Samsung is taking AI out of phones and laptops and placing it directly into the kitchen. At CES 2026, the company plans to unveil refrigerators and other appliances powered by Google Gemini, using cameras and cloud intelligence to track food, manage inventory, and suggest actions. While some design upgrades solve real problems, the deeper push toward cloud based AI inside everyday appliances raises new questions about control, longevity, and whether consumers actually want this level of intelligence watching what they eat.
The last “nice”/“fancy” fridge my spouse and I bought was a Samsung. It didn’t have a screen because those weren’t a thing at the time. But it had the fancy in door ice and water dispenser, freezer on the bottom, double doors on the fridge portion, LED lighting, you get the picture. Anyway, it was something like $2500 on sale.
That fucking fridge never fucking worked right. Had to defrost it manually every couple of months. We made warranty claims on it, had Samsung techs come out and replace the coils, the fan, the control board, the defrost heating element, you name it. Still, like clockwork, the fucking coils would freeze in the back of the refrigerator portion. And we’d have to take all the food out, lay out a bunch of towels, and get a hair dryer and melt all the ice again.
Finally I had enough. My spouse had enough. We went and bought a no frills, no ice maker, freezer on top LG for $700. And have had no problems in the five years since. All that to say, fuck the fancy appliances with Internet access/etc. If you can’t make a refrigerator that is able to stay cold without external intervention, then don’t make fridges…