If I press 3 on my keyboard, my fridge gives me a suspicious look. If I press Z, it starts drawing those colorful pipes you might remember from old Windows screensavers. The drinks inside are unaffected by either decision.

I was supposed to be reviewing the Enventor Pixel Mini Fridge. Then I saw the 32 × 32 pixel display on the door and wanted to know what I could make it do. The result is Pixel Demo Board, a dashboard I built that runs in a browser and sends animations to the fridge over Bluetooth. In the video, I walk through the fridge itself and then show the dashboard in action.

The fridge part of the fridge review

The Enventor is a four-liter desktop cooler with a removable shelf and room for up to six cans, depending on their size. It uses thermoelectric cooling, so how cold it gets depends on the temperature of the room. I’d put it beside an editing desk for a few drinks. If you’re shopping for somewhere to keep a week’s worth of lunches, four liters will get small in a hurry.

The reason I’d give this one a spot on the desk instead of underneath it is the door. Out of the box, the iDotMatrix app lets you put artwork, animations, and scrolling messages on the display. You can stop there and have a perfectly good time. I wanted keyboard shortcuts for my refrigerator, which is how we got here.

See the Enventor Pixel Mini Fridge on Amazon (affiliate link). As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

What I put on 1,024 pixels

Pixel Demo Board has 30 demos across five categories. An aquarium is a surprisingly good use of that little square. Press H and fish swim across the door. Press G and it displays my name, in case the custom software left any doubt about whose fridge this is.

There’s also a little campfire, a bouncing logo, a collection of expressive faces, and several arcade-inspired scenes. And because somebody is going to ask: no, the fridge doesn’t run Doom. I made a Doom-inspired corridor animation. The distinction matters, especially to the person who would otherwise spend their afternoon looking for the controls.

The interesting part of the build was getting an animation that looked right on my computer to play reliably on the fridge. Uploading a GIF to the fridge didn’t work consistently on my unit. Sending the changed pixels directly over Bluetooth did, so that’s how the dashboard plays demos by default. The browser does the work, the door lights up, and the controller tab needs to stay open.

Try the dashboard yourself

You can try the on-screen preview without owning the fridge. Download Pixel Demo Board.html from GitHub and open the file in Chrome or Edge. It’s one self-contained HTML file. There’s no account to create, package to install, or server to set up.

If you have a compatible 32 × 32 iDotMatrix display, disconnect the phone app first, click Connect display, and choose your device from the Bluetooth picker. Browser and platform support varies, but the Enventor fridge is the hardware I built and tested this on. The full GitHub project includes the source, keyboard shortcuts, and troubleshooting tips.

My vote for the first demo: try 3D Pipes. There’s something funny about having enough computing power on my desk to do actual work and still finding myself watching a screensaver on the appliance that holds my soda.