I put this Instagram-famous mini fridge in my living room. Here’s what surprised me

The Rocco Essential mini fridge is not your old college dorm-room refrigerator. It's sophisticated. It's the one that completes a room that you build your after-college house around. The Essential adds extra functionality that you might not have realized a living space needed.

Let's rewind for a second. Rocco has been an Instagram star for a couple of years thanks to its original Classic mini fridge. The company continues to add attractive color options to that product. But it also knows that $1,799 for The Classic is just beyond what some people can afford. 

So the new Rocco Essential fridge trims costs in a few areas without removing the powerful compressor or the fundamental parts of why people can't stop looking at it on social media. I added the Essential to my living room and have been getting a sense of why it's so desirable.

What I've found is obvious: the Rocco Essential is a good place to keep drinks. It works as advertised, even if its intelligent vision could use some tweaking. What surprised me is that its functionality extends beyond that. It's an appliance, a piece of furniture, and a conversation piece.

This fridge is a conversation starter

Rocco's original Classic fridge is probably still the best-looking of its two products. That's what I would expect from a fridge that costs between $1,795 and $1,995, depending on whether it's on sale. It should be instant eye candy.

While I think The Essential's straight lines and modest style play second fiddle to The Classic in a direct comparison, it isn't a slouch. In fact, I've gone online window shopping for other mini fridges, and no others come close to the design stylings of The Essential.

Partially, that's thanks to the colors of The Essential: cream, sage, and graphite. Other fridges on the market are utilitarian, at best.

In my experience, Rocco's Essential fridge blends in without losing its personality. For example, my wife didn't even notice it in our living room for a while after she got home. She had forgotten it was coming and wasn't looking for it, but instead of the appliance immediately drawing her eye, it blended in between our piano and large plant, as if it had always been there.

Part of that natural camouflage was thanks to its cream color. Had the mini fridge been a stark, sterile color with unnatural lighting shining through the front, she would have asked me to relocate it to the garage. Instead, it got a warm welcome.

The highlights of the Rocco Essential fridge

The Rocco Essential's design and style highlights are obvious. But there's more to it than the superficial aspects. For example, the door has frameless, dual-layer glass that gives it better insulation.

The lights can be on constantly or set to only come on when the door is opened. They can also be dimmed from the mobile app.

There's room for 77 12-ounce cans. But the fridge is not just configured for cans. Each rack has little rubber nubs that are properly spaced and configured to hold nearly any kind of bottle or can. For taller drinks, the shelves can be height-adjusted. The drawers pull out fully, so each drink can be seen.

The Essential uses a premium compressor, the same one that's in the more expensive Classic fridge. So it cools fast and stays quiet. To be clear, you can hear it. It's not inaudible. But most of the time I forget it's there or on. It never has loud fits or becomes the center of attention.

It has a temperature range between 34º and 57º Fahrenheit. This can be controlled on the fridge or through the mobile app.

Are there any drawbacks to the Instagram fridge?

There's one aspect of the Rocco Essential that I wish were better: its Sight System feature. This is a smart fridge because you can control it using the mobile app. But it even has the ability to show its current drink selection in the app. The problem is that this feature can be slow and unreliable.

There's a camera at the top of the interior, looking down, that can see the drink trays when they're pulled out and extended—otherwise, it's blocked when the door is closed. It took my app about 72 hours to show anything as it calibrated itself.

After that time period, the recommendation is to leave each tray extended for at least five seconds so it can identify the drinks and keep an updated list. Sometimes this worked great, while other times it didn't.

The idea is neat. If you have different drinks on every shelf, it can be tedious to pull each one out to offer one to a guest. It's much faster to show them your phone with images of all the choices.

I've been racking my brain, trying to think of another technical solution that could scan drinks faster or more reliably, but everything I've thought of would require more cameras or sensors and likely jack the price and support costs up.

The Sight System is a good idea, but I wouldn't buy this fridge for that feature. In other words, it's still a party trick. Anyone hoping to rely on it might be disappointed.

Is the Rocco Essential fridge worth buying?

I've come to think of the Rocco Essential as more of a piece of furniture than an appliance. Its waist-high stature even makes it a surface for a lamp or other decor. 

With its elevated design, Rocco offers the ability to keep the conversation going with drinks at the ready. You can put this mini fridge anywhere in the house, which makes it more than just an appliance.

Of course, for the $1,095 initial retail price, the Essential needs to do more than just chill a few drinks. Even if it does that well. The determining factor for the Rocco Essential is whether you're searching for a fridge that helps make any room it's in feel like the place to be. If so, that's The Classic's and The Essential's superpower.