Saw in a JennAir press release JA will be offering glass front fridges and dishwashers next year. Hmm.

But a glass front doesn't necessarily mean a window. Just a glass panel instead of metal or stainless or whatever. :-(

I just cant wait to watch all the food in the frig. Where's the entertainment in that?

Sorry, misread the post again. Thought it was a frig you were talking about.

You can put a time lapse camera in front of the fridge and then when you play it back, you can watch the mold grow.

Glass front DW? If that means a window, then it's about time!

While we appliance-heads might enjoy a window-like glass front on a dishwasher, I think John and Jane Consumer would find the bits of food and spaghetti sauce-colored water spraying around quite nauseating.

Yeah, the dishwasher would be cool for us select few (LOL) but the refrigerator wouldn't work for me, for the same reason I detest kitchen cabinets with see through glass doors. I don't want to see all that freaking clutter!

I could never understand clear cabinet doors. With a baker/cook like me, a major chore to keep clean. And it's kinda like washer & dryers with see-thru doors. I often leave laundry in the dryer and fish stuff out daily as I heading to the shower after breakfast. Whoever will just have to deal with it LOL.

I have seen it done well - clear refrigerator and cabinet doors but mind you, I don't have a $12,000 refrigeration budget for my kitchen. If I did, I would have one Sub-Zero refrigerator with a solid door for food and the usual cold storage and one with a glass door for sodas, drinks, and more "organized" items... I have a client with this arrangement and it is very cool.

For glass cabinet doors, this would only work for me in a kitchen with an abundance of cabinets or with non-transparent glass in the doors. I have a small kitchen with limited storage space so it's best to stand back when opening a door so the items you may or may not desire don't whack you on the noggin' when you open the doors!

Hmm, I never get that stuff on my head, my reactions are pretty fast, I always catch those items!!

Nor me...It's not a danger the last couple of weeks as I haven't done any shopping other than for milk and soda!

I think this is a good idea for efficiency reasons as well as aesthetics.

On the dishwasher, you could see if something was loose and knocking around, or if you'd loaded it in such a manner as to block the spray getting to something else on the upper rack. As for conventional consumers getting nauseated by the sight of their spaghetti flying around, perhaps that would encourage them to scrape residuals off their plates before putting them in the machine. And, one could hope, perhaps encourage people to not waste food (aren't I oldfashioned?).

On the fridge, you'd also want an exterior switch that would turn the interior light on (perhaps a momentary-contact switch that you have to hold in the On position so you don't leave a light on in the fridge). This way you could look into the fridge without opening the door -thereby saving more energy- for instance before you go to the store: "Do I need to buy milk?" Turn on the light briefly and take a look. "Is there space in the freezer for another half gallon of ice cream?" "Do I have a can of frozen orange juice left or did I use the last one?"

Only thing is: that glass front absolutely must be double-glazed or better yet triple-glazed, so it doesn't waste energy compared to a conventional non-window cabinet design.

Now here's another Wild Idea. Triple glaze it. The center sheet wouldn't be glass, but would be some kind of plastic (I'm not a materials engineer so I'm out of my field here). The plastic would be transparent, but would have the property of becoming milky-white or dark translucent, or slightly luminous, when either a) light is applied to the edge, for example through a small fluorescent tube, or b) when a tiny electric current is applied, as in an electro-luminescent panel.

This would make the fridge appear to have a conventional opaque door when you don't need to look inside; and it might also provide a bit of a night-light in the kitchen .

I'd miss using the fridge doors as shelf space.

I saw a bathroom window that had some sort of gas in between the panes of glass and when a switch was flipped, the gas would become "white" for privacy. I would think this would add to the already prohibitive cost of a windowed refrigerator but for some, that is not an issue...

Maybe the Roper version of the window-fridge could come with a roll of the stainless peel-n-stick for more private food storage options!

Gansky, you'd still need a curtain in the bathroom window for use during power outages:-).

I told a friend of mine about this window-fridge, and he said it was a very good idea because some people will open the fridge door and stare at the food for literally *minutes* before choosing something to eat or drink. Holy cow, talk about wasting electricity, I could practically visualize all the cold air pouring out on the kitchen floor! But with a window-fridge you can look for as long as you like, no problem.

By the way there is a compact countertop dishwasher that has a small oval window on the front. Can't remember the name of it at the moment. It's fairly inexpensive. Now all it needs is a light inside, eh?

I have to admit, there *is* something pleasant about watching water spraying around and splashing and so on. Reminds me of playing in the water from the lawn sprinkler when I was a kid, or splashing around in a swimming pool, or a bath-tub full of bubble bath, or something like that. Pleasant associations.

This is one of the reasons it pains me to think about the world's oil supply peaking-out in a few years, or climate change, etc. If we want to keep a comfortable standard of living far into the future, we need to think ahead. Use resources as efficiently as possible, make a few small sacrifices, and build a lot more non-fossil power plants e.g. wind, nuclear, and so on. In terms of appliance design, the major challenges are in air conditioning and refrigeration. Any progress in these areas is important, and something to celebrate.