Our apartment came with a refrigerator. It was alright, it made things cold, it kept them cold. It was also incredibly noisy, and no matter how much I fiddled with its settings, the compressor was always running and any ice cream left in the deep freeze part got rock solid.1
When I hooked up one of my smart plugs to it, I soon learned why: one of the two compressors was running all the time. This lead to a huge block of ice forming on the back of the main compartment, and the deep freeze section icing up really quickly. I suspect that the thermostat may have been busted and contributed to the issue, but after trying to repair a dishwasher, getting cut about 10 times on my hands and losing, I had zero interest in attempting another home appliance repair on my own.

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A comparison of power consumption between a 30-year-old UPO Jääkarhu refrigerator and a modern replacement using smart plug monitoring. The old unit consumed 2.6 kWh daily versus 0.7 kWh for the new one—a 3.7x difference. Monthly savings of approximately 57 kWh translate to a payback period of about 38 months at 17 cents per kWh. The analysis demonstrates practical IoT monitoring applications for home energy optimization and appliance replacement decisions.

Comparing the power consumption of a 30 year old refrigerator to a brand new one

Nope, modern appliances do this (especially dishwashers) by making the motors ‘light’ they draw less sure… but have light oil, light components and break way more often. I replace a dishwasher ever 2-3 years. I have no issue if they actually make a “good” product, we know they can, previous refrigerators and other appliances lasted decades… we need that level of durability with the power saving to really call it a win, otherwise I’m replacing the appliance sooner and any saving in power is offset by the waste in replacing the appliance. (And don’t even get me started on repairing those things, a single part can be 1/3 the cost of the entire thing, IFF you can get it at all.

That is insane difference. I have 11 years old fridge and I just check the annual poer consumption and it should be 308kWh/years and new A category are claiming 108kWh/year. That is like 66% less. That’s a big difference!

Wait for the fridge to start running LLM-s, then we will see new heights :D

Interesante esto me pone a pensar no solo en el precio sino en el consumo