Samsung's Family Hub 2.0 is a refrigerator you can talk to

Unfortunately, Family Hub won’t connect with smart home devices like Amazon’s popular Echo or Google Home. And while I like the idea of being able to add groceries to my grocery shopping list on Family Hub with my phone, I can do the same thing with Alexa and order directly through Amazon.

Beyond voice recognition, Family Hub 2.0 is bringing back the original Family Hub’s built-in camera so you can see what you’ve got inside your fridge.

For its second-generation smart refrigerator, Samsung is also adding a slew of new apps to including Spotify, iHeartRadio, YouTube and GrubHub. Those are in addition to existing apps like Pandora, TuneIn and the fridge’s built-in web browser.

Then there is the updated Family Hub calendar that allows you to set avatars for each of your family members to make checking your schedules more intuitive.

Naturally, Family Hub 2.0 fridges will do normal refrigerator things like keep your food cool and, in some cases, even freeze it!

I kid, but, in reality, the Family Hub 2.0 is a natural extension of our connected lives. Adding a touch screen and calendar to our refrigerators is just a way of digitizing our old magnetic calendars. Except now we can buy groceries, get the weather, browse the web and sync them with our smartphones to get a better idea of where our family members are during the day.

And being able to blast Sisqó’s “Thong Song” while making a ham sandwich isn’t all that bad, either.

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