A mouse killed my $3,000 refrigerator, but this smart cooler came to the rescue to save my food — and it’s 30% off in an early Black Friday deal

(Image credit: Tom's Guide)

I should have known from the way my cats were sniffing at the bottom of my refrigerator that something was up. I was in the middle of testing Samsung’s Family Hub — the fridge with a massive touchscreen and AI that lets you know what you have inside — when I got an alert that its fan had stopped working, and it was no longer cooling everything within.

Fortunately, I had the Anker Solix EverFrost 2 smart cooler on hand, which helped me save a lot of my food from getting spoiled. And right now, you can get the Anker Solix EverFrost 2 for $629 at Amazon in an early Black Friday deal.

The problem happened on a Thursday morning; by the time I went through the entire troubleshooting process with Samsung (which involved the old “have you tried turning it on and then off again’) and they realized they’d have to send someone out to fix it, the earliest available appointment for their contracted repair company wasn’t until Tuesday.

Now, there have been some great advancements in insulation, but none that would preserve my fruits, vegetables, milk, eggs, cheese, meat and the last bit of my kid’s ice cream cake for five days.

However, I had on hand an Anker Solix EverFrost 2 smart cooler, which served me well over the summer months, and was about to do so again. It’s basically a refrigerator/freezer on wheels: You can adjust the temperature to your preferred setting, and either leave it plugged in or have it run on battery power. When I originally tested the EverFrost 2 vs. the Ecoflow over the summer, the EverFrost was able to last more than 24 hours with the temperature set to 32º F. Not wanting to risk my perishables, I left it plugged in the entire time.

While I wasn’t able to cram the entire contents of the refrigerator into the EverFrost 2 — maybe I should have sprung for the 58L model — I was able to preserve all our dairy products, which meant my kid was able to continue having cereal for breakfast, and I was able to whip up milk for my morning cappuccino.

When the repairman came, he opened up the back of the refrigerator and discovered that a mouse found its way in, and then got decapitated by the spinning fan blade, jamming the fan in the process. For good measure, it also shorted out some circuits.

Fortunately, the repairman was able to fix the refrigerator in about 30 minutes — we had a small ceremony for the dead mouse — so I could go back to using the Anker EverFrost for what it was intended: keeping my beer cold.

Michael A. Prospero is the U.S. Editor-in-Chief for Tom’s Guide. He oversees all evergreen content and oversees the Homes, Smart Home, and Fitness/Wearables categories for the site. In his spare time, he also tests out the latest drones, electric scooters, and smart home gadgets, such as video doorbells. Before his tenure at Tom's Guide, he was the Reviews Editor for Laptop Magazine, a reporter at Fast Company, the Times of Trenton, and, many eons back, an intern at George magazine. He received his undergraduate degree from Boston College, where he worked on the campus newspaper The Heights, and then attended the Columbia University school of Journalism. When he’s not testing out the latest running watch, electric scooter, or skiing or training for a marathon, he’s probably using the latest sous vide machine, smoker, or pizza oven, to the delight — or chagrin — of his family.

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