Smart fridges have been in smart home concept videos for decades and have never really been a reality. It looks like Samsung may have finally done it. Samsung’s Family Hub refrigerator features a 21.5 inch full HD touch screen in the door and can even order food. Samsung believes the kitchen is the heart of the house and a key part of where your family live, so the display provides an opportunity for you to post and share calendars, so you know what you’re family is up to, right from the fridge.
There’s plenty of room for photos and notes, but instead of cluttering the fridge doors with magnets, these can all be digital. The fridge connects to the internet using WiFi and also has built-in speakers which may save you buying a kitchen speaker for your multi-room audio system.
One of the most unique features of this fridge, is its the three high quality cameras inside the fridge capture an image every time the door closes. You can then access those images anytime using your smartphone and take a peek inside your fridge. If you’ve ever been at the shops and forgot to check if you need milk, you can fire up the app and check, right from the store and avoid that awkward conversation with the family if you return without it.
Sure, the Samsung Smart Home app isn’t going to tell you about the status of you’re out of breakfast cereal but given you can use the refrigerator to do online grocery shopping, this is finally innovation in the smart fridge and the kitchen.
Having another piece of glass in our life also offers some new options. While most households have a tablet, not all do and if the tablet is in use, it’d be awfully nice to use the display on the fridge to pull up a recipe. Thankfully Samsung are including that as a feature as well.
The display on the fridge is located on the upper right exterior door, making it easily accessible to adults, but high enough to keep the kids away. It will be visible so they can see photos etc, but not paint it with an ice cream cone or order groceries.
Samsung announced a grocery partner in the US that consumers could order from, which raises the question about the supply chain in Australia for something like that. To be honest, unless a partnership with Coles or Woolworths is established, its unlikely Australians will ever get to order food from their fridge. With the cameras inside the fridge, its only one step (or a software update) that could enable image recognition to detect when you need milk and re-order more automatically.
Family Hub Refrigerator (model RF28K95800SR) will be available in Spring 2016. It will be available in Counter Depth, Full Depth, Stainless and a new and stunning Black Stainless design.