Samsung debuts new smart fridge tech, and a plan for updating existing products

家庭中心冰箱将与食物相关的应用程序放在21.5英寸的触摸屏上，当它抓住了头条新闻在CES技术展上首次亮相in 2016. Running Samsung’s proprietary Tizen operating system, it included food management and recipe apps.

两年后，家庭中心进行了两次重大升级。最新的车型（零售价为4,999美元，并于本月晚些时候开始销售）在最新的Tizen 3.0操作系统上运行，并配备36个应用程序。

他们包括：

• Samsung’s Bixby voice assistant (previous fridges used a version of Samsung S Voice that used "Bixby" as a wake word)
• A “virtual circular” that searches for sales at nearby grocery stores
• A Meal Planner app that can suggest recipes and control Samsung’s smart ovens
• Virtual Amazon Dash buttons for one-touch reordering of commonly purchased items
•琐事和言语应用程序
•能够从冰箱的触摸屏或通过Bixby控制其他智能设备
•与Outlook和Gmail一起使用的共享日历
• The ability to recognize up to six household members by voice
• Bixby Vision to auto-identify fresh foods and alert you when they expire

家庭中心将提供冰箱、14日cluding three- and four-door models, and a high-end model will feature built-in speakers from Samsung subsidiary AKG.

Owners ofsecond-gen Family Hub fridges, sold from mid-2017 to the present, will be able to perform a free, over-the-air update to access all the new features.

但是那些花了3,000美元以上的人very first Family Hubs不到两年前将不得不等待。在12月初的一次活动中，三星发言人告诉《评论》，对这些客户的解决方案是“ TBD”，在CES，我们被告知，第一代家庭中心冰箱的更新正在开发中。

We spent an afternoon trying out an early-build version of the latest Family Hub and came away mostly impressed. We’ve always thought that moving from touch to voice control makes a lot of sense in the kitchen, where hands are frequently busy or dirty. Bixby also lets users bypass some of the labyrinthine menus thatvexed us in our first review of the Family Hub.

存在一些缺陷：Bixby不如Alexa或Google Home响应，并且手动将物品添加到食品库存管理软件中仍然需要一定的努力。（除了最类型的家庭厨师外，所有人都将保留冰箱中的心理清单，或者依靠许多第三方共享购物清单应用程序之一。）

However, our biggest concern is continued support. The average refrigerator isdesigned to last about 13 years, but Samsung’s latest upgrade isn’t immediately compatible with fridges that are less than two years old.

Even if an update is available in a month, we wish that Samsung had a plan for early adopters in place before the latest launch.

为此，没有一家公司有一个万无一失的策略，直到三星表示它致力于支持其现有客户之前，我们对新家庭中心保持谨慎，就像我们拥有所有智能电器一样。

This story was updated on January 8 at 11:00AM EST to include a new quote from Samsung.