Over time, Samsung has acquired and launched a number of merchandise in an effort to turn into the king of the tech-powered kitchen.
First, there was the launch of the Household Hub fridge, the corporate’s try to create a wise fridge constructed across the firm’s personal working system and filled with expertise like fridge cams to determine meals and allow you to together with your buying.
Then, there was the acquisition of Whisk, an clever meals and buying app that helped pioneer the shoppable recipe area. Whisk had not solely amassed an intensive meals database, which might finally turn into a basis for a few of Household Hub’s (now Bespoke Household Hub) buying and recipe capabilities, but it surely additionally served up the foundational ‘Meals AI’ that’s now being pushed to the forefront by Samsung.
Then, there have been numerous makes an attempt to make use of AI by means of automation within the kitchen, as the corporate introduced (and by no means launched commercially) totally different cooking and kitchen-task robots at CES.
And we will’t neglect that Samsung additionally took among the sensible dwelling expertise from its SmartThings sensible dwelling group (one other Samsung acquisition) and paired it with Whisk’s recipe intelligence to create SmartThings Cooking, a guided cooking app.
This leads us to this week, wherein Samsung introduced what quantities to packaging up this collected information and expertise – save for (no less than for now) the robotics – right into a newly expanded app and platform known as Samsung Meals. Samsung Meals, which the corporate describes as “a personalised, AI-powered meals and recipe platform,” appears to be like like a major step ahead for the corporate’s efforts to construct a centralized digital meals administration app. It is also a logical transfer to consolidate a lot of the collected efforts underneath the Samsung model after the corporate had collected a wide range of platforms that served as a basis for what we see at the moment.
Let’s check out exactly what the corporate unveiled. Within the announcement, Samsung detailed 4 major areas of exercise for Samsung Meals: Recipe Exploration and Personalization, AI-Enhanced Meal Planning, Kitchen Connectivity, and Social Sharing.
For recipe exploration, Samsung appears to be like prefer it’s primarily utilizing what was an already considerably developed function set in Whisk. Samsung says that it might save recipes to a consumer’s digital recipe field anytime and from wherever, create buying lists primarily based on their elements, and is accessible through Household Hub. Along with cell units, customers can entry Samsung Meals with their Bespoke Household Hub fridges, which is able to present recipe suggestions primarily based on a listing of accessible meals gadgets managed by the consumer and shoppable recipe capabilities.
With the Personalize Recipe perform, Samsung Meals appears to be like prefer it builds on the personalization engine created by Whisk and plans to take it additional by means of integration with Samsung Well being. Based on the announcement, by the top of this yr, Samsung plans to combine with Samsung Well being to energy options for weight loss plan administration. This integration will think about data equivalent to a consumer’s physique mass index (BMI), physique composition, and calorie consumption in pursuit of their well being objectives and efforts to keep up a balanced weight loss plan.
The AI-Enhanced meal planning function appears to be like like a longer-view planning function that consolidates customized recipe suggestions, and it’ll little doubt equally profit from the combination of Samsung Well being.
With Linked Cooking, Samsung has rebranded and prolonged the options of the SmartThings Cooking app, including new units just like the BeSpoke oven and incorporating among the similar guided cooking options.
And, after all, a consolidated food-related platform from Samsung wouldn’t be full with out a social media part. My guess is the Social Sharing function – which is able to permit customers to share with their neighborhood – is the least obligatory addition to the app and can finally not be all that profitable, as customers will proceed to make use of mainline social apps (TikTok, Instagram, Fb) for his or her food-related social sharing.
The corporate additionally teased expanded pc imaginative and prescient capabilities in 2024 within the announcement. The corporate’s Imaginative and prescient AI expertise “will allow Samsung Meals to acknowledge meals gadgets and meals photographed by means of the digital camera and supply particulars about them, together with vitamin info.”
General, I’m impressed with the general cohesiveness and trajectory of what I see in Samsung Meals. I believe it’s an indication that Samsung – regardless of having the occasional misstep and strategic vagueness round their meals imaginative and prescient – appears to be like like they continue to be dedicated to changing into the chief of the long run kitchen, one thing that they began approach again in 2016 with the launch of the Household Hub line.
