What if I told you the big hit of Samsung's 2016 CES was a refrigerator? You'd probably say something along the lines of, "yeah, I know, I was paying attention at the company's mostly lackluster event yesterday." Then I would probably tell you that you were being rude and we'd move along to talking about what makes the thing so interesting.
The biggie, of course, is that display. That's a 21.5-incher located on the right door where you usually post up your shopping lists and kids' report cards. You can still do that, of course, but now, like every other aspect of your life in the early 21st century, it's fully digital.
Users can put up a rotating slideshow of photos, artwork, Instagram images and the like. The screen also, naturally taps into the company's SmartThings IoT ecosystem, so you can use your fridge to control your other connected appliances, effectively making the big icebox the boss of your home electronics, so don't make the thing angry or the washing machine might not play ball when you try to do a gentle cycle.
Oh, and there's also a small speaker array just above the screen, so you can listen to music from the door of your refrigerator, just as artists who recorded it no doubt intended.
Otherwise, the Family Hub looks like a pretty standard stainless steel refrigerator, complete with an ice maker on the other door. Open it up and you'll find an array of cameras that shoot photos of the fridge's contents each time you close the door - something I could have used that one week I ended up buying like five cartons of almond milk.
The appliance is still in prototype mode, so Samsung strictly forbid taking close up pictures, but hopefully we'll be seeing a fully working unit in the not too distant future.
