Review: Living with Samsung's Family Hub smart fridge
The kitchen is the heart of the home, and as the smart home evolves, companies are looking for ways to connect it. But so far, success in smart cooking has...
13/01/2022
The kitchen is the heart of the home, and as the smart home evolves, companies are looking for ways to connect it. But so far, success in the
smart kitchen
was uneven. Anyone remember the Quirky Egg Minder? Or smart sous vide without buttons? No big sellers.
The kitchen is first and foremost a practical space, things have to work properly or they will be relegated to that cupboard above the oven. For a while, it looked like a similar fate might befall Samsung's Family Hub smart fridge. When it launched in 2016, the fridge was overpriced and disappointing - just sticking a tablet on a fridge doesn't make it smart, naysayers shouted.
But Samsung has quietly innovated on its flagship smart device, and as 2020 approaches, the Family Hub has become a truly useful addition to your kitchen. Essential? Not yet. But it's a definite improvement over a non-smart fridge.
This impressive-looking kit is sure to be a talking point in any home, and it can handle everything from your groceries and cooking to your family and smart home - assuming you're a loyal Samsung customer. (interoperability is a definite sticking point).
Price during examination
$2799
Shop at Best Buy< /p>
Read this:
Smart Fridge Buying Guide
So if you're on the hunt for a new fridge, is it worth spending about $700 more (compared to a similar unconnected fridge) for the Family Hub? Or will you get all the same capabilities from a cheaper standalone smart speaker with a screen? We've spent the last 4 months living with this futuristic refrigerator, so read on for our full review and verdict.
Samsung Family Hub: Design
The Samsung Family Hub is available in two styles, French Door (three-door or four-door) or Flex (a four-door version of a traditional side-by-side), dozens of configurations and three color choices - stainless steel, black or the new Tuscan stainless steel.
It has a giant 21.5-inch Tizen-powered touchscreen tablet built into the door. It's the “Hub” in Family Hub and acts as a digital bulletin board, smart speaker (powered by Bixby), fridge manager, and app-powered tablet.
There are three built-in cameras inside the fridge that you can view from the touchscreen or through the mobile app, and it starts at around $3,000, depending on the model, size and configuration you choose.
We tested the 28 cu. ft., four door, French door model in Tuscan stainless steel, a gray-bronze tone that is much warmer than traditional stainless steel colors. It has two doors for the main fridge, a third flexible storage drawer whose temperature you can adjust depending on what's inside (wine, meat, snacks), and then a large bottom freezer drawer.
The right door houses the touchscreen and the left has a built-in ice and water dispenser. The Flex model does not have a storage drawer but instead a flexible freezer compartment, which can become a wine fridge, a regular fridge or a freezer depending on your needs.
Along with the smart features, which we'll get to in detail shortly, the Family Hub is a top-of-the-line refrigerator, equipped with Samsung's Twin Cooling technology, high-efficiency LED lighting and splash-proof glass shelves. tempered - adjustable, foldable and sliding for more flexibility.
It should be noted, however, that a class action lawsuit is currently being mediated for numerous complaints about issues with the ice maker, including "leaking, ice slush, freezing, and fan noise". However, we didn't encounter any of this in our testing.
Samsung Family Hub: Setup and Setup
We installed the refrigerator ourselves and it was a simple process, no different from a standard appliance. However, once plugged in and ready to go, there were a few hurdles to jump through to get the smart touchscreen features up and running.
The Family Hub is basically a tablet designed to work for multiple people. – something most tablets don't do well (we're looking at you, Apple). So, to set this up properly, we got the whole family together to create their own profiles and log into their Gmail or Microsoft calendar accounts to bring everything together in one place.
Creating individual profiles is simple, and we have to choose from cute avatars or upload a photo. At least one profile had to be connected to a Samsung account, which could be created on the fridge, and we were then prompted on each Bixby train to recognize our voices (which we found was mainly useful for adding events to different calendars ).< /p>
Samsung Family Hub: Features
The Family Hub's smart features focus on the touchscreen, which includes Samsung's Bixby voice assistant and comes with custom apps to help you manage your family life and your food and meals.
It features a family board as the main screen, which tries to digitize the concept of the fridge as a family bulletin board, the place where you stick photos and notes to the family. Instead of grabbing a post-it, you can just write on the screen and upload family photos from your phone straight to the fridge.
There are four additional screens that you can fill with apps or widgets, such as a shopping list, calendar and weather widget. If you've used an Android tablet or phone, this will look very familiar.
In fact, the Hub is simply a giant Android tablet, but it's not just "stuck to the side of the fridge" many apps integrate with the fridge itself, primarily through interfacing with the three cameras at inside.
These take a photo of the contents each time you close the door, providing an up-to-the-minute view of your food and drink from three angles. You can view these images on your phone while on the go via the Family Hub app or on the screen itself.
Unfortunately, the camera angles are quite narrow and don't cover the door bins, crisper drawers or storage drawer - so we could see around 30 per cent of the fridge's contents. But we quickly learned to place the most used items, such as milk, eggs, and juice, in these spots, so we could easily see if we were running low on energy.
This View Inside feature also works with the fridge's food management system, allowing you to assign expiration labels to items right on screen (although if you move the item the label won't come with it). not).
It's a neat concept that's currently poorly executed, like many of these attempts at real innovation in this space. However, if Samsung's promised Bixby Vision ever arrives - which would allow Samsung's built-in AI to automatically label food in the fridge - we could see this feature getting quite impressive.
This probably brings us to our favorite feature. of this refrigerator today: the food management system. Using the Shopping List, View Inside, and Meal Planner apps, we could easily keep track of what was in our fridge, know when it was going to expire, and figure out what we needed to create family meals for. the week.
We added the items we needed to the shopping list using Bixby, then when we crossed them out they were automatically added to the fridge food list and the FDA recommended expiration dates were applied. From there, we could use the Meal Planner app to search for recipes with the ingredients we had or add the ingredients we needed to the shopping list directly from the Meal Planner app.
Then, when we were ready to cook a recipe, we just pulled it up on the screen and had Bixby read us the step-by-step instructions and activate any relevant timers. It was all completely hands-free and a better experience than trying to cook with Google Home or Amazon Alexa. Also, if we had a Samsung oven connected, we could have preheated the fridge as well.
The biggest frustration here was the limited integration with other apps. I wanted to add recipes from other apps and sites and use the Instacart app to order groceries, but only Samsung's apps could talk to the fridge and they couldn't talk to other apps.
Beyond meal planning, Samsung apps include a to-do list, calendar, whiteboard, weather app, memo board, and fridge manager. There's also a Smart View app that lets you mirror your Samsung TV or Samsung phone to the fridge - a workaround for streaming apps like YouTube, Prime Video and Hulu if you want. We couldn't test this because our 2019 Samsung TV was not supported (
here is a list of supported models
) and I use an iPhone.
< p>Supported non-Samsung apps include Spotify, Uber, NPR, Instacart, Pandora, Amazon Dash Buttons, TuneIn, Amazon Music, Ring, and GrubHub. But these are pretty slim picks overall and none are really suitable for – or needed on – the fridge.We found the most useful is the Ring app, which shows a live view of your doorbell's camera whenever someone presses it, but that's the extent of its functionality.
Spotify was handy for playing music, with a nice big interface for choosing tracks, although the fridge speaker was far from great and certainly couldn't handle the bass (Billie Eilish's tracks were awful) . You can also connect your phone to the fridge via Bluetooth and play music from any service you want.
Samsung Family Hub: smart home integrations
For obvious reasons, there's no Alexa or Google integration here (don't even ask about Siri). For a voice assistant, it's Bixby all the way.
Overall we found Bixby to work efficiently, it's a little hard to hear at times, but the personalized voice recognition worked well and it integrates with the built-in system. in apps – so we can ask “Bixby, what food items are expiring today” and then ask it to display a recipe using those ingredients.
We found that we had to be very specific in our wording to get it to respond to most of our orders, and if we didn't insist on adding items to "MY shopping list" it would continue to create and add to new lists.
Read this:
The best smart home hubs
The Family Hub also works with
SmartThings
, and if you have a SmartThings hub or any other SmartThings device, you can control them from the fridge, either using the built-in SmartThings app or asking Bixby.
The fridge itself is not a hub though, so you still need the separate hub if you want to connect and control< /p>
Zigbee or Z-Wave devices
.
A meal we made using the fridge's suggested recipe for food that was pointed out to us was about to expire.
Samsung Family Hub: in use
We mentioned that the Family Hub is designed to be used by multiple members of your family, and it worked great for ours, which includes two kids under 12 who don't have their own device.
With the Hub, both kids could ask Bixby in the morning what was on their calendar for the day or have their events displayed on the calendar widget (which is a bit small unfortunately, we'd like the option to have a full-screen widget to finally replace the trusty wall calendar).
The Family Board also got a lot of use, everyone loved the photo display - especially putting stickers on other people's faces - and the memo feature was easier to use than a post-it - just touch the screen and tap away. Plus, you can easily enter memos into the Family Hub smartphone app on the go and they'll appear on the fridge screen at home.
My 8-year-old daughter loved the whiteboard feature, which is basically a digital sketchpad that you can draw doodles on. She pulled up a stool and sat in the fridge drawing a whole series of illustrations – although that wasn't a practical use for the screen, as I couldn't get into the fridge to cook dinner. It also made me appreciate the lack of built-in Netflix or YouTube apps, this really isn't a personal consumer screen, it's meant to be shared and used in a community environment.
Family Fun: Alexa for Kids-< /p>
Skills, commands and parental controls explained
Bixby also offers a Morning Briefing which was somewhat useful, but nowhere near as functional as the offerings from Alexa or Google. Personalization is limited, only one news source (NPR) and no smart home integration. But we liked the reminder of food expiring that day, something none of the other voice assistants offer.
Finally, there are smart features related to the operation of the fridge itself that come in handy. It can self-diagnose any potential mechanical issues and pop-up alerts let you know if there's a problem, and it also notifies you if you leave the fridge open with a gentle melody rather than the obnoxious "beep, beep, beep" that you're probably used to. It also sends a notification to your phone when the door is left open.
The SmartThings app also offers other energy management features, including displaying how much energy the refrigerator uses per day, week or month and a revealing weekly report that shows exactly how much times a day you opened that door.
If you're looking for a smart fridge, the Family Hub is currently the best option. Its food management features and integrations with other Samsung appliances really elevate the fridge into the category of genuinely useful smart tech.
However, the touchscreen interface is slow compared to standalone tablets and smartphones, raising concerns about long-term viability. Fridges are expected to last a decade or more, and without an upgrade path for the tablet in place, whether you'll still be happy using that fridge in 2030 is a big question mark.
Samsung Family Hub Smart Fridge< /p>
The Samsung Family Hub fridge is a great fridge for an active, tech-savvy family. The large touchscreen has enough useful features to elevate it beyond the gimmick some think it is, but we have concerns about upgrades and long-term support. If you are already a Samsung household, this refrigerator will fit right into your home. If you're looking for a smart display and voice assistant to add to your kitchen and don't want clutter on the counter, Bixby does a good job, and the big screen is unique. But if you're an Alexa or Google household with multiple smart speakers and displays already in place, you don't need to upgrade.
ADVANTAGES
Modern design
< p>Excellent food management featuresBixby voice control
Compatible with Ring Doorbell
Bluetooth-enabled
CONS
Expensive
Touchscreen can be slow
Not many apps
Limited smart home integrations