Samsung Smart Fridges – Everything You Need to Know

With so many smart devices entering our homes, it’s become extremely convenient to control various aspects of everyday life directly from a smartphone. After the rise of popular devices such as smart speakers, TVs, surveillance cameras, smart doorbells, thermostats, controllable light bulbs, and power outlets, it’s time to make your kitchen smart as well.

And what better place to start with than the largest piece of equipment you use on a daily basis? Enter the smart fridge. Although adding smart functions to this common home appliance might sound silly at first, the amount of control you get this way is astounding.

At present, not many manufacturers provide smart refrigerators, so Samsung and just a handful of other brands are paving the way for this innovation. If you are wondering how a simple fridge can make your kitchen smarter, this article is a great place to start. By exploring new opportunities, it will show you how to make your home as smart as possible.

Are Smart Refrigerators Worth Buying?

The first thing most people might ask is how such a bulky device that’s been around for a century could ever become smart. That’s probably what engineers at Samsung asked themselves too. But after analyzing how to enhance the existing lineup of their premium refrigerators, they came up with a pretty interesting set of features.

Of course, adding a couple of bells and whistles to an already expensive fridge might seem like nothing more than a simple strategy of upselling their customers to buy even more expensive appliances. This begs the question of whether it’s worth shelling out more of your hard-earned money on the novelty that is a smart fridge. To answer this question, let’s see what a smart fridge actually is and what kind of benefits it brings to your everyday life.

Firstly, a smart fridge has the ability to use your home Wi-Fi to connect to the internet. This way, it can utilize a multitude of cloud services that allow you to access the fridge’s features from your smartphone or computer.

This includes monitoring the status of the fridge door and notifying you if it’s not properly shut. This avoids subjecting the contents to exposure to less-than-ideal temperature levels. It also prolongs the life of your fridge, preventing its motor from going into overdrive when trying to compensate for the difference in temperature.

Another cool feature is the small cameras that are built into the inside of a smart fridge. These allow you to see how much food you have inside without ever opening the fridge itself. Even better, when you’re out grocery shopping, you can use your smartphone to see what exactly you need to buy. And thanks to some powerful algorithms, the cameras can even scan the food packaging inside the fridge to tell you when your stock is about to expire.

But the ultimate improvement over older types of refrigerators is the way smart fridges put all that door space to good use. By integrating a huge touch-sensitive display on the front of your fridge, you’re essentially getting a multimedia smart device that can do a lot of stuff for you.

If you add all of these useful features together, a smart fridge might seem like a pretty good buy after all. Well, it might be a good idea if you’re willing to pay top dollar for such a device – their price tags venture deep into four-figure territory.

Samsung Family Hub Smart Refrigerators

Samsung’s Family Hub is a line of large multi-door smart fridges that incorporate 21” touch screens. Instead of a slew of fridge magnets, post-it notes, and family photos, now there’s a huge color display. This conveniently works as a place for reminders, your smart home’s control point, and a communication hub. The fridge’s operating system provides access to many of its apps, which you can also use from your smartphone. It’s basically an oversized tablet that’s built into the fridge door.

This allows you to attach a note to your fridge directly from your smartphone while commuting to work, for example. To allow you to control it using your voice, Family Hub works with Samsung’s version of Alexa or Siri – a smart voice assistant named Bixby.

As mentioned above, Family Hub comes packed with various apps to help you take control over many mundane daily tasks.

Food Management Apps

These allow you to create shopping lists, look for recipes, order groceries, and much more. Here are some of the pretty useful apps you get with Family Hub:

• View Inside – Using three cameras built inside the fridge, you can check the inside of your fridge from your smartphone, tablet, or computer, wherever you are.
• Shopping List – As the name suggests, this helps you create shopping lists and share them with your family members.
• Smart Recipes – Browse online for recipes, food photos, and cooking videos. You can also check the user-generated ratings and food reviews.
• Meal Planner – Using this app, you can quickly prepare a meal using only the ingredients you currently have in your fridge.
• Deals and Coupons – When creating a shopping list, you can search for deals and coupons relevant to the stores in your area. This becomes even more convenient if you want to order your groceries online.

Besides the many Samsung apps, Family Hub also grants you access to some third-party services.

• Amazon Dash – This allows you to quickly reorder the products you use the most by simply tapping virtual Dash Buttons.
• GrubHub – An aggregator app for restaurant offers, this lets you order from your favorite places with just a few taps.
• Instacart – Boasting one-hour delivery, Instacart is a great way to shop for groceries online.
• Fresh Direct – This is yet another grocery shopping app, providing an alternative option.
• Shop Rite – With Shop Rite, you can check out the ads, get discount coupons, view your Price Plus card, and order groceries.
• Nespresso – Nestle’s app is a perfect way to top up coffee capsules, as well as buy coffee makers and accompanying accessories.

Apps for Communication and Connection

This set of apps lets you create sticky notes, check the weather, see pictures, watch videos, and even make plans using a calendar and share that with your family members.

• Calendar – This provides a simple way to plan your family activities and add various events. Everything is synced across multiple devices, allowing everyone in your household to view, create, and update the entries themselves.
• Whiteboard – With this app, you can write or draw directly on the fridge’s screen. You can also do this from your smartphone and send your creation to the Family Hub screen.
• Internet – The integrated internet browser lets you surf online directly from the kitchen.
• Gallery – Instead of attaching photos to the fridge, now you can choose which photos to display and make them change on a schedule you set. With the Gallery app, you can also play videos on the refrigerator door.
• Memos – An alternative to paper post-it notes.
• To-do – Plan and assign chores to your family members.
• Trivia – Access all kinds of random information, from what happened on this day in history to the word of the day and beyond.
• Weather – Check the current time and weather forecast for your location. You can also add another seven cities to the app for a total of eight.
• Fridge Manager – This is a pretty useful app that allows you to make sure the temperature inside the fridge is optimal. You can also adjust the temperature if you want and even control the fridge’s integrated ice maker. If you worry about the water filter, you can check its status at any moment as well.
• Morning Brief – Just like when using a video smart speaker, this app lets you check the current news and weather reports. If you’ve planned some things for the day, Morning Brief is a pretty convenient way of checking on your schedule.
• Timer – A true kitchen gadget, this allows you to create as many timers as you need.

Again, this section also utilizes some third-party services.

• Uber – Order and pay for a ride directly from your fridge. That just sounds silly, right? But it works and it’s very useful.
• Pinterest – If you’re using Pinterest, you can manage your pins and videos. Of course, you can also upload and save new pins to your pinboards.
• Skyscanner – If you’re planning a trip, Skyscanner allows you to look for flights, book a hotel room, and check the available car rental offers.

Entertainment

For entertainment purposes, Samsung has partnered with popular streaming services to bring you all kinds of content to spend some quality time in your kitchen.

• Spotify – One of the most popular streaming platforms for music and podcasts.
• Amazon Music – Amazon’s music-streaming service, which you can use for free if you don’t mind the ads.
• Pandora – Another platform for streaming music.
• Smart View – With Smart View, you can easily mirror the content from your smartphone or Samsung TV to the fridge’s screen.
• iHeart Radio – This streaming platform brings thousands of live radio stations, even allowing you to create one by yourself.
• TuneIn – Music, talk radio, and internet radio stations.
• NPR – Access various radio content available on NPR as well as your local public radio stations. It allows you to listen to podcasts, radio shows, and interesting stories.

Home

Since Family Hub refrigerators connect to the Wi-Fi network in your home, they can also talk to other smart devices in your ecosystem.

• Samsung SmartThings – With the growing number of smart devices that support SmartThings, you can easily keep track of everything that’s going on around your house. Of course, you can do this from the comfort of your smartphone or directly from your kitchen using the fridge’s touchscreen.
• Ring – Connect Ring smart surveillance devices to the Family Hub and take control over any video doorbells, surveillance cameras, and lighting you have in your home.
• HomeAdvisor – If you’re planning to do some renovation inside or outside your home, this service is a great way to hire certified, pre-screened professionals.
• Bixby – Each Family Hub fridge comes with the integrated Bixby voice assistant from Samsung.

Samsung Smart Fridges Overview

With so many smart features that can help you control your smart home ecosystem, Samsung’s Family Hub refrigerators are really top-of-the-line devices. However, although they are super-smart, they still have to provide for their core duty of keeping your food and drinks cool or frozen.

Since a lot of tech goes inside a Family Hub fridge, these advanced features can fit only into the largest models of Samsung’s refrigerator range. This means you’ll be looking at fridges with two, three, or four doors and a lot of space to store your food. The “smallest” Family Hub models have a capacity of 22 cubic feet, while the largest ones increase that storage space to 28 cubic feet.

Samsung has recognized that people have all kinds of different needs when it comes to refrigerators and provided a lot of models to choose from. Depending on their capacity and door layout, Family Hub units come in four different categories:

• 4-Door Fridges with French Door
• 3-Door Fridges with French Door
• 4-Door Fridges
• Side-by-Side Fridges

Although the models in each of the categories have some unique characteristics, there are a lot of common features you’ll get with every Family Hub fridge, regardless of the model you opt for.

Family Hub Common Features

The most striking feature of any Family Hub fridge is the large 21.5” touch screen located on the right door. It grants you access to all the apps you might use and allows you to take control of the contents of your fridge.

As far as the design is concerned, all the fridges use fingerprint-resistant colors and are available in up to three color variations of stainless steel – Tuscan Stainless Steel with a reddish tint, Black Stainless Steel for a darker look, and natural-looking, silvery Stainless Steel.

On the inside, you’ll find spill-proof shelves made of tempered glass, as well as a lot of bins to store your food. To make sure any fresh produce you buy remains that way, simply place it inside the humidity-controlled crispers. And if you need to make some ice, all Family Hub models come with an automatic ice maker, some of which even dispense neatly cut ice cubes. A perfect way to effortlessly cool your drink on hot summer days.

When it comes to lowering the temperature, Samsung’s Power Freeze and Power Cool features are there to help. By simply tapping a button, you can rapidly decrease the temperature to any level you wish. And thanks to the proprietary Surround Air Flow system, all that cool air will quickly reach every corner of the fridge. That way, you’ll achieve a uniform cooling of all the food and drinks, regardless of where you’ve placed them.

Finally, if you’re striving to keep your carbon footprint as low as possible, Family Hub refrigerators are there to help. With each model carrying an Energy Star certificate, it’s guaranteed that they conform to a strict set of energy efficiency specifications.

Samsung Family Hub Models

As mentioned above, the Family Hub line offers four different configurations, which are based on door type and layout. Of course, these are not the only differentiators between the models. Depending on the model you choose, there are some slight variations in the features you get.

When it comes to the door type, almost all Family Hub models come with French doors. Since all of these refrigerators are pretty wide, these double doors allow you to easily access the main section of the refrigerator. Unlike the French doors, side-by-side fridges have two separate refrigeration units on both sides, thus providing a slightly less spacious interior.

As far as the door layout is concerned, you’ll find that some models include a separate drawer with adjustable temperature, while others come with two separate bottom units that you can use both as a freezer and a refrigerator.

4-Door Flex Fridges

The 4-Door Flex configuration of Family Hub refrigerators represents Samsung’s top-of-the-line flagship lineup. Besides being the most expensive of its smart fridges, they also come packed with a lot of useful features. Although these models don't have the “French Door” in their name, they still come with one, which takes up the upper half of the fridge.

What sets them apart from the 4-Door and 3-Door models with French doors is the bottom section. The bottom left unit is a standard freezer, while the bottom right unit uses Samsung’s Flex Zone technology. This allows you to convert it from a freezer to a standard refrigeration unit with a simple press of a button. Thanks to the Power Freeze and Power Cool features, the Flex Zone unit quickly establishes the right temperature for your food.

On the upper-left door, there’s an external dispenser for filtered water and ice, and the internal ice maker is capable of delivering 8.8 lbs. (4 kg) of ice each day. Thanks to the adjustable slide-in and flip-up shelves, you can easily customize the internal layout of your fridge to store bulkier items and tall bottles. And with the three-position wine rack in the Flex Zone unit, you’re able to cool your wine and beer to the ideal temperature.

In this category, Samsung offers two distinct models, which mainly differ in their size and capacity.

28 cu. ft. (793 lit.) Family Hub 4-Door Flex Refrigerator

• See Best Offer On Best Buy: $3,999.99
• Model number: RF28N9780
• Released in: February 2018
• Available colors: Black Stainless Steel, Stainless Steel
• See the product on Best Buy’s website.

22 cu. ft. (623 lit.) Family Hub 4-Door Flex Refrigerator

• See Best Offer On Best Buy: $4,099.99
• Model number: RF22N9781
• Released in: February 2018
• Available colors: Black Stainless Steel, Stainless Steel
• Has counter depth to perfectly fit the rest of your kitchen, which makes it more expensive than the 28 cu. ft. model
• See the product on Best Buy’s website.

4-Door Fridges With French Door

This category of Family Hub fridges includes the titular French Door in their upper half, with a Flex Zone Drawer right beneath it and a large freezer unit at the bottom. To store your food and beverages, the upper refrigeration unit includes spill-proof shelves made of tempered glass, gallon bins, and humidity-controlled crispers.

Since the Flex Zone Drawer has its own handle, you can easily access its contents without having to open the rest of the fridge. On the inside, this flexible feature allows you to choose between four different temperature levels, depending on the type of food and beverages stored inside. The drawer also includes a lockable smart divider which helps you customize the layout to better organize the contents.

To help you open the doors without any effort, even when fully loaded, there’s an EZ-Open handle for each door. The upper-left door includes an external water and ice dispenser, while the door to the right sports the large 21.5” Family Hub LCD display.

Besides the highly efficient LED lighting and integrated cameras, the inside of the fridge also contains Samsung’s Metal Cooling system located on the back wall. This stainless steel panel ensures the temperature remains consistent in all parts of the fridge. To help with that, the refrigerators in this category also include the Surround Air Flow, Power Freeze, and Power Cool features.

There are three different models in this category, but the bottom one is seemingly outdated and more expensive than the two newer models.

28 cu. ft. (793 lit.) Family Hub 4-Door French Door Refrigerator

• See Best Offer On Best Buy: $3,509.99
• Model number: RF28R7551
• Released in: June 2019
• Available colors: Tuscan Stainless Steel, Black Stainless Steel, Stainless Steel
• See the product on Best Buy’s website.

22 cu. ft. (623 lit.) Family Hub 4-Door French Door Refrigerator

• See Best Offer On Best Buy: $3,599.99
• Model number: RF22R7551
• Released in: June 2019
• Available colors: Tuscan Stainless Steel, Black Stainless Steel, Stainless Steel
• Has counter depth to perfectly fit the rest of your kitchen, which makes it more expensive than the 28 cu. ft. model.
• See the product on Best Buy’s website.

22 cu. ft. (623 lit.) Family Hub 4-Door French Door Refrigerator

• See Best Offer On Best Buy: $3,599.99
• Model number: RF23M8570
• Released in: February 2017
• Available colors: Black Stainless Steel, Stainless Steel
• Has counter depth to perfectly fit the rest of your kitchen
• The outer design is more stylish than in the newer models
• Doesn’t include the 2-minute door alarm, humidity control crisper, gallon bins, or EZ-Open handle
• See the product on Best Buy’s website.

3-Door Fridges With French Door

The fridges in this category are pretty similar to their 4-Door siblings, but without the distinct Flex Zone Drawer in the middle section. Instead, the lower half of each of these Family Hub models has a full-sized freezer to maximize the fridge’s capacity. Additionally, the 3-door French Door models are not available in the counter depth size.

Another striking feature missing from two of the 3-door models is the external water and ice dispenser, while one of them doesn’t come with the fingermark-resistant color or gallon bins. That being said, all three models have six tempered glass spill-proof shelves, two humidity-controlled crispers, and a two-minute door alarm.

Since these three fridges have only slight variations between them, it would be best to consult the full comparison chart to see the exact set of features. The list below can serve as a quick reference for some of the crucial differences between the 3-door French Door Family Hub models.

​26.5 cu. ft. (750 lit.) Family Hub 3-Door French Door Refrigerator

• See Best Offer On Best Buy: $2,969.99
• Model number: RF27T5501
• Released in: April 2020
• Available colors: Black Stainless Steel, Stainless Steel
• Includes fingermark-resistant finishing
• Comes with an external water and ice dispenser
• Doesn’t have a Flex Zone
• Includes gallon bins
• See the product on Best Buy’s website.

28 cu. ft. (793 lit.) Family Hub 3-Door French Door Refrigerator

• See Best Offer On Best Buy: $2,519.99
• Model number: RF28T5F01
• Released in: June 2020
• Available colors: Black Stainless Steel, Stainless Steel
• Includes fingermark-resistant finishing
• No external water and ice dispenser
• Doesn’t have a Flex Zone
• No gallon bins
• See the product on Best Buy’s website.

25.1 cu. ft. (711 lit.) Family Hub 3-Door French Door Refrigerator

• See Best Offer On Best Buy: $2,426.99
• Model number: RF262BEAE
• Released in: March 2020
• Available colors: Stainless Steel
• No fingermark-resistant finishing
• No external water and ice dispenser
• Doesn’t have a Flex Zone
• Includes gallon bins
• See the product on Best Buy’s website.

Side-by-Side Fridges

Finally, Samsung’s Family Hub smart fridges also come in a fairly standard two-door, side-by-side format. Separated into two distinct vertical units, the left portion serves as a freezer, while the cooling refrigerator is to the right. The freezer unit’s door includes an external filtered water and ice dispenser, while the right door houses a large 21.5-inch display.

Just like most of the Family Hub models, side-by-side fridges come with spill-proof shelves made of tempered glass, gallon bins, a two-minute door alarm, Power Freeze, and Power Cool.

One major feature that’s understandably missing from this smart fridge category is any kind of Flex Zone. Since the side-by-side fridges have separate freezer and refrigeration units, it’s simply not possible to include a zone that would double as both a freezer and cooling unit.

22 cu. ft. (623 lit.) Family Hub Side-by-Side Refrigerator

• See Best Offer On Best Buy: $2,069.99
• Model number: RS22T5561
• Released in: December 2019
• Available colors: Black Stainless Steel, Stainless Steel
• Has counter depth to perfectly fit the rest of your kitchen, which makes it more expensive than the 26.7 cu. ft. model
• Comes with the Metal Cooling feature for better distribution of cool air
• No Flex Zone
• See the product on Best Buy’s website.

26.7 cu. ft. (756 lit.) Family Hub Side-by-Side Refrigerator

• See Best Offer On Best Buy: $2,069.99
• Model number: RS27T5561
• Released in: February 2020
• Available colors: Black Stainless Steel, Stainless Steel
• Doesn’t have the Metal Cooling feature
• No Flex Zone
• See the product on Best Buy’s website.

Making Your Kitchen Smarter

With lots of different smart fridge models coming from Samsung, it might seem difficult to choose the right one for you. Luckily, as you’ve learned from this article, there are so many variations between these ten Family Hub models that anyone can find exactly what they need. Of course, there’s the issue of the high price tag, but large refrigerators have never been exactly cheap to start with.

With a myriad of apps at your disposal, as well as full support for voice commands with Samsung’s Bixby assistant, the Family Hub line is a gem in the crown of any fully integrated smart home ecosystem.

Are you considering buying a smart fridge? Do you have any experience in this arena already? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.