Do you want a refrigerator that can identify grapes?
And not just grapes. In fact, Samsung’s recently unveiled AI Family Hub fridge-freezer can identify 33 types of food, mostly fresh produce, thanks to an AI camera installed inside.
This means that as you add items to your refrigerator (one at a time and not too quickly), its camera will pick up those it can identify and add them to an inventory of items that you can see on the refrigerator’s large LCD screen. fridge. door. You can then add use-by dates to the inventory to minimize food waste.
You can also click on an inventoried item and the Hub will offer you recipes in which it appears. It will also provide a history of which items leave your fridge and which are put back in, as long as they are returned within the hour. (Otherwise, they will be saved as new items.)
Samsung is working to add more identifiable foods and is even considering barcode recognition – but in the meantime, what about those foods that AI can’t spot yet? These will need to be recorded manually by the refrigerator owner, at least if they are to be added to the inventory.
You can see the problem. Unless you laboriously add every type of food that the AI fridge doesn’t know about, you won’t have a complete inventory of your foods. You will know, for example, that you have apples and can click on an apple on the refrigerator screen to get recipes using apples, but unless you have also typed in custard and granola when you added them to the fridge, you’ve won. I don’t know if we can make an apple crumble.
Some might say that you just need to open the refrigerator door to find out, but wait. Again, what is the purpose of digital refrigerator inventory?
To be fair, while the AI food identification feature gets some attention, the AI Family Hub does more than just identify and catalog (certain) foods.
When you’re shopping, you can check the SmartThings app to see what’s in your fridge. And you don’t need to rely on inventory either. There are cameras in the left and right door bins, which you can access remotely, so you can see how much milk you have left and whether or not you need to scoop more.
In fact, you don’t even need to go shopping. You can buy your groceries directly from the AI Hub screen, with live prices from a number of supermarkets including Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Tesco.
And you can use voice control – through Bixby, which will receive Gen AI lighting that will allow the voice assistant to understand more than just commands and engage in more natural conversations – to add items to your list of races.
Not all of these technologies are new. Some features are available on existing Samsung Family Hub refrigerators, but not on the AI Camera.
Samsung’s tailor-made AI range
It is a truth, at least currently recognized, that all new technologies must incorporate AI somewhere, whether or not there is an obvious need for it.
The problem is that once AI is integrated, consumers still need to be convinced that it is something they want and, more importantly, something they should pay more for to acquire. It’s also possible to require a subscription later, as Samsung’s statement regarding AI features on its phones suggests.
Nonetheless, the company has launched a number of AI-based devices together, under the Bespoke AI line. In addition to the AI Family Hub fridge freezer, there is a new robot vacuum cleaner, the AI Jet Bot Combo, a new AI Ecobubble washing machine and a second fridge, the AI Large 75cm fridge freezer.
Samsung has not yet announced when the new products will be available for purchase, so we will update this article when we know more, including pricing and availability in the US. But we have UK prices:
- AI Family Hub fridge freezer: from £3,199
- AI Jet Bot Combo: from £1,199
- AI Ecobubble washing machine: from £909
- AI Grand 75cm fridge freezer: from £1,049
You will be able to purchase all of these devices from Samsung as soon as they become available.
