Q >> I was at the appliance store yesterday and can’t believe that almost every single unit they had included Wi-Fi and some even had AI features. A fridge with AI! Is all of this really necessary?

A >> In a consumer world, companies often add features and capabilities based on whether they’ll help sell a product. Necessity isn’t the only factor that’s considered. The result: Sometimes products get features that sure seem gimmicky. Like $2,500 refrigerators with display screens on their doors.

There is a subset of consumers who are drawn to the latest and greatest too, ready to spend a premium to get the best. This is often determined by price tag, so that $2,500 fridge with its own app, interior camera and a touchscreen display must be the top unit on the market.

I just bought a new dishwasher for my place, a very nice Bosch unit, without noticing that it’s Wi-Fi enabled with a companion app. I was focused on traditional dishwasher features and it can be used without ever connecting it to the internet, but the app does offer additional convenience. I can start a load before I even get home! I can get a notification when it’s finished!

The sales information for the unit was focused on water usage, how quiet it was, and the reliability of the manufacturer. Key considerations for a commodity appliance, and if the non-Wi-Fi unit would have been even $50 cheaper, I would have chosen that for simplicity.

Internet connectivity, companion apps, and AI are invading all of our electronics. My last air fryer plugged in and cooked. My new unit has an app and simplifies settings, but was that feature needed?

For now, consumers can opt to have less technologically advanced appliances and devices, but will you also sacrifice the best features? One possibility is that you opt out by simply not hooking it up to your internet.

Where this will get more difficult is when there are features that will only be accessible via an application. Will the “unconnected” features be sufficient to justify the price?

That’s before we even consider how AI might be able to help our devices learn our preferences and operate smarter and more efficiently. What if, for example, a dishwasher could identify where dishes are loaded and focus its efforts on just those spots? Or a stove could track that you’ve finished cooking and automatically turn off the burners? Or maybe adjust temperatures because it knows what you’re cooking?

There’s a world of intelligent features just starting to show up in our gadgets and devices. The next decade should be most interesting as we see genius ideas that revolutionize some appliances and utterly daft ideas that fall flat before a single consumer buys one. Hopefully we’ll always be able to opt out.

Dave Taylor has been involved with the online world since the beginning of the Internet. He runs the popular AskDaveTaylor.com tech Q&A site and invites you to subscribe to his weekly email newsletter at AskDaveTaylor.com/subscribe/ You can also find his entertaining gadget reviews on YouTube at YouTube.com/AskDaveTaylor.