Vitesy Shelfy 2 Smart Fridge Purifier Review: Small Box, Big Promises

One weekend some years ago, my husband and I were at an Asian grocery store when I came across a shrink-wrapped package of quail, their little bodies tucked together like toy chickens.

“Wouldn't it be fun,” I told him, “to have roasted quail and vegetables this week?” He fatefully agreed.

The week came, and because I had forgotten that I'm a full-time working parent, I never did feel like spending two hours on a Tuesday chopping, brining, and seasoning.

So the meal got pushed to next week.

And then the next week.

And eventually the vegetables went bad, and the quail went into the freezer, where it lived for the next nine months, because I refused to rebuy the accompanying vegetables that, in my mind, I had already bought.

I imagine most people have had a quail situation, which is why I was excited to come across the Shelfy, a device that promises not only to reduce fridge odors but also to extend the life of produce by up to 12 days.

Could this be the rare smart device that actually pays for itself over time?

After testing a Shelfy for more than six weeks, including running a head-to-head test with apples in Shelfy-occupied and -unoccupied crisper drawers, I wasn't blown away.

But this device does do a great job at reducing odors while showcasing some cool tech in the process.

Shelfy is the brainchild of Italian company Vitesy, which is primarily known for alternative air purifiers, like the plant-based Natede .

Shelfy, which the brand originally released in 2022, is designed to eliminate ethylene gases (which trigger decay in fruits and vegetables), volatile organic compounds (smells), and bacteria through photocatalysis, a chemical reaction that sustainably degrades contaminants using UV light energy and a catalyst.

In Shelfy's case, the catalyst is a porous ceramic filter treated with a “nanomaterial.” (Which type wasn't specified, but the Natede uses a similar filter, which is treated with tungsten trioxide, a common catalyst .)
I was not able to discern any difference between the two models, either physically or in performance.

I started out using the original Shelfy but immediately switched to testing the Shelfy 2 when it arrived.

Since most testing was conducted with the 2, all references to “Shelfy” henceforth refer to that device.

As for how the photocatalysis works, a fan draws air into the device, where it is forced between the treated ceramic filter and 12 blue LED lights and “cleansed” by a reaction caused by the two.

A video from Vitesy compares the process of photocatalysis to chlorophyll-based photosynthesis, in which water and carbon dioxide are transformed into purified air.

Photocatalysis is increasing in popularity for both water treatment and air purification , so a refrigerator does present an interesting use case.

The 2023 report I was sent shows a test Vitesy ran with Vicenza, Italy-based chemistry lab Chimicambiente , which found that a Shelfy-equipped 180-liter refrigerator experienced a 99 percent reduction in microbial load within 10 minutes.

This is noteworthy because microbial contamination, including bacteria, yeast, and mold, can account for “up to 15 percent of post-harvest decay in fruits and vegetables,” according to Vitesy.

(I assume this test is also applicable to the Shelfy 2, given that it was sent in reference.)
Shelfy's fan makes a noise when it's running, but it's not super loud or audible outside the fridge, nor is its size (about 7 x 5 x 3 inches) particularly obtrusive.

The ceramic filter also never has to be changed; it just has to be rinsed and air dried.

The device also uses the Vitesy Hub app to indicate the “health” of your fridge based on the temperature (which it also displays) and how many times a day your fridge has been opened.

(Most of the time my fridge health was either “Good" or “Fair.”) In practice, I only used the app to notify me when the device needed to be charged, which happens via USB-C.

More on that below.

I used the Shelfy in my LG Studio smart French-door refrigerator .

The device can be put anywhere in the fridge, so I tried it out in both the main fridge compartment and the crisper drawers.

I not only used it in the course of my family's day-to-day life, I once intentionally put the Shelfy on the same shelf as a bowl of uncovered chopped onions, to see if it could keep things smelling fresh.

I also ran a side-by-side crisper test with apples.

As for produce, however, the results were less dramatic.

Anecdotally, I noticed some produce seemed to last longer without melting into a puddle of black sludge, but it was mostly herbs and other loose greens, and this was likely due more to the drying action of the fan and airflow than anything else.

Enclosed boxes or bags, like power greens or a tightly tied plastic bag of fruit, didn't seem affected either way, but a bunch of Italian parsley I bought the week before Christmas was dried to a crisp by February, the paper towel I had wrapped around it stiff as cardboard.

To test as objectively as possible, before a weeklong vacation, I bought a bag of Gala apples from the marked-down-produce area of my local grocery store, as apples are known to release significant amounts of ethylene gas.

I put two in a crisper drawer with the Shelfy in Crisper mode (marked O), and two in an empty crisper drawer (marked X), and left them for a week.

When I got back, the two sets of apples, frankly, didn't look much different in terms of rate of decay.

Each one had some dents and cuts that had deepened and enhanced, as well as tops that had become a little wrinkly.

This matched what I felt I had been noticing with everything else in the fridge.

If the Shelfy does slow the decomposition process, the difference certainly isn't dramatic.

Another problem, which surprised me, was the hassle of having to constantly charge the Shelfy.

The battery lasted about two weeks in standard Crisper mode.

In intermittent-operation Eco mode, it was only a couple days longer.

There's also a Performance mode that runs constantly, but that only lasts a few days.

I got a “Shelfy is low” app notification often enough that it started to irritate me.

Having to recharge a device every couple of weeks may not seem like that much of a hassle, but when your family has dozens and dozens of such devices, keeping everything charged all the time can feel like a part-time job, and I started to feel like the Shelfy wasn't pulling its weight.

Had I had a Shelfy during the quail situation, it probably wouldn't have changed the birds' fate.

The vegetables might have lasted a day or two longer than they otherwise would have, but the poor quails still would have ended up in the freezer, waiting for some fictional version of bigger-bandwidth Future Me to rescue them.

A Shelfy would, however, have kept my fridge smelling better in the meantime.

To be fair, this is not nothing.

But for $150 and a spot in my mental rotation of things to charge, I need a little more than “not nothing.”