Samsung Newsroom sat down with Bona Lee, Vice President and Head of Customer eXperience (CX) Insight Group at Digital Appliances (DA) Business, Samsung Electronics, to discuss the latest accessibility features in Samsung’s home appliances and the philosophy that shapes them.

Q. What core value or principle guides your approach when designing accessibility features for home appliances?

Using home appliances typically involves a combination of sensory input — such as sight, sound and touch — along with cognitive functions like making selections and adjusting settings, as well as physical actions like pulling, pushing or lifting. These steps can present challenges for some users.

Samsung is working to reduce or eliminate these usability barriers to ensure that everyone can access all features and benefit from the latest technologies. As part of our broader commitment to inclusive design, we offer tailored solutions for different accessibility needs — such as tactile stickers for buttons, audio cues for users with visual impairments and control panels positioned at heights accessible to wheelchair users.

Q. What are some standout accessibility features or services that users might not be aware of?

The Bespoke AI Laundry Combo offers a significantly more streamlined control experience than before. While previous models required users to turn a dial and strain to read small text to select a cycle, the new model features a built-in digital screen with large, easy-to-read fonts. AI further enhances usability by prioritizing frequently used cycles at the top of the menu.

What’s more, SmartThings routines empower individuals with limited mobility by automating device control. A simple voice command like “I’m going to sleep” can turn off lights and appliances, creating a more comfortable and accessible home environment.

Q. What new accessibility features have been introduced in the 2025 Bespoke AI appliance lineup?

In the 2025 lineup of Bespoke AI appliances, Bixby can now recognize individual voices using Voice ID technology and provide accessibility settings tailored to each person. In addition, with built-in microphones and speakers, users can ask Bixby about the appliance’s status and receive key alerts via voice responses.

Moreover, the Auto Open Door feature — highly praised by users with limited mobility — has been expanded to more products, including refrigerators, washing machines, ovens and dishwashers. A light tap or simple voice command like “Open the [device] door” provides easy, hands-free access.

Q. Are there any ongoing collaborations focused on enhancing accessibility in home appliances?

Samsung is actively collaborating with various organizations to identify and address real-world accessibility challenges. We receive objective evaluations and expert guidance from various professional organizations including the Korea Center for Accessibility Assessment & Research. Additionally, accessibility features for our screen-equipped appliances — such as voice guidance and improved visibility — are being developed in alignment with the European Accessibility Act that goes into effect this June.

Internal collaboration is just as vital. The Samsung Family Supporters group — comprised of employees with disabilities and those with family members who have disabilities — is actively involved in shaping accessibility initiatives. Furthermore, the newly established Accessibility Employee Resource Group (ERG) within the Device eXperience (DX) Business fosters open dialogue by encouraging members to share real-life experiences and ideas to improve accessibility across our products and services.

Q. What results or improvements have come from these collaborations so far?

While many visually impaired users found voice guidance for operating SmartThings-connected appliances helpful, some reported that the initial device connection process was challenging.

To address this, we improved the SmartThings app and partnered with TUAT Corp. — the developer of AI-powered visual assistance app Sullivan Plus — to introduce a dedicated mode that recognizes Samsung appliances and helps users easily connect them to SmartThings. Selected for Samsung’s C-Lab Outside startup incubator, Sullivan Plus is expected to further enhance the overall user experience.

We’ve also developed assistive tools based on ideas and feedback from employees and the Samsung Family Supporters group. Designs for these tools are shared on ITDA, a public platform for customizing and 3D-printing assistive devices. One example is a stick-on handle for drawers, designed to support users with limited hand mobility. Development continues toward creating more automated assistive solutions that offer even greater convenience.

Q. What steps is Samsung taking to further advance its vision of “AI for All” in the future?

“AI for All” reflects Samsung’s commitment to ensuring that the benefits of technology are seamlessly integrated into everyday life — regardless of a user’s physical abilities or environment. It’s about transforming individual features into connected, inclusive experiences that make life better for everyone.

Looking ahead, Samsung will continue to embed universal design principles that prioritize inclusivity into product development. This includes gathering input from diverse user groups during the planning stage, leveraging user data to identify new opportunities and collaborating with both internal and external experts and organizations to create more meaningful solutions.

As AI capabilities in home appliances evolve, the goal is to create a truly intelligent in-home experience — one that understands each user, their family and their environment by automating tasks and reducing the need for manual input. Rather than addressing diversity with isolated features, Samsung strives to deliver integrated, all-in-one solutions that adapt to any situation.

We see this as the future of innovation — where accessibility and technology come together to serve everyone, under the vision of “Universal Accessibility, Universal Technology.”

CES 2022 offers visitors and online viewers an opportunity to see for themselves how Samsung has been innovating for the future. From displays and home appliances, to products and services that raise the bar for innovation, the company’s showcase at the world’s largest technology show offers a peek at what our daily lives will look like very soon.

Samsung’s CES 2022 booth is full of eye-catching innovations. But which products and technologies will viewers and visitors absolutely not want to miss? To answer that question, Samsung Newsroom went straight to the source, asking the experts behind the innovations which ones they think deserve a closer look.

In part one of this two-part series, Telly Lee, Vice President of Samsung’s Home Appliances Division and Jungrae Kim of Samsung Electronics’ Visual Display Business will explain how Samsung designed its latest home appliances and portable screen to cater to consumers’ evolving lifestyles.

The Bespoke Kitchen: Home Appliances That Evolve in Line With Users’ Changing Lives

▲ Telly Lee, Vice President of Samsung’s Home Appliances Division and Head of the Kitchen Product Planning Group, with Samsung’s Bespoke French Door refrigerators

Q: What can you tell us about the home appliance products and technologies that are being showcased at CES 2022?

We are going to focus on introducing the Bespoke kitchen, in which refrigerators and colors are unified to great effect. The Bespoke kitchen begins with our flagship Bespoke refrigerators. We’ve expanded the Bespoke range to FDR (French Door refrigerators) in the U.S. market in 4-door and 3-door models. This represents a significant expansion of our lineup following the release of Bespoke refrigerators in 4-Door Flex, Bottom Mount Freezer and 1-Door Column types in 2021.

One unique point of innovation for Samsung’s Bespoke refrigerator is the Beverage Center. Featuring a water dispenser hidden inside the door, the Beverage Center offers a convenient, hygienic solution that enables the fridge to feature a smooth exterior. Along with the new Bespoke refrigerators, we’re also showcasing other vibrant and colorful products that are part of the Bespoke kitchen like oven ranges and dishwashers.

These days, we’re seeing more customers in the U.S. choose modern designs for their kitchens. With Bespoke, we want to show that it’s possible to decorate your kitchen based on your individual tastes with a palette that includes colors that blend in with your interior, as well as accent colors.

At CES, we are also showcasing SmartThings Cooking, a service that introduces connected experiences to the kitchen. With this service, users can receive recipe recommendations and information to help them save time on both prep and cooking. SmartThings Cooking recommends recipes that fit your tastes and dietary restrictions, then builds meal plans to match. As you’re cooking, it also sends recipe instructions directly to synced Samsung cooking devices.

Q: What are some unique or attractive aspects of the new Bespoke offerings that you don’t want visitors at CES to miss?

First, I’d like to underline the expansion of the Bespoke range, which gives consumers who want their refrigerator to reflect their preferences in terms of color and materials even more options to choose from. Since launching Bespoke in the U.S. in 2021, we’ve seen continuous demand for this type of customization. Delivering on this is one of the reasons we added the French Door refrigerator to our 2022 Bespoke refrigerator lineup. The panels come in twelve colors, which means that there are over 20,000 possible color combinations for a four-door refrigerator alone. I am confident that no other refrigerator offers customers this much choice.

Another can’t-miss aspect is the features. The Beverage Center, for instance includes a 1.4-liter AutoFill water pitcher, as well as a Dual Auto Ice Maker that holds up to 4.1kg of ice. What’s more, the FlexZone offers five different temperature modes to keep ingredients like meat, seafood, fruits and vegetables at optimal temperatures. These unique features help bring greater convenience to users’ daily lives.

Users also get to experience an even smarter kitchen with Family Hub, which is included in the latest Bespoke refrigerator lineup. By using the large screen on the front of the refrigerator users can enjoy music and videos in the kitchen and control kitchen appliances and smart devices too. With a screen that integrates seamlessly into the door panel, and with a highly aesthetic design and minimized bezels, the Bespoke Family Hub is capable of blending into any space.

Last but not least, we are introducing the Bespoke Atelier app that we first launched in Korea to the global market. The app offers access to more than 170 works of art from global artists, covering various periods, trends and themes. It recommends works of art and allows you to create your own gallery of sorts by customizing your display to suit your tastes. In addition, when users display an artwork in listening mode, they’ll be able to hear a description of the art with subtitles. This makes it feel like you’re enjoying a guided tour an art museum from the comfort of your kitchen.

▲ Samsung’s Bespoke Family Hub refrigerator

Q: Our way of life has changed dramatically over the past two years, with technology that connects people becoming more important as contactless ways of doing things increasingly become the norm. What kind of impact do you think the products and technologies showcased at CES 2022 will have on people’s lives?

As users have begun to spend more and more time at home, their lives have become more “home-centric”. We expect this trend to continue in 2022. At the same time, concern for sustainability continues to increase on the heels of events like the United Nations’ COP26 conference, and with environmental regulations being strengthened across the globe. With these shifts in consumer lifestyles and interests in mind, Samsung has been working to provide kitchen solutions that are “customized, smarter, and more sustainable.”

Our customized kitchen solutions cater to users who have been spending a lot of time in their kitchen and thus feel a stronger desire to remodel their space to reflect their tastes. By expanding our Bespoke lineup, we are providing a more diverse range of refrigerator types and color options, helping users build customized kitchens that suit both their lifestyle and their interior design scheme.

Spending more time at home has naturally led to a rise in home cooking as well. To help make this easier by making kitchens “smarter”, Samsung introduced SmartThings Cooking, a tailored cooking journey service that does everything from looking up recipes to creating a diet plan and even shops for groceries. Powered by Whisk’s Food AI, SmartThings Cooking recommends your personalized recipe and meal plans based on your tastes, dietary needs and groceries you have on hand. The service also allows you to enjoy convenient one-stop grocery shopping with your favorite grocery retail brands available through the Whisk network. When it comes time to cook, SmartThings ensures a seamless cooking experience while communicating directly with your smart Samsung kitchen appliances.

And with Family Hub, consumers can even utilize this service through the display on the front of their fridge while continuing to control other home appliances from it as well.

Finally, our kitchen solutions are becoming “more sustainable.” Bespoke refrigerators are built for high energy efficiency, and their replaceable door panels help extend their lifespans. Samsung continues to innovate on this front, seeking out ways to incorporate cutting-edge technology into our appliances while keeping sustainability in mind as well.

The Freestyle : Designing a Screen That’s Not Limited by Space

▲ Jungrae Kim of Samsung Electronics’ Visual Display Business proudly displays The Freestyle, a new portable screen introduced at CES.

Q: Could you walk us through how your team came up with The Freestyle?

Ever since the pandemic changed our daily lives, our personal spaces have become more and more important. This is particularly true of relaxing spaces like the bedroom, where we’re seeing more people using products for the purposes of entertainment. We’re also seeing more people utilize cozy and quiet spaces in their homes, as well as increased interest in spending time outdoors – by going camping, for example. We wanted to reflect these trends of our time in our products, and enable users to use them as they wish – anytime, anywhere, and regardless of space limitations. That’s how we came up with the personal, movable smart screen that is The Freestyle.

Q: What are unique points of the Freestyle?

The Freestyle was designed to offer users new levels of functionality. It’s easy to see what sets this product apart just by looking at it. To allow users to carry around every day, we designed The Freestyle to be lightweight, weighing just 830 grams. The fact that you can conveniently carry it with you wherever you go is its biggest advantage.

The Freestyle also features a simpler installation process. All users need to do is place The Freestyle wherever they want, and then turn it on. That’s it. The Freestyle comes with full auto keystone and auto leveling features, enabled by industry-leading technology. The features allow the device to automatically adjust its screen to any surface at any angle, providing a perfectly proportional image every time.

Users can enjoy a seamless and continuous viewing experience by accessing their user accounts and settings for major OTT services. On top of that, we’ve also applied the industry’s first far-field voice control technology. So when the screen is turned on, users can search for content using just their voice. When the screen is off, they can use the device to listen to music or ask for the day’s weather just as they would with a smart speaker.

The Freestyle’s picture and sound quality – the most basic and important features of any display – also deserve a closer look. We applied Samsung TVs’ picture quality engine, and the white balance is adjusted automatically according to the color and tone of the wall that the screen is being projected to. We also applied dual passive radiators to produce deep, high-quality bass. This allows customers to enjoy a cinema-quality sound experience no matter where they are.

Q: In line with Samsung’s ‘Screens Everywhere’ vision, The Freestyle can be utilized in various ways for maximum convenience. What are some specific use cases for The Freestyle?

First of all, The Freestyle can be conveniently set up in a user’s bedroom. While lying in bed, before falling asleep, they can use the device’s integrated cradle to move the screen from the wall to the ceiling to continue watching a movie more comfortably. The Freestyle can also be placed lightly on a dining room table, transforming the room into a new space for entertainment.

In order to utilize spaces like this, our developers came up with a new installation solution that we applied to the product. Thanks to those efforts, users can also utilize the device on a tabletop or floor by connecting it to a standard E26 light socket.¹ There’s no need for a separate power supply or cable connection, so it can be used immediately.

For powering it up, The Freestyle is compatible with external batteries² that support USB-PD and 50W/20V output or above, so users can take it with them anywhere, whether they are on the move, on a camping trip and more. When it’s not used as a projector to stream content, The Freestyle also provides mood lighting effect thanks to its ambient mode and translucent lens cap.

Through close cooperation with Samsung’s MX (Mobile eXperience) Business, we’ve equipped The Freestyle with a button that syncs it with Galaxy devices. With just a push of a button, users can instantly use their Galaxy device as a remote control. They can also utilize mobile hotspots when no Wi-Fi networks are available. We’ve developed this product by paying close attention to even the smallest details, all to make the device just as convenient and easy to use outdoors as it is at home.

¹ Light socket connection feature will be first applied in US.

² Samsung is not liable for 3^rd party external batteries.

This relentless innovation was demonstrated most recently with Samsung’s launch of its MICRO LED display, which is delivering outstanding color vibrancy and brightness and raising the bar for premium viewing. But Samsung is not only focused on establishing outstanding audio-visual quality in its televisions. As the company heads into its 15^th year as the leading global TV brand, Samsung announced its ‘Screens Everywhere, Screens for All’ vision, underscoring their commitment to closely aligning business operations with a series of long-term sustainability and accessibility endeavors.

Check out the infographic below to see how Samsung’s TV innovations have progressed over the years, reshaping the industry and elevating the user experience in a host of different ways.