Tested: Dometic Waeco CFX 35W

Step inside any new caravan these days and you’d be hard pressed not to find a product or appliance from RV accessories giant Dometic.

Windows, fridges, air-conditioners, cooktops, heaters, toilets, washing machines – the Swedish company has leading products covering just about every aspect of RV living, and as we’ve discovered over years of testing, they work.

From tough security doors and three-way fridges on Outback trips to efficient reverse-cycle air-conditioners on wintry week-end getaways, even little metho cookers, it’s easy to see why the company's products are so popular with all the big-selling caravan brands.

Portable fridges too

Dometic, through their Waeco brand, are also a big supplier of portable fridge/freezers – a very competitive market with dozens of brands vying for the dollars of anyone who needs something to stay cold on their next road trip.

To keep ahead of the pack, the Waeco CFX range of portable fridges was recently updated, with new styling and features including the ability on some models to be remotely controlled via a Wi-Fi-enabled smartphone app.

While skeptical at first about why you’d need to operate a fridge remotely, the feature has proven useful as a camp chair monitoring tool on at least a couple of occasions, to help keep an eye on temperatures. The app, which is easily downloaded (from the iTunes store in our case), also has a temperature alarm function as well as a lid open alert – handy if the kids fail to close it properly!

Otherwise, the latest CFX fridges retain all the desirable features of the previous generation, as we’ve discovered testing a CFX 35W model -- which with 34.5 litres capacity is the second smallest fridge in the range -- over the past six months.

Keeps its cool

While we haven’t used it in the tropical north, the compressor fridge has worked well on warmer Victorian summer days of around 30 degrees. We normally set it around six degrees, but it can go from 10 degrees to minus 10 if you want to store frozen food.

It comes with a wire basket for the main compartment, but we’ve tended to remove that to pack in the maximum amount of food or beer cans (up to 47 cans in this case). It will also hold wine bottles, if that's your thing.

Plugged into the vehicle’s 12V socket (there’s also a 240V-style, three prong plug that can be used on some off-roaders like the Ford Everest and Toyota LandCruiser), it’s got down to the desired temperature reasonably quickly and most importantly, stayed there.

Holds together well

Despite being thrown around the back of utes and SUV cargo areas, the polypropylene cabinet and lid have proved durable, while also keeping the unit light enough to carry around using the spring loaded handles.

The fridge operates quietly and the digital panel on the side is easy to use and read. Nothing’s broken so far, although we’ve misplaced the removable 12V plug (it would be handy to have somewhere on the outside of the fridge where you could store the cord that isn't being used).

The CFX 35W also comes with a USB charging port, although we haven’t tried that yet, along with three-stage battery protection, LED light and a drain plug.

At just 411mm high, we originally chose the CFX 35 model for review so it would fit under the hard tonneau cover of a Mazda BT-50 that we were also testing at the time, but there are larger, bigger-capacity options available in the eight-model CFX range, right up to the 100L CFX 100W that can hold an impressive 153 cans!

Verdict

With a RRP of $1199 (although it’s available cheaper online), the CFX 35W isn’t the cheapest, nor the most expensive portable fridge of its size on the market. But if you’re after something that’s efficient, user-friendly, fuss-free, and backed by strong after-sales support, it should prove money well spent.