I get it; fridge is a serious footprint. Yeah, you put fermenter in the fridge, set it to max cooling and hook it into a temperature controller to hold it at the right temp.
I have Fermentrack controlling temperature, but that's a DIY solution. Most people are controlling fridges with something like this :
https://www.amazon.com/Inkbird-Max-1200W-Temperature-Controller-Greenhouse/dp/B01HXM5UAC
Something very similar to that comes with the Anvil system.
What do you need your system to do? The anvil/coolstick solution does offer a lot of control if you just keep an eye on the cooler. What kind of temp are you trying to achieve/maintain? If ambient is 72 and you want to ferment at 68, you're golden with the anvil or coolstick and an igloo cooler. If you need to keep it at 50-55 for lagers it's probably going to be more work, but even then you only need to control temperature during the primary fermentation which is usually 3-4 days.
All just depends on what you need to be able to do.
Cheers!