Samsung’s new fridges track food and open hands-free like a butler

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Samsung’s latest Family Hub smart fridges are getting a serious usability upgrade: you can now tell the doors to open or close, and they actually do it, swinging more than 90 degrees instead of just cracking open a few inches.

According to a Samsung CES 2026 press release, using Bixby voice control, you can literally say “Shut the fridge door” or “Open the door” and the fridge will handle the rest, which is a lot more useful when your hands are covered in raw chicken or dough and you don’t want to smear everything on the handle.

Beyond convenience, this also doubles as an accessibility win for anyone who struggles with heavy doors or awkward kitchen layouts where handles are hard to reach.

If talking to your fridge still feels a little too sci‑fi, Samsung also added gesture control so you can tap the door with your palm or the back of your hand to trigger the same full-swing motion, reports The Verge.

That’s basically a more polished version of what people already do—nudging the door with an elbow or hip when their arms are full of groceries—but now the hinge does the heavy lifting for you instead of relying on momentum and luck.

On the software side, Samsung is wiring Google’s Gemini into its existing AI Vision system, which already watches what goes in and out of the fridge using the built-in camera.

With Gemini in the mix, the fridge can recognize a wider range of fresh and processed foods, then use that data for smarter meal suggestions and basic inventory tracking so you have a better idea of what’s in there before it expires and turns into a science project in the back of the shelf.

Kevin Raposo

Kevin is KnowTechie's founder and executive editor. With over 15 years of blogging experience in the tech industry, Kevin has transformed what was once a passion project into a full-blown tech news publication. Shoot him an email at kevin@knowtechie.com.