GE’s tension tests puts fridges through the wringer

Most device producers do not let media into their screening centers, however GE provided me access to its one earlier today. Here’s what I saw.

GE Appliances’ head office in Louisville, Kentucky is huge. Known as Appliance Park, the 750-acre center has its own train track, its own postal code and a huge conveyor belt that ferryboats devices from constructing to structure. Inside, GE makes big devices like fridges and cleaning devices. As the device head office, it’s likewise the house to GE’s executive and public relations personnel, along with its device research study and advancement group. It’s here where GE carries out all type of extensive tests to guarantee its devices act as anticipated and are safe for customers.

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How GE torture tests its appliances

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At Appliance Park, there’s a lab to test everything, from the the hinges on a refrigerator door, to how well a microwave can withstand radio frequency interference, to the reliability of an algorithm to air-fry tater tots. In an anechoic chamber, engineers blast appliances with all kinds of radio frequencies to make sure your phone (or any of your other high-tech gadgets) don’t mess with the appliances’ connectivity capabilities. In another building, a lab engineers nicknamed “the Door Slam,” robotic arms open and close refrigerator doors hundreds of thousands of times. 

Read more: Repair pros tell all: Whirlpool top-rated for fridges, GE for ranges  

In the Consumer Information Testing lab, food scientists cook their way to finding the perfect algorithms for GE’s connected ovens. Every single thing that goes in to broil, bake or roast gets a major analysis: how brown those cookies got, how much moisture that beef tenderloin lost, how hot the oven got and when. All these are critical pieces of information that the GE team collects before it decides on a cooking mode, or rolls out an update.

To learn all about those labs and see more of what we found inside this Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory of appliances, check out the video above. 

Correction, 10:23 a.m.: Changed General Electric to GE in the headline, to differentiate between General Electric Corp. and the brand GE Appliances, which is owned by Chinese company Haier.