is a senior reviewer with over twenty years of experience. She covers smart home, IoT, and connected tech, and has written previously for Wirecutter, Wired, Dwell, BBC, and US News.
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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 GIF shows how the widget will rotate between the four screens every 10 seconds. Image: Samsung
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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1 / 2 The new Daily Board cover option will have an ad inserted in one of the 6 tiles. Image: Samsung
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.
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