg: meat should be colder than cheese.] Making bigger fridges fit in the same space is just not feasable, so a more organised internal structure can increase the effective capacity without increasing overall size. Each shelf could be replaced with a slide-out draw. This would make it easier to get to the back of the fridge and would also mean the user would be less likely to forget that ‘thing’ at the back of the fridge as it was hidden by the cheese! As bottles of juice & milk, etc always take up more of the precious vertical fridge-door space, a series of vertical dispencers could be put in the door panel. These would be filled with your juice or milk and would more efficiently store the liquids. They would have to be removable to make them easy to refill or clean.
• People accidentally leave the door open/the door does not shut properly. (Idea: if the fridge door is left open for more than 30 seconds/1 minute, an auidable alarm should sound to inform the owner that the fridge is still open. It could be annoying if it immediately sounds a loud noise after 1 mnute if the owner is still using it, so a gradually increasing alarm could be used or an alarm could sound only if the door is slightly open as opposed to fully open.)
• Food keeps going off / running out. (Idea: Implement an RFID (or barcode) based inventory control system. This would keep track of the food in the fridge, along with its repsective use-by dates. This would only work on pre-purchased food in its original container. If food is decanted into another container or home-made food is stored in the fridge, RFID-programamble tuppaware containers could be used.) An RFID inventory could be used to automatically order food that is running out or going off. It would also allow the owner to view the contents of the fridge on a screen on the outside of the fridge door. This would save energy as you would have to open the fridge door as often.
• Fridge should be easier to clean. (Idea: The shelves/draws should be removable. There should be a series of drainage channels in the sides/bottom of the fridge. These would collect any spillages or melted ice in the fridge and channel it to a removable drainage container. This would help reduce destroying food as ‘the milk accidentally leaked’ and make an integrated fridge/freezer easier to defrost.)
• People want an un-interruptable power supply (UPS). This would help keep food fresh in a power cut, or if the house is on a coin-operated power supply/meter. (Ideas: A UPS could be very useful in tackeling those problems, however large PC UPS’s can usually only sustain a computer for 10 minutes so it is doubtful a fridge could be kept operating for a useful period of time without giving a substantial volume of the internal capacity over to a battery. It would be possible for the firdge to go into a ‘low power’ mode, keeping track of how long it had been without power. This would allow the owner to make a more educated decision on whether or not to throw away the contents of the fridge after a power cut. The fridge could have an integrated mobile phone circuit that could text the owner it its power supply is interrupted.)
• Better fridge lighting. (Ideas: Have a greater selection of lights inside the fridge. Alternatively have the entire internal back panel of the firdge light up. An ultra-violet light could be installed in the fridge to light it up and would also prove to be an extremely effective anti-bacterial protection system.)