Simplicity was considered bland and ordinary in a time when only outlandish designs and brand-new technology were the pinnacles of innovation. But when it comes to home appliance design, subtle might not be such a bad thing after all. Samsung Electronics found Flat Style as the perfect way to understand and interpret the essence of a product in terms of simplicity rather than complexity. Flat Style, the design on which possibilities of diverse experiences for users are finely stacked up, is now redefined beyond the dictionary definition of ‘pedestrian’.

Lines and Surfaces, Creating Harmony with the Surrounding Space

Flat Style first begins with minimalism, which is about seeking completion in simplicity. The flat, handle-less refrigerator door reminds us of the beauty inspired by simple lines and clear-cut surfaces. This is the result of relentless contemplation on the essence of kitchen appliances as a visual component that brings completion to the kitchen space.

Indeed, Flat Style pursues harmony with space. The straight lines of the wall, floor, and kitchen counter become one with the flat frontal surface of the refrigerator. The refrigerator’s size has been designed with the depth of the kitchen counter in mind, so that the fridge fits in perfectly without any protrusions when it is placed in the kitchen’s fridge cabinet. Furthermore, the refrigerator is designed with convenience in mind, allowing users to comfortably open and close the fridge door even when it’s placed inside the cabinet.

Sturdiness and Geometric Beauty Put All Together

Look at the stainless-steel finish that has been applied over the exterior of the refrigerator. The use of Flat Style here adds credibility to the kitchen with its sturdiness. The metal helps maintain exceptional durability and elevates the classiness of the space it occupies with its exquisite and delicate glow. The handle and internal shelves of the fridge have also been designed to continue the metallic look and feel, altogether establishing a consistently solid impression of the refrigerator overall.

Flat Style adds an aesthetic taste to a kitchen appliance as if it were a piece of sculpture. The exterior of the refrigerator has been instilled with the aesthetic beauty that is derived from simple forms so that its design blends well with modern interiors. The placement of the door and handles that resemble the majestic skyline of high-rise buildings creates an image of two pillars vertically stretching down to form a Column design. With just the bare minimal combination of such simple lines, you can feel a sense exquisite class.

‘Maintaining the Straight Lines’ – Beauty Inside and Out

There’s a seamless flow that comes with designing kitchen appliances with Flat Style. It’s a sense of cohesion that is evident from the insides to the outer edges of the exterior. The Flat Style strives for simplicity, and this notion is reflected in the fine details of the internal design. The corners of the internal space are shaped closely to a perpendicular angle to form a spatial form composed of straight lines, which maintains the aesthetic simplicity of the exterior body. Simply put, Flat Style makes the final touch on the consistent aesthetic appeal that penetrates the product from the inside-out.

Usability Enhanced with Thoughtful Functions and Design

As stunning as the refrigerator is, it’s important that everyday usability is always considered from the outset. The little things can make a big difference.

Controls that aren’t frequently used have been relocated to the inside of the refrigerator to remain out of sight. The water dispenser is also simplified to only feature buttons for frequently used functions such as choosing between water or selections of ice, while the rest of the functions are combined with the internal display.

The RB8000’s Kitchen Fit design minimizes the thickness of the refrigerator door while securing 100L more in max capacity compared to other refrigerators of the same size. In addition, the RS8000’s slanted shelf handles are applied with oblique strokes for users to comfortably pull the shelves without hurting their wrists.

In a world filled with unconventional, unique ideas and over-to-top expressions, the power of simplicity becomes more prominent. Samsung Electronics strives for functional designs that express beauty in the essence of things and simplicity conveyed through perfect form that prioritizes the fundamentals. Samsung’s definition of Flat Style is a kitchen appliance that organically communicates and harmonizes with its space through pure and timeless simplicity that is free of all complications.

At CES 2017, Samsung showcased its latest devices designed to deliver a peerless smart home experience, including its upgraded Family Hub refrigerators. Here, Lee discusses the development process that’s yielded Family Hub 2.0.

Q: First, how do you identify specific aspects of consumers’ lives to design new products and services around?

Yoon Lee: If you can identify a pain point and create a meaningful solution, then that’s a very good start.

Pain points come in two flavors: obvious and latent. Latent pain points come as a pleasant surprise – that feeling of, ‘Oh, I never knew I had this pain point until I used this product.’ Because consumers don’t know what they don’t know, it’s up to us, through mountains of data and behavioral research, to come up with hypotheses that will lead to insight.

A good example is backup cameras in cars. When they first came out, many saw them as a solution that few would care about. But now, the technology is in such a mature state and so integral, that if it were suddenly taken away, you’d feel extremely uncomfortable. With latent needs, you don’t really know they’re there until you have a solution, but once you have one, you don’t really want to go back.

Q: What are some of the key insights you gained when exploring modern consumers’ latent kitchen needs?

Yoon Lee: The role of the kitchen has changed dramatically over the last decade or two. In the past, it was a space where people prepared meals. Now, it’s where families congregate, manage their schedules, enjoy entertainment, socialize and eat. The kitchen has moved away from a food-centric role to more of a family command center.

You therefore don’t want to create a food product; you want to create a ‘kitchen product’. If you think about what a kitchen product is, there are three pillars: in the kitchen, people have food, family-related activities and fun. These are the areas Samsung wants to cater to for consumers and create meaningful solutions around.

Q: How does Family Hub’s design cater to food, family and fun?

Yoon Lee: In the past, if you looked at food, family and fun in the kitchen, there were lots of ad-hoc solutions. ‘Family’ could be magnets and Post-its on your refrigerator, a tablet, or a computer in your kitchen, while ‘fun’ could be a kitchen TV.

Samsung was looking for a seamless platform to shape the kitchen’s role in a meaningful way, and the refrigerator was a natural choice. After all, if there’s one device in your home where if it gets turned off, you’re devastated, it’s the refrigerator. There isn’t a better platform for managing your lifestyle in the kitchen.

To best manage your ‘connected’ lifestyle, you also need an interface that can handle physical and virtual activities, and a touch-based screen easily accommodates that. So these were key insights that helped Samsung develop a refrigerator that could serve as a modern ‘kitchen device’.

Q: How has Family Hub 2.0 been enhanced to create a better kitchen experience?

Yoon Lee: One important aspect of Family Hub 2.0 is that it’s changed from a hardware platform to a software platform, which means it’s expandable, adaptable, and caters to evolution.

This means the solutions Samsung is offering around food, family and fun can get better over time; the product can become more relevant to your lifestyle; Samsung will be able to incorporate more partnerships; and the solutions can become more elegant.

Family Hub 2.0 offers more flexibility and functionality to help consumers better manage their lives and their household products. And for an even more convenient kitchen experience, Samsung’s advanced voice technology has also been integrated across Family Hub 2.0’s apps.

Q: What are some applications you could see in Family Hub’s future that could further streamline users’ ‘connected’ lifestyles?

Yoon Lee: I’d like to see smart homes become part of the Family Hub solution, so users can control appliances, smart things and IoT solutions throughout their home from their Family Hub refrigerator.

For instance, now, if you’re in the kitchen and the doorbell rings, with a ‘connected’ doorbell, you have to pull out your phone to see who’s there. Instead of that, let’s say while you’re cooking the image shows up on your refrigerator.

If you have a baby monitor and your baby starts crying, the current solution is, again, to pull out your phone or a separate baby monitor. If the image popped up on your Family Hub refrigerator, that would be another elegant solution. So there are many meaningful use cases where this kind of connected technology could play a big role in the future.

Samsung Electronics America, a leader in home appliance innovations, today announced the availability of the Samsung Flex Duo Slide-in Range with Dual Door and Wi-Fi Connectivity, a new smart range that combines advanced technology with flexible functionality to make meal preparation easier, faster and more enjoyable.

“Consumers are cooking and entertaining in their homes now more than ever, and they want beautifully designed innovations that enrich that experience.” said John Herrington, Senior Vice President, General Manager of Home Appliance at Samsung. “The Samsung Wi-Fi Range represents the very latest in modern cooking convenience and performance.”

Award-Winning Connectivity and Flexibility

The Samsung Flex Duo Slide-in Range with Dual Door gives home cooks the freedom to control their meal prep times and temperatures without having to stay in the kitchen. Leveraging Internet of Things (IoT) capabilities, the range lets you remotely monitor the cooktop and oven functions on your smartphone using a simple app. You can preheat and adjust oven cooking temperatures, set a timer, receive real-time alerts on oven temperatures and turn the oven off – all from your smartphone. It can even tell you if you left your burners on. And with the electric version of the range, you can even turn your oven on remotely.

This WiFi Range incorporates two of Samsung’s most recent oven design innovations – Flex Duo technology and Soft Close Dual Door — to further expand the cooking horizon for consumers. Flex Duo gives home cooks the ultimate in cooking flexibility through multiple oven configurations.

Consumers can easily use the traditional single oven compartment, or separate the space into two distinct compartments (2.4 cu. ft. on top; 3.3 cu. ft. on bottom) with Samsung’s inventive Smart Divider. When the Smart Divider is in use, the upper and lower cooking zones can be used to cook two different dishes simultaneously, using different temperature and time settings, with no noticeable transfer of aroma or taste between the two.

The range also allows you to save energy by simply using just one zone for smaller meals. And cooking without the Smart Divider gives you room to cook larger items, which is perfect for that 20 lb. holiday turkey.

The range features a Soft Close Dual Door, engineered with a hinge in the middle so consumers can open just the top compartment or pull down the full door. Its center hinge maximizes cooking efficiency, saves energy and prevents heat loss by giving you the option of just opening the top compartment when that’s all you need. And it closes quietly to prevent door slams.

Cooking Convenience Wrapped in a Premium Package

The cooktop is controlled by easy-grip metallic knobs softly backlit with ice blue LED lights, making it clear from even across the room if a burner is on. The Guiding Light Controls, built into a sleek glass touch panel on the front of the range, offer simple, step-by-step instructions for selecting and using options like oven temperature and time settings by zone, programmed recipes and cleaning settings.

For those cooks looking for precise control and optimum power, the gas version of the range comes complete with a 22K BTU burner that delivers fast, even heating.

The Samsung Flex Duo Slide-in Range with Dual Door creates a strong design statement as the cooking centerpiece of the kitchen, with premium finish options, modern dual door, widescreen display panel and quick-clean black ceramic glass cooktop. And its slide-in design in the standard size means it can easily replace an existing range, sliding between cabinets to create a custom built-in look to complete your kitchen.

amsung’s Flex Duo Slide-in Range with Dual Door Wi-Fi Slide-in Range with Soft Close Dual Door is available now in both electric (model: NE58K9850WS) and gas (model: NX58K9850SS) versions at major appliance retailers nationwide and online at Samsung.com for a suggested retail price of $2,999.00 (electric) and $3,299 (gas). It will also be available in a traditional Stainless finish and the new Black Stainless design.

To see Samsung’s latest home appliances and other products, visit http://www.samsung.com/us/.

*All functionality, features, specifications and other product information provided in this document including, but not limited to, the benefits, design, pricing, components, performance, availability, and capabilities of the product are subject to change without notice or obligation.

Source: Samsung Newsroom US

Samsung Electronics, a global leader in home appliance innovations, introduced a brand new refrigeration category to the market that cements the refrigerator’s position as the center of the kitchen. With practical innovations infused throughout, Samsung’s latest kitchen appliances will be unveiled this week, alongside its other home appliance introductions, at the CES 2016 from Jan. 6-9, 2016.

“Samsung has strongly reinvigorated the home appliance space with fresh thinking and functionality that have taken appliances from a ‘need’” to a ‘want’. With the new and innovative Family Hub Refrigerator, we are transforming the communal kitchen experience for consumers in ways that will re-define how they view and use their refrigerator,” said John Herrington, Senior Vice President, General Manager of Home Appliances, Samsung Electronics America. “Now more than ever, we are delivering in a big way on the promise of the Internet of Things, not only in refrigeration but in cooking, with a new Wi-Fi-connected range that takes cooking convenience to a new level.”

Family Hub Refrigerator Makes Its Debut

The Samsung Family Hub Refrigerator is a sophisticated multi-tasker that reconnects families, organizes groceries and home tasks, and provides entertainment.

The Family Hub is just that – a hub of household connections, but with a thoroughly digital twist. All communications are housed and displayed on a 21.5 inch full HD LCD resolution screen located on the upper right exterior door. As the refrigerator’s digital family command center, the screen allows you to post, share and update calendars, pin photos, share treasured kids’ works of art, and leave notes – all with the ease and convenience of your smartphone.

From more efficiently managing your groceries, to identifying foods you have or need, to tracking product expiration dates to cut down on waste, the Family Hub is your go-to resource to keep your kitchen fully stocked. In a revolutionary advancement in refrigerator technology, three high quality cameras inside the fridge capture an image every time the door closes. You can then access those images anytime using your smartphone and take a peek inside your fridge. Even if you’re at the store and forget to check on what you need for dinner that night, you can easily pull up the Samsung Smart Home app and have a look right into your Family Hub fridge. There’s no more forgetting what you have at home, and you can even use the refrigerator to do online grocery shopping with the aid of a major credit card partner, as well as manage recipes and compile and share shopping lists.

With the kitchen serving as the center of the home and a common gathering spot, the Samsung Family Hub Refrigerator is perfectly suited to entertain friends and family. It offers options for music streaming to play through its built-in speaker or connect to your Bluetooth wireless speakers, like Samsung’s own Radiant 360 line, to enjoy music throughout the home. You can even enjoy your favorite television programs right on the Family Hub screen using Screen mirroring with your Samsung Smart TV, a huge benefit if you have to prepare food for the football game and don’t want to miss any important play.

The Family Hub is as impressively designed on the inside as it is on the outside. From the Samsung-exclusive FlexZone that transforms from fridge to freezer to meet your food storage needs, to keeping food fresher, longer with its Triple and Metal Cooling system, to its flexibility and energy-saving features, this refrigerator places a premium on superior performance and unmatched innovation and design.

Family Hub Refrigerator (model RF28K95800SR) will be available in Spring 2016. It will be available in Counter Depth, Full Depth, Stainless and a new and stunning Black Stainless design.

Convenience and Connectivity in the Kitchen

Samsung’s Wi-Fi Slide-in Range with Soft Close Dual Door combines advanced technology with the ultimate in flexible functionality to make meal preparation easier and more enjoyable for home cooks.

This range also features Samsung’s award-winning Flex Duo technology with Soft Close Dual Door which provides ultimate cooking flexibility in oven configurations. Consumers can easily switch between one of the industry’s largest single oven compartments at 5.8 cu. ft. or separate into two-compartments (2.4 cu. ft. on top and 3.3 cu. ft. on bottom) by simply inserting or removing a simple but inventive Smart Divider. Maximizing the efficiency of Flex Duo even more is the Soft Close Dual Door, which is engineered with a hinge in the middle to open just the top compartment or both and can close softly and quietly to prevent door slams.

Now available with Wi-Fi connectivity, this range leverages Internet of Things (IoT) in a practical innovation that lets you monitor your cooktop and oven remotely. You can preheat and adjust oven cooking temperatures all from your smart phone as well as monitor the cooktop elements to make sure you’ve turned them off. Easy-grip metallic knobs that are illuminated with ice blue LED lights make it easy to see from across the room that a burner is on – a simple yet meaningful innovation that makes consumers’ lives simpler and more efficient.

Samsung’s Wi-Fi Slide-in Range with Soft Close Dual Door will be available in Spring 2016 in both electric and gas versions.

Samsung will also showcase a full line of other kitchen innovations at the CES 2016, including:

• Samsung Chef Collection Slide-in Dual Fuel Range: This versatile range serves up what home cooks need by merging a gas cooktop and an electric oven into one unit ideal for cooking precision and control, while for the first time incorporating Samsung’s Flex Duo technology.
• Samsung 4-Door Flex Food Showcase Refrigerator: The convenient external Food Showcase door opens to a shallow case that provides easy access to frequently used items, while an InnerCase compartment in the same space is used for longer-term storage for larger, fresh food items. Samsung’s exclusive FlexZone, located in the bottom right quadrant, easily transforms from fridge to freezer by selecting from four customizable temperature settings. And its Triple Cooling System keeps food fresh, longer by maintaining even humidity levels throughout the fridge and providing precise temperature calibration.

For more information about CES 2016, please visit our exclusive page #SAMSUNGxCES2016