At the Las Vegas Convention Center, the Samsung stand gives pride of place to household appliances. The Korean manufacturer took advantage of the show to organize demonstrations around its connected kitchen appliances “boosted”, as you might doubt, with artificial intelligence. By connecting the Samsung refrigerator, cooktop and oven to the SmartThings program, Samsung wants to create a complete ecosystem.
The demonstrations are based around three new Samsung products: the new AI Family Hub refrigerator, the Anyplace induction hob and the Serie 7 oven.
The AI Family Hub+ is an improved version of the first Family Hub launched in 2016. It retains everything that makes this technological monster famous, such as a large touch screen on the front (24 inches) which provides access to numerous features for managing food, entertain users by streaming music, videos or even manage their calendar or respond to emails. This new version of the Family Hub therefore integrates new features based around AI.
Thanks to an additional camera installed at the top of the refrigerator and AI Vision technology, the AI Family Hub+ is able to recognize products entering and leaving the refrigerator. Remember, on previous versions of Samsung’s connected refrigerator, the user had to manually enter the food coming in and out in the application. A particularly tedious and time-consuming process. Now, thanks to AI and the camera, the new Family Hub+ is able to identify up to 33 different fresh products based on the analysis of nearly a million food photographs. As we were able to see on the stand, as soon as a product comes in and leaves, a notification is displayed on the screen, offering to add the outgoing ingredient to the future shopping list.
To go even further and make AI truly relevant, the Family Hub is also capable of automatically defining the expiration dates of fresh products. On the first versions of the Family Hub, it was up to the user to manually enter information related to product consumption (which, once again, was not practical). Now, as soon as a fish, fruit or vegetable enters the refrigerator, the device records the information, calculates an approximate expiration date and will send a notification as the date approaches. Currently, only fresh products are affected by this functionality, but Samsung intends to train its AI so that it develops on yogurts, the bottle of milk or the wafer of butter. Incidentally, the AI Family Hub+, connected to the Samsung Food service, can suggest several recipes based on the foods stored in the refrigerator.
Let’s continue the experience with the new Anyplace hob from Samsung, which is also connected and linked to SmartThings. Equipped with a 7-inch screen, it allows users to follow recipes saved on the Family Hub step by step. Technically speaking, this cooking plate is structured in checkerboards superimposed one on top of the other. By positioning a pan anywhere on the hob (which therefore does not have a delimited hearth), the induction automatically recognizes the area to be heated. The user only has to define the heating power without having to worry about selecting the heat source. For Samsung, this configuration is also an opportunity to offer a large cooking area and to offer “greater cooking freedom regardless of the size of the pans and saucepans“.
The experience ends with the Bespoke AI Series 7 Dual Cook oven from Samsung which, as its name suggests, has a camera coupled with AI which is used to recognize the dishes inserted in the cavity to adapt the cooking programs. We were able to try this feature with a pizza which was immediately detected by the technology built into the oven. However, the AI does not yet distinguish whether the pizza is fresh or frozen.
Available in April for around €4,000, the AI Family Hub+ stands out as a Samsung technological showcase that shows the extent of its know-how in refrigeration and connectivity. Note that in Europe, we will not be entitled to the Bespoke version presented at the show (because the bill would be much higher).
The Anyplace hob will be available in the second half of the year, at a price that has still not been communicated.