Samsung is stepping into the kitchen as it launches its new “AI-powered food and recipe platform” – the aptly named Samsung Food.
The app isn’t completely new as it draws much of its information from the “extensive database of Whisk, a smart food [company]” bought by Samsung NEXT back in 2019. Utilizing Whisk’s Food AI tech, however, Samsung Food acts as a personal assistant of sorts by helping people find interesting recipes.
According to the official announcement, the software adapts to users in order to "create tailored meal plans" that meet an individual's dietary and nutritional needs. It will also provide step-by-step guides on how to cook a dish if you're new to cooking.
As you can see in the trailer above, there is more to the app than simply being a cookbook on a smartphone. Once you save a dish to your personal “recipe box”, Samsung Food will analyze the entry then provide a shopping list of the ingredients that you need make it. The company claims that it's possible to adjust dishes via the Personalize Recipe tool.
As an example, you can replace meat ingredients with vegetable substitutes if you’re a vegan or tweak a few things to make something more “nutritionally balanced".
However, it appears there is a discrepancy between the trailer and the actual app. While using it, we were unable to personalize any of recipes like it shows in the trailer – though it is possible we just weren't using one of the adjustable dishes available.
Availability
Samsung Food is currently available for download from both the App Store and Google Play Store. It’s being released across 104 countries around the world in eight different languages, including English, German, Spanish, French and Korean. In total, you will have over 160,000 recipes at your fingertips.
Upon installation, the app will ask you a series of questions like whether or not you follow a specific diet or if you’re allergic to anything. It will avoid recommending recipes that will trigger an allergic reaction. For those who want more specific suggestions, you can enter personal details like age, height, weight, and overall activity level.
The majority of recipes on the platform will take to you a third-party website when you select the Instructions tab while others will on the app itself. You can tell which ones will take you outside Samsung Food by looking underneath the main image.
If it's a URL, it will be a third-party website. If it's a person's name, it will be in-app. The name belongs to one of the many cooking influencers on the platform.
Future updates
It appears that Samsung has some big plans for its Food app. The tech giant states it will be “adding new features and services to the app for an even more… comprehensive” experience. By the end of this year, it aims to fully integrate Samsung Health in order to offer advice to users on how to properly manage their personal nutrition.
Next year in 2024, Samsung will upgrade the platform with Vision AI tech, giving the app the ability to recognize food “photographed through the [on-device] camera”. Doing so will provide important nutrition information as well “recommend the best [dishes] to use them with”.
If you’re thinking of trying your hand at cooking but don’t know where to start, we recommend getting an air fryer. They’re pretty cheap and easy to use. Be sure to check out TechRadar’s list of the best air fryers for 2023.
