Samsung's Smart Fridges Get AI Upgrade: Voice Recognition and Personalized Features

Samsung's fridges now recognize family members by voice

Dominic Preston is a news editor with over a decade's experience in journalism. He previously worked at Android Police and Tech Advisor. Samsung's latest smart fridges now support multi-voice recognition powered by the company's Bixby assistant, which can be used to bring up personalized information on the built-in smart displays based upon which member of a household is speaking. Voice identification in smart home tech is nothing new, but with no successful Samsung-branded smart speaker line of its own, connected appliances are Samsung's only real route to apply that kind of personalization. The main perk is that the fridge will be able to display your calendar or personal photo gallery using only voice commands. You'll also be able to ask the fridge to trigger an alarm on your phone, useful if you can't find it. The update may be more helpful for those who are hard of vision, as it will automatically change the fridge screen's display mode to match settings like color inversion or grayscale that have been applied on your phone. Samsung is also adding a new way to activate Bixby on its fridges. In addition to tapping the Bixby icon or using voice commands, you'll now be able to double tap on the fridge's display while it's off to bring the beleaguered voice assistant -- no longer the default even on Samsung's own phones -- to life. The Voice ID feature and double-tap gesture are arriving now in an update for Samsung's Bespoke AI fridges with Family Hub (the company's term for its larger smart home screens), starting with the 2025 models, and will later roll out to appliances with the smaller AI Home displays.

Samsung Releases New Refrigerator Software Update To Improve User Convenience

Bespoke AI refrigerators deliver seamless home experiences through software updates, including personalized settings through Voice ID feature Samsung Electronics announced today that it has started rolling out a software update to introduce new features for its Bespoke AI Refrigerators with screens, which is launching in 2025. Designed to enhance the user experience, the update includes the Voice ID feature provided by Bixby, which was unveiled at Welcome to Bespoke AI global launch event in March. "Our primary goal for this year is to realize an AI Home that adapts intuitively to the user," said Jeong Seung Moon, EVP and Head of the R&D Team for Digital Appliances Business at Samsung Electronics. "We aim to enhance the user experience through continuous software upgrades for existing products, taking us one step closer to a true AI Home experience." The Voice ID feature is a new multi-voice recognition function provided by Bixby. It identifies users' voices registered either on the refrigerator or a Galaxy mobile device, enabling personalized features based on the recognized user. This allows consumers to personalize shared home appliances for individual use, offering greater convenience and functionality. For example, Bixby intelligently switches to each user's Samsung account based on the recognized user. Users can check their registered schedules on the calendar, or their photos using simple voice commands. Also, they can trigger an alarm on their phone to check its location, even when the device is set to silent mode. The Voice ID feature also enables seamless interactions with the refrigerator screen for users who utilize vision enhancements on their Galaxy mobile phones. Even without a request to switch accounts, Bixby automatically switches accounts with general conversations for these users. It then synchronizes the appliance's display modes with the settings on the user's mobile phone, such as color inversion or grayscale. Additionally, Samsung has introduced a new way to activate Bixby on the screen. Previously, users could activate Bixby by clicking the Bixby icon on the screen or through voice commands. When the screen is off, an additional option has been added to activate Bixby by double-tapping the display. Users can make the most of this feature by selecting their preferred method in the settings. The update is being applied to Bespoke AI Refrigerators with AI Family Hub launching in 2025 first, with availability coming after the completion of the latest software update on AI Family Hub screens or SmartThings. Additionally, Samsung plans to gradually apply this update to the Bespoke AI refrigerators with AI Home in the second quarter of 2025. For refrigerators with AI Home, the update expands the service area for Samsung TV Plus, as well. Previously available in only South Korea and the United States, the service will extend to Canada, Brazil, Australia, Mexico and India. Thanks to the update, it is expected that consumers will be able to easily enjoy entertainment features right from their kitchen with Samsung TV Plus.

Samsung Bespoke Smart Refrigerators Can Now Recognise Different Voices

Samsung Bespoke AI Refrigerator users can activate Bixby with double tap Samsung Bespoke Smart Refrigerators are getting a couple of new features. Announced on Wednesday, the new features include Voice ID, which can recognise a user by their voice and then apply personalised features, and a new way to activate the Bixby assistant. These new features will be available via a free over-the-air (OTA) software update to refrigerators with AI Family Hub and 9-inch AI Home screens (launched in 2025). The South Korean tech giant is also planning to expand these features to more Bespoke AI refrigerators later this year. In a newsroom post, the tech giant detailed the two new features coming to the 2025 series of the Samsung Bespoke Smart Refrigerators. The first is Voice ID. The company refers to it as a multi-voice recognition function, which is powered by the Bixby AI assistant. It can identify users' voices registered either on the refrigerator or on their Galaxy smartphone and enable their account-specific settings. Once it has recognised a user, it can switch to their Samsung account and show their calendar events or pictures from the Gallery app from voice commands. Users can also trigger an alert tone on their smartphone to check its location, even when it is in silent mode. The feature also synchronises the appliance's display mode based on what the user has set on their smartphone. There are, however, a few caveats. Voice recognition only works when the user has registered for a Samsung account on the appliances in advance. Notably, Voice ID can only be registered on the Samsung Galaxy S24 series and newer models. Additionally, the feature will only work in languages that are supported by Bixby. Additionally, to see calendar events, these must be saved on Google or Microsoft calendars, and the respective account must be synced with the smart appliance via the AI Family Hub. Similarly, the Gallery feature will only show the images saved to OneDrive cloud storage via the Samsung Gallery app on a Samsung smartphone. Apart from this, these Bespoke Smart Refrigerators now have an additional way to activate Bixby. So far, users can activate the AI assistant by either using voice commands or tapping the Bixby icon on the display when the screen is turned on. However, users can now also double-tap the screen while it is turned off to directly activate it. Samsung also highlighted that these features will also be available to the Bespoke AI refrigerators with AI Home in the second quarter of the current year. Notably, AI Home refers to the 7-inch or 9-inch LCD screen on the Bespoke Refrigerators that do not support the AI Family Hub.