Bosch - 500 Series 26 cu. ft. French Door Standard-Depth Smart Refrigerator with External Water and Ice - Stainless steel

I just purchased the new Bosch 500 26 cubic foot refrigerator. I was excited to see they finally came out with a full size. Pros: Love the interior and the see through drawers and shelves, and the stainless steel back. The door shelves are large and fit more than my previous refrigerator. All the drawers roll smoothly and are quiet. The water dispenser is great as it angles back and doesn’t spray. The opening to the dispenser is much taller and will fit a bottle and has a hands free fill. The freezer has lots of storage. Cons: The water/ice dispenser is a little high for kiddos. If you have a home with teens it’s fine but the littles will struggle to reach. The biggest drawback for me is the lack of interior lighting, it looked perfect until I started filling it with groceries. The two side lights just aren't enough, and for the $3000 price tag I would expect more. The top shelves are dark because of this and could use a light above. The ice maker doesn't hold a ton and I was disappointed when it was removed to empty the first batch of ice. It definitely holds more than ice makers that are built into the door, but not as much as others with ice makers built into the refrigerator. It claims to be fingerprint resistant which is not the case. It has a door alarm but it doesn’t work if the door is touching but not closed all they way. It senses the mullion which is the strip that creates a seal when the two doors are closed. The air vents are positioned in inconvenient places and will freeze your food. You definitely need to be strategic when stocking the refrigerator or you’ll end up with frozen eggs. I never paid attention to air vents before and couldn’t tell you where they were placed as this was never an issue. We needed a repair man right after install because one of the doors would not stay open and kept swinging shut while stocking. It’s basically a design flaw according to the repair person. Most doors will stay open until you shut them. If your floor isn’t perfectly level these doors will close. Made in China. I have all Bosch appliances and this was the missing piece. It’s a beautiful appliance but has room for improvement in my opinion.

Just over a month in service, so this is a rather early review (hopefully doesn't jinx us! ;-), however so-far-so-good. It's operating perfectly & we're very pleased. Initially was only considering side-by-side (only design we've ever had), however we took a leap of faith on this model due to it's reputation & specs. We're now accustomed to the bottom freezer (xlnt space) & learned how to best load it and same for the top fridge. Agree with others it's annoying one cannot open the center crisper drawer without both front doors open (they should be independent IMHO), but it's not a deal-breaker. The door shelves are rather unusual but actually are better for our specific needs (quite varied bottle sizes used). The WiFi is a bit of a gimmick, but I have used it a few times (mostly to annoy the wife & kids by texting them to stop leaving the door open so long because I'm getting alarm texts from the fridge! LOL). Temp settings are accurate, the water is dispensed nicely cold, we've figured out how to get water & ice to dispense accurately (not onto the floor), lighting is fine, noise level is acceptable. Now we just pray this fridge lasts a nice long trouble-free life. Or I'll be back here removing stars! :-\

I never thought I'd be writing a review of a refrigerator, but here we are. This thing is freakin awesome. We replaced a 9 year old 28cu. ft. French door LG with this one and couldn't be happier. Yes, it says that it has less cu. ft. for storage inside but I swear we can fit more food in this one. There are many things to like bout this model (and Bosch in general), but I'm going to highlight what really stands out to me: Running volume - this thing is quiet. Like, extremely quiet by comparison to every fridge I've ever owned. Ice density - the cubes that it produces are more bean shaped than your standard hard-edge crescent and they are DENSE. I fill up a Yeti cup with water on my way out the door each morning and the ice lasts until the end of the day through multiple refills while at work. Ice production speed - we have yet to run out of ice from the dispenser whereas the LG would run out regularly. Water spout - this seems trivial, but it matters. The water dispenser is designed for the water to come out at an angle pointing away from you, thus reducing the amount of water that splashes on you when it gets towards the top. Small detail that goes a long way. Lighting - not only is the lighting bright (but not too bright) it lights up where you need it to but doesn't feel like you've opened up a time-traveling portal when you open the fridge door at night. They also have this really cool fade-to-dark thing they do that is an elegant touch. Smart features - I personally think a "smart fridge" is stupid and over-kill, but Bosch pulls it off in a really subtle and useful way. They have this deep freeze feature where you can essentially tell the fridge from the phone app that you're on the way home from the store and it will get itself REALLY REALLY cold so that when you're loading your groceries in you're not risking all of your food warming to room temperature while you've got it wide open. French doors - the door on the left opens almost effortlessly (takes very little pull to get it to release the air lock and open) which is nice. Its also not necessary to open the left door for the right door to close all the way. The flap has a track that it follows when you close the right side door that guides it into place for the air lock without the need to open the left door. Temperature consistency - probably the most important feature of any fridge. This thing is ridiculously consistent. I've tested both the fridge and freezer and with a fridge thermometer and they are both reliably accurate at all times under almost every usage scenario.

Pros: -Love the design of this new refrigerator! Lots of space! - Love that you can adjust the door holders to fit your needs. - Ice maker is good so far! - And I love the water bottle feature! Frees me up to do something else while waiting for my bottle to fill. -actually is smudge proof and we don’t see all the fingerprints! Cons: -Could use better lighting for top shelves -I have tried MULTIPLE (5) times to reach out to Bosch to set up app. When setting up, they are supposed to send a code, never comes. I waited on phone for representative, then was offered a call back within 29 minutes, never came. Door on fridge has been left open and I need the on the app. Very frustrating.

I had to replace my other Bosch 800 series refrigerator with a Bosch 500 series due to the water and ice dispenser not working after several attempts to fix it , however I don't think the quality is near as good as the 800 series and cannot understand why Bosch doesnt offer this higher end version anymore as I would honestly prefer my older unit because the construction was much better, This unit is nice but it just seems to be lacking a more industrial feel than my previous model.

Very nice looking. Fits in well with other appliances in my kitchen Love the shelves in the refrigerator but not enough space in the freezer compartment Inside the door to the freezer could have been used for additional space

When we moved in last year, the builder gave us another make - it was noisy, the produce was wilting, etc. We love this Bosch Refrigerator. It is quiet, keeps the food fresh, easy to clean, etc. We have not had any issues with the Bosch. Best Buy recommended this and I am thankful for this

Only reason it isn’t 5 ⭐️ Is because it’s not high grade stainless. Other than that it’s an amazing fridge. The ice maker is crazy good.