Samsung warned us last month that ads were coming to the giant Android tablets embedded in its Family Hub smart fridges. I’ve been eyeing mine ever since — and the first ones are about to arrive. Starting November 3rd, the $2,000-plus connected fridges will get a new widget that serves up ads, Shane Higby, head of Home Appliance Business at Samsung Electronics America, confirmed to The Verge.
The ads will be part of a new widget on some of the smart fridges’ “Cover screen themes” (like a tablet or smartphone’s home screen). The widget, which Samsung shared with me ahead of today’s announcement, has four rotating screens. One showing news, one calendar events, one the weather forecast, and one with “curated advertisements.”
This widget appears at the bottom of the fridge’s screen and rotates every 10 seconds among the four screens. You can swipe to rotate through them faster. Samsung says the widget will only appear on the Weather and Color theme screens, not on the Art or Album ones. A new Daily Board screen also won’t have the widget, but it will show an ad in one of the six tiles.
The update will start rolling out to all US-based Family Hub fridges with the larger 21.5- and 32-inch screens this week, starting on Monday, October 27th, with the ads beginning to appear a week or so later.
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In the five years I’ve had a Family Hub fridge, it has never shown me an ad. The arrival of this widget, combined with the recent appearance of full-screen ads on Amazon’s Echo Show smart display in my office, makes me feel like anything in my home with an internet connection and a screen is now fair game.
The problem here isn’t just the ads themselves (although they are a problem); it’s that they are being added to the device after it’s in my home. If I had signed up for Telly — the free TV that comes with its own ad billboard attached to the bottom of the screen — I’d be fine with ads, because they were part of the deal. No one who bought an Echo Show or a Family Hub fridge did so knowing it would show them ads.
It’s a slippery slope to breakfast with full-screen Cialis ads.
While Samsung’s current advertising widget is slightly less offensive than the full-screen ads on the Echo Show — the nearly 32-inch screen in the fridge is a lot more visible in my home than the 8-inch Show screen. It will also, according to Higby, initially only show ads for Samsung products and services, such as the Samsung fridge water filter shown in the demo image. But it’s a slippery slope from this to breakfast with full-screen Cialis ads in my face while I’m sitting at my kitchen counter.
It seems that Samsung plans to open this to third-party advertisers. Higby told me via email that, while today’s ads may include Samsung appliance care and accessories, “… future promotions will depend on the feedback and insights gained from the program.” Considering a presentation by Samsung Ads exec Travis Scott Howe to advertisers earlier this year touted this new program as a way to bring “your brand message to every screen in the connected home,” it feels inevitable we’ll be getting more than just water filters and SmartThings ads.
How to turn off ads on your Family Hub
The widget will appear by default on the fridges as part of the software update. However, Samsung is giving users the option to turn off ads. To do this, go to the Settings page on the fridge, scroll to Advertisements, select it, and you’ll be taken to a screen where you can toggle off ads.
This will remove the widget entirely. If you think you might actually like the widget’s other features (calendar, weather, and news), you can “X” out a particular ad, and it won’t pop up again. But then you’ll get another ad.
As mentioned, the widget is coming to all Family Hub smart fridges with the larger screens in the US (no other countries). However, Samsung confirmed it will not be on fridges with the 9-inch screens or on any of the other appliances with 9- or 7-inch AI Home screens that Samsung recently launched, which include ovens, washing machines, and dryers.
When I interviewed Jeong Seung Moon, Samsung’s head of the R&D team for the Digital Appliances Business at Samsung Electronics, earlier this year, he said there were “no plans regarding the inclusion of advertisements on AI Home screens.” Clearly, plans changed.
If we’re splitting hairs here, technically the Family Hub screen isn’t an AI Home screen. That designation seems to apply only to the 9- and 7-inch screens. I’ve asked numerous Samsung folks about the distinction here, but no one has a straight answer. Either way, my guess is we’ll see ads on those screens eventually, too.
I asked Higby why they were bringing ads to the fridges. He said via email, “This pilot further explores how a connected appliance can deliver genuinely useful, contextual information. The refrigerator is already a daily hub, and we’re testing a responsible, user-controlled way to make that space more helpful.”
This is similar to the justification Panos Panay, Amazon’s head of Devices & Services, made to me last month when I asked him about advertising on its Echo devices. He said it was looking to be “elegantly elevating the information that a customer needs.”
There is no future where advertisements like this will ever be welcome in people’s homes
Both companies claim they want to offer “curated,” “relevant” ads that might “enhance the experience.” I can buy that to some extent when it’s ads for features that your smart fridge or smart display offers. This tech is complicated and capable, and most people only tap into a fraction of what their devices can do.
But there is no future where third-party advertisements will ever be welcome in people’s homes like this — even if they happen to show me a brand of pet food right when my dog is looking at me with hungry eyes.
The bigger issue is that of trust. While Samsung says the ads on Family Hub will be “contextual or non-personal” and that the fridges “are not collecting personal information or tracking consumers,” that’s today. There’s understandable concern among smart home users about how all the data smart appliances collect will be used. And now they have to worry about whether, one day, that will be to serve up more ads.
These appliances are in our homes. It’s one thing to have cookies tracking you on websites on your computer or phone, so that the air fryer you once eyed follows you everywhere online. It would be another thing to start seeing personalized ads on screens around your home, something that would not only feel intrusive but could be damaging in multi-person households. Personalized ads can reveal things you might not want your spouse, roommates, or kids to know about. (Remember how Target figured out a girl was pregnant before her family did?)
Higby says this new widget is a pilot plan, and the goal is “to test responsibly, listen carefully, and learn what feels genuinely useful for our customers.” He said they will be analyzing feedback from the company’s customer service channels and social media. So, be sure to let Samsung know how you feel. Here’s its Instagram, Threads, and X accounts to get you started.
Some more welcome updates
While over-the-air updates that bring ads to your devices are decidedly unwelcome, the flip side of internet-connected appliances is that updates can — and do — bring helpful new features.
Samsung’s latest Family Hub software update includes the following updates:
- AI Vision can now recognize more foods. The fridge’s AI-powered camera can now spot 37 new, fresh food items — adding apples, cherries, cucumbers, and kiwis to its memory banks — plus up to 50 packaged food items.
- Bixby is getting new Voice ID capabilities on the fridge, allowing it to recognize which household member is speaking, offer personalized results for things like calendars, and help you find your phone.
- Samsung’s One UI, introduced on the 2025 Family Hub, is coming to 2024 models — making the fridge screen more in sync with Samsung’s TVs and tablets, and also bringing the Daily Board feature as a cover screen.
- SmartThings Pet Care, Home Care, and Family Care will now be available on 2024 models.
- Enhanced security features, including encrypted Credential Sync, Passkey support, and the new Knox Security Dashboard (which provides a way to see the security status of connected devices), are now available on more models.
The Family Hub update will begin rolling out to US-based models on Monday, October 27th, via notification on the fridge screen.
