Smart Home Awards 2026 crown fridge power backup winner

A 2,016Wh fridge backup just won big at the Smart Home Awards.

Tom’s Guide’s annual awards spotlight 25 gadgets and tools designed to make homes smarter, simpler, and more reliable, from robot vacuums and pool cleaners to air purifiers, security cameras, and large appliances. The emphasis is on practical devices you can drop into daily life right now, not prototypes you’ll only use after a steep learning curve. Among the standout winners is a dedicated power backup for refrigerators, the BLUETTI FridgePower Ultra-Slim Battery Backup for Refrigerators, a product built to tackle the nagging problem of outages that threaten perishables and medicines.

The FridgePower is designed around a core idea: keep the fridge running when the lights go out. It delivers 2,016Wh of capacity and can be expanded up to 8,064Wh, giving homeowners a path to scale protection for longer outages. It powers through two standard AC outlets, so a fridge plus a secondary device can stay fed without swapping plugs or juggling cords. A key efficiency feature is its low idle drain of 4W, meaning it doesn’t waste energy when not actively supplying power. The device’s form factor is a true standout in a crowded appliance category, just 75 mm thick, and it can sit behind a refrigerator or tuck into a narrow corner of the kitchen without crowding space.

The technical edge is the 10 ms UPS switchover, which the award notes as near instant. In practice, that means fewer spoiled foods and less worry about medicine that needs refrigeration during a momentary blackout. In a market that increasingly treats resilience as a design constraint, the FridgePower embodies a trend toward hardware that blends into home life while delivering a tangible safeguard against outages. It’s not a showpiece for drama, but a pragmatic tool that makes a real difference when the power grid falters.

For homeowners, the award signals a few practical realities about modern smart homes. First, capacity matters, and the option to scale from 2,016Wh to more than 8,000Wh gives families a way to match the device to their outage risk, climate, and appliance lineup. Second, footprint matters; put simply, you don’t want a backup upgrader to become as bulky as the fridge it protects, which is where the ultra-slim profile pays off. Third, response time matters; the promise of a 10 ms switchover is about expectation management. You won’t notice the switch as power cycles back on. Fourth, efficiency is not optional; a low idle drain keeps energy costs and waste in check during quiet periods when the unit is waiting for the next outage event.

As the smart home category matures, the awards consistently tilt toward devices that integrate seamlessly into ordinary life while delivering clear, measurable benefits during emergencies. The BLUETTI FridgePower illustrates this balance: it is a purpose-built utility that slots into existing kitchen setups, scales with need, and quietly reduces risk when it matters most. It’s a reminder that resilience in 2026 often comes in the form of smarter, smaller, and more reliable hardware rather than flashy features alone.