13 CES Innovation Awards... Samsung Electronics' Comprehensive History of Innovation in the 'Family Hub Refrigerator'

13 Awards Won at 10 CES Events Over 11 Years
First Introduced in 2016 with Full HD Touchscreen
Features Evolved with Voice Recognition, Bixby, and AI
This Year, Food Recognition Enhanced with 'AI Vision'

Samsung Electronics' Family Hub refrigerator has attracted industry attention for its journey over the past 11 years. Its record of winning 13 awards, including the Best of Innovation Award and Innovation Awards, at the world's largest consumer electronics and IT exhibition 'CES' across 10 editions from 2016 to 2026, has also been highlighted, drawing interest in the company's continued efforts toward innovation.

On January 23, Samsung Electronics summarized the development of the Family Hub refrigerator in an infographic released through its newsroom.

Samsung Electronics 'Family Hub' Refrigerator Innovation History Infographic (Condensed Version). Samsung Electronics

According to the infographic, Samsung Electronics' Family Hub refrigerator was first introduced in 2016, equipped with a 21.5-inch Full HD touchscreen. In 2017, voice recognition technology was fully implemented. In 2018, the addition of Bixby enabled even easier voice control, and in 2023, the refrigerator evolved further with a 32-inch screen, expanding the media viewing experience to platforms like YouTube. Last year, the 'Voice ID' feature was added, allowing the refrigerator to distinguish users by voice and provide a personalized AI experience.

This year, the refrigerator has evolved into a true AI partner and home companion, capable of seeing, hearing, and speaking to understand users, based on camera, screen, and voice technologies. The 2026 'Bespoke AI Family Hub' refrigerator, which won an Innovation Award at 'CES 2026' held earlier this month in Las Vegas, is equipped with camera, screen, and voice features, significantly enhancing everyday convenience for users.

For example, if a user says to the Family Hub refrigerator, "Hi Bixby, show me my Now Brief," the 'Voice ID' feature recognizes the user's voice and displays personalized content-such as schedules, photos, health information, and news of interest-on the screen. Additionally, the Bespoke AI Family Hub now integrates Gemini with its 'AI Vision' feature, which recognizes food ingredients through its internal camera, greatly improving food recognition capabilities.

The range of recognizable food items has been dramatically expanded to include processed foods and even the contents labeled directly on food containers. The refrigerator also offers AI-powered convenience features, such as automatically recommending dishes and generating recipes, providing a differentiated dietary experience. Previously, the refrigerator could automatically recognize up to 37 types of fresh foods and 50 types of processed or packaged foods when items were placed in or removed from the refrigerator, but with the introduction of Gemini, the range of recognizable items has become much broader.

Not only can it recognize a wide variety of foods, but it can also identify and automatically register information written on labels attached to food containers into the grocery list. Furthermore, the new 'AI Food Manager' feature delivers a unique dietary experience that spans food recognition, management, recipe recommendations, and grocery shopping. The AI Food Manager analyzes users' refrigerator usage patterns and supports various functions for more efficient food management, such as notifications for ingredients that need to be purchased, recipe suggestions, and usage reports for food items.