The invention relates to a refrigeration device with a thermally-insulating housing (1), enclosing an inner chamber (2) and an evaporator (7), arranged in the housing (1), on the surface of which a layer of ice (13) can form during operation, whereby two temperature sensors (12, 14) are placed in the vicinity of the evaporator (7) such that, for a given thickness of the ice layer (13), only one of the temperature sensors (12) is embedded in the ice layer (13). A monitoring circuit (10), connected to the two temperature sensors (12, 14), is embodied to decide, using a difference between the recorded temperatures from the temperature sensors (12, 14), whether a defrosting of the evaporator (7) is necessary or not and to give an output signal displaying the result of the decision. A defrosting process can be automatically introduced using said output signal. |