Most of my reviews are of product categories I’ve extensively tried before. New laptops rarely stand out, except by value or performance, and the same is true of phones, cameras, earbuds, headphones, and most other new tech releases; they are competing against other products, not proving they deserve to exist. However, my work is the most fun when trying something that I have no comparison for; because even if it’s pointless, novelty is always interesting.

Vitesy’s Shelfy is one such novel product, because it fills a need I never imagined. Namely, this is a rechargeable air-purifier for your fridge, supposed to take out odors and keep your food lasting longer, which can also tell you information about your fridge through their Vitesy Hub smart home app. Ever wanted to know what temperature your fridge is? Or how often you open the door? No? Well, it can tell you.

It sounds like a pointless, gimmicky product made for those who want to make every part of their home “smart,” and the $169 price tag doesn’t help. But, to my surprise, this works — and not “slightly” or “in the right circumstances.” I don’t know what my expectations were for it, but it exceeded all of them, with my food lasting far longer for it, and my fridge having no smells since it arrived. If you regularly cook at home and use fresh produce, you ought to consider buying one

The Shelfy is a fundamentally simple thing: a white plastic rectangle with an LED square at the front, washable filters at the back, and a fan in the middle that passes the fridge air through its filter. Along with the fans, the Shelfy contains smart sensors to tell you all sorts of information about your fridge, and though I wouldn’t buy the Shelfy for that, knowing how efficient your fridge is and when the filter or fridge needs cleaning is genuinely handy. Also, simply having a number for how many times I opened my fridge door made me want to do so less.

In short, it’s a small air purifier, but it’s a shockingly effective one, and I’m surprised that fridges don’t integrate something like this into them. Fruit that would have otherwise soon gone bad — notably, raspberries and grapes bought at a discount — lasted almost a week before I ate them, and sliced lemons were far slower to dry out too. Open salad bags lasted far longer than before, as did broccoli and potatoes I bought, and despite deliberately over-shopped one week, filling the fridge with more fresh produce than I could use before they would go bad, the Shelfy meant I didn’t have to throw out anything. The red peppers softened slightly but were still good. The radishes got damp leaves but tasted perfectly fresh, and even open yogurt lasted longer than expected. And none of this is to mention that my fridge has had no odors since I started using the Shelfy. Whether I had fresh fish, meal-prepped meat, or opened French cheese, my fridge has no smell.

It’s also relatively placement-agnostic. If you have it on the top shelf, expect the fruit you have there to benefit far more from it than the salad leaves in the bins below, but they still do benefit; and if that is your primary source of food waste, you can move the Shelfy to those bins. If you have a small fridge, you might be concerned about it taking up too much space — it’s about the size of two cans of Monster, side by side — but then you could put it in a door shelf, and it will do its job from there.

My only problem was that charging it can be a hassle. It lasts about three weeks on a charge but takes several hours to recharge, and I’ve had some issues getting the Shelfy to recognize it’s charging or that it’s out of the fridge. Were the Shelfy $40, I wouldn’t be complaining, but at $169, it ought to have a more convenient charging solution. For a second version, I suggest using a hot-swap battery unit, like a DSLR camera, letting you swap in the spare battery when the charge is getting low.

It’s far from a deal breaker though, and if you regularly cook at home with fresh produce, I heartily recommend this. My fridge is cleaner for it, my food lasts longer, and I don’t throw as much out, which feels great. And though the price is steep, if it saves you on food that would have otherwise ended up in the bin, it can pay itself back with time — particularly given that it’s currently on discount, down to $125.