The concept of a smart home continues to take hold of the consumer market. So, is a smart fridge the next important addition in the ever more connected house?
If the concept of a smart fridge is something you are a little sceptical about the way to embrace it is to understand that the future of technology is increasingly about smart home technology and a smart fridge is part of the equation. It’s all about interconnectivity.
So, for example, having lights we can control with our smartphone, because we can turn them off from work if we forgot when we left home. What similar convenience, then, can the Samsung Family Hub, the smart version of the humble fridge, provide?
The Family Hub as a fridge
It’s all well and good for each new home appliance to appear more and more sentient, but it’s still important that they fulfil their primary purpose well. The Samsung Family Hub understands this, and achieves it impressively.
The Family Hub: the new smart fridge from Samsung
Aesthetically, the fridge is modern and tasteful. Its french doors look good in a dark brushed steel, and are split into four, two on top and two below. Like most french door fridges, the two top doors open to the large main fridge space, however instead of a single pull out freezer below, the Family Hub has two separate doors. While the bottom left door opens into a dedicated freezer, the bottom right door opens into a space that can be converted to a freezer, wine cooler, or fridge area, depending on need. Each space is well laid out, and cooled powerfully, and with a large 671L capacity, everything that you would want any fridge to do, the Family Hub does perfectly.
What is a smart fridge?
Fridges have been long used in families as an eclectic gathering place for all manner of reminders, shopping lists and family photos. The Samsung Family Hub wants to organise and modernise that tradition. Instead of writing a shopping list and pinning it with a magnet to the fridge, the Family Hub allows you to keep an up to date list of everything you need and, when you’re ready, order it from the fridge to be delivered from Woolworths to your door. Alternatively, say you’re at the supermarket shopping on your way home and you’re not sure what you already have – well then, using the connected app, you can access the cameras monitoring the inside of the fridge to see what you need from anywhere.
The smart fridge touchscreen has a Wifi connection that lets you manage your groceries
While its weak inbuilt speakers leave you wondering why they’re there, it is clear that this is merely a symptom of Samsung’s enthusiasm to think of everything someone could want in a smart fridge. It has an inbuilt web browser, the ability to choose from a variety of recipes and instantly order all the ingredients, bluetooth functionality, and can be configured to show either the time and weather at a glance, or a slideshow of favourite family photos.
Is it worth it?
The Samsung Family Hub exceeded my expectations about what a smart fridge could provide. The convenience of ordering groceries from your fridge, or seeing what’s inside while out and about is self evident, and beyond that it’s a fantastic fridge in its own right. As with most products that push into new territory, you pay more for the luxury of getting access to the most cutting edge features.
The interior of the Samsung Family Hub
Ultimately whether those features justify its high price tag will be a matter for each individual. Especially for families, this fridge seems definitely worthy of desire, if not of purchase. Personally, I look forward to the impressive new features of this fridge being integrated into more and more products at a variety of price points in the future.
The Samsung Family Hub is available from Harvey Norman for $7499.