A smart domestic refrigerator with energy efficiency improvement

This paper proposes hardware revision of a conventional domestic refrigerator: a Wi-Fi enabled main control board design with backward compatibility with existing peripherals are explained. A simple learning algorithm is also implemented on the microcontroller to maximize system efficiency while maintaining temperature at food safety limit or user's temperature preference. A wireless sensor node (WSN) is also introduced to reflect the actual food temperature for more precise temperature monitoring and control. The result from shows that the refrigerator can achieve higher efficiency at 6.38% for refrigeration cycle and 7.18% for defrost cycle. The result can be improved further with additional data collected and better algorithm implemented.