So the ideal fridge for older Aussies and some others with limited reach might not exist? A two door with a freezer one side fridge the other. Perhaps 120-140 cm height, 100cm wide, 30-40cm deep internally that can sit on a 40-60 cm pedestal. It might even come with a storage drawer style base non refrigerated. No bending and easy reach. Of course not all compact kitchens may have the width, although many modern appartments seem to provide for the side mount standard two door designs. 
Sounds perfect, doesnt exist! LOL. They make fridges for the masses, alas. There is actually a 2 door fridge/freezer which is low and might suit putting on a pedestal, its very wide, and probably would not fit in my available space. That is always an issue too. And AO doesnt seem to have it anymore so I cant even post a link.
There are businesses that provide custom solutions to suit motor homes and boats. The cost of course matches with the luxury of either. Many caravan owners on the cheap just purchase standard fridge freezers and use an inverter to power when mains is not available.
With more than 4million Aussies over 60 plus others who might benefit, changing the paradigm there may well be a market worth the investment.
Your point is that for as long as consumers keep buying what is on offer there will be no change. Weāre captive to design blindness, although such a fridge could be manufactured from substantially existing product components on a standard production line.
Which apparently means bigger. Same thing is happening with TVs. What was considered midrange when I bought my 32ā Samsung is now āsmallā. Fridges likewise are becoming huge and in older houses theres just no room.
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Without drifting too much further from the early posts on topic.
Aids and assistive devices only go so far if you have other needs due to age, health, nature or other. There are fundamental design elements in a home that also need to be met to assist (aid) living. Itās perhaps enough for a separate/new topic. Weāve very limited lived experience in that area despite having been part of some adaption of homes for the elderly.
In mentioning older homes you have made a point some may not have realised. For many, houses appear to have become transient fashion accessories. The design, layout, features, and provisions change on a cycle every 5-10 years. The larger TV, bigger fridge, wide oven/cooktop, and bench top $5k auto coffee trends are locked in. For those who make over or upgrade or move their homes every 5-10 years it may seem simple to accommodate changes in appliances and fit out.
Once you retire many if we can afford or have a home are potentially locked in for the rest of our years. The cost, disruption and stress of major alterations to our humble abodes are likely too great to contemplate, or budget. The design and fashion are locked in. So to are the replacements options.
P.S.
Some like to suggest after visiting that older Australians are trapped in a time warp. It may not be by choice?
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Check with other retailers as some offer the same service for free when fridges are delivered.
For a exampleā¦ Good Guysā¦ Harvey Norman etc
take away old fridges for their customers.
Shopping around and seeing if other retailers take the old fridge may open up wider purchase opportunities and getting something which better suits your needs.
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The Harvey Norman site youāve linked to is Irish. No free delivery and removal here. Goodguys dont seem to specify that theirs is free, they just say they will do it. IN the past when I have had quotes in store, the standard fee is $49 for delivery from both places, and removal another fee on top of that. I think Iāll stick with AO, because the appliances usually come from Winning, and theres no additional fees. All this is important too, in terms of disability stuff because we cannot do much of what gets done for us, with installs etc. and places like HN and GG know that and take advantage. (Opinion, of course)
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Whoops sorry, didnāt check it before linking as I know that they do.
One of our neighbours bought a new fridge last year from Harvey Norman, and they took the old one away for free (well they had to pay for delivery and the removal of the old one cost no more). It could be up to individual franchises to whether they do, but check with you local store rather than assuming they donāt.
Delivery plus puchase price needs to be considered in and big goods purchases. But, I wouldnāt be buying a fridge purely on cost inc. removal of old one as it may limit range available for one to chose from.
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Doesnt really limit the range because none of the standards (HN, Bing Lee and GG) actually have fridges which fill my particular needs. So its all a bit moot. Iāve been looking for something like 8 months. If I wanted a BIG fridge, or even a smaller deep one, Iād be spoilt for choice. But the ones which are smaller (I was hopeful for an LG via the NSW governmentās support) are also skinny and tall, which means they are also deeper. My current fridge sticks out from the fridge space by 7cm. I want the next fridge to fit, so I can get past easily. Living with a miniscule, really badly designed, kitchen is not easy, even for the average person.
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Iāve got a good example of my particular issueā¦
I was recently granted funding for an ALD (assistive listening device) for work, which can also be used as a TV connection device with hearing aids.
I thought Iād give it a go with my TV setup at home. Sadly, Apple has decided to leave audio ports out of itās most recent Apple TV products (I have the current generation Apple TVHD) making it just about useless for anyone who needs to use it with a hearing aid connection device.
I COULD purchase an additional HDMI audio extractor to get the audio signal from the HDMI to the connector, but that can run upwards of $60, on top of at least $250 someone would need to pay for a hearing aid tv connector. If I was a pensioner who had just purchased a tv connector, Iād be pretty peeād off to find that out.
I am a relatively young person with hearing loss and excellent tech literacy, and I didnāt realise it wouldnāt work until it didnāt.
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Unfortunately Apple has taken this approach to try and get their customers to use their own proprietary add on accessories. While this might be great for Apple fanatics and their profits, it isnāt good for those who have special needs or limited budgets. I donāt have any Apple products, and this along with many others is the reason why.
The other option is to get a cheap Android based TV box for such purposes. We bought a Magicsee recently as TV app support on our not so old TV was becoming more and more limited. The box overcomes this. They start at around $20-30 onlineā¦but check reviews and customer feedbck when shopping for one as they can be hit and miss.
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I have a Fetch TV box which is free with my Optus NBN, which has the audio port, and I can use that for Netflix and Stanā¦ the problem is that the content I am currently watching is primarily on iTunes because weāve been an Apple-only house for the last 14 years.
Some hearing aid manufacturers have done a deal with Apple to create āMFiā (made for iPhone) functionality, which offers more options for connection with Apple devices (but they wonāt connect with other devices). I do not have MFi hearing aids. I can connect to my hearing aids to my Apple TV (and other Apple products) using bluetooth, but that is only useful when watching tv by myself as it streams ALL audio to the connected device.
Apple has me by the proverbials, as a switch to Android now would be very expensive and lose years worth of digital media collectionā¦ but a switch to different hearing devices would probably cost more (and considering the price possibly not be worth it when just telling my yammering child to shut up while we are watching TV and turning the captions on are options) 
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Not that expensive and your iTunes media/collection can be run/accessed on Android. Itunes music app is available on Android, and there are some third party apps (like this one) that allow movie libraries to be streamed from the Apple store. There is also an Android iCloud app to access your own content. The switch isnāt that hard if one wants to break away from their strangle-hold and you wonāt lose access to your existing content.
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Just a suggestion but you could try using Airplay to send movies etc from your iTunes library on your Apple system to an Android device eg Chromecast (Apple stuff works pretty well on Chromecast I believe).
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Iām annoyed though, because I just bought the new Apple TV 
I know Choice doesnāt have reviews of actual hearing aids (because wow would that be hard to do), but you know, a table of features comparing similar (e.g. premium or essential level) hearing aids over the different brands could be useful. For instance battery life, connectivity (which ones talk only to iPhones, which ones connect to all bluetooth), available accessories (such as tv connectors), remote controls/apps etc, and maybe price range sourced from a range of different retailers (including care packages and costs of consumables because wow those can add up)ā¦
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Being locked to an IT ecosystem can be expensive and also lock users out of more open product choices. Android are catered for by many providers, Apple sadly locks out most of their content from non Apple ecosystems. Both from some security and also from a money making decision this is what Apple does.
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