The dometic brand is a powerhouse in the RV, marine, and overland markets, producing chest, drawer, and upright fridges. They’ve been at it for decades, refining their products and improving the features to compete with compressor fridges like the Engel Combi. This latest incarnation of their cooling unit boasts rounded and reinforced corners, one of the best Bluetooth apps on the market, and an advanced safety feature called Fridge Defend. This patented device monitors the temperature of the boiler and, if it is overheating, shuts off the heater that drives the refrigeration process.

The Dometic gave us the best cooldown results in our test and second-best warm-up performance, primarily because of its excellent insulation and coil construction/density. Its power consumption was also modest at 4.6 amp hours under rapid cooling, allowing it to run longer than any other unit in our test. The app gives a graph that shows power usage by hour, day, or week.

Dometic has conducted years of research to find a replacement for sodium dichromate and, based on this research, they have identified an alternative in inhibitor 7 but validation of this new inhibitor is ongoing. If all goes well with the new inhibitor, Dometic would start to introduce products using it into the market from 2018 onwards, starting with the products with the lowest boiler temperature. After that, Dometic could gradually introduce all their products containing sodium dichromate into the market with inhibitor 7, until the use of this chemical is completely phased out in 2029. norcold rv ac units