GE Profile’s new smart fridge bets on practical tools over flashy tech
GE French-door skips spectacle in favor of barcode scanning, privacy-minded cameras, and practical help.
Credit:
GE Appliances
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In a week of bombast and extravagance at Las Vegas’s CES tech show, GE Profile has a relatively small but compelling story to tell about its vision for smart homes. The new GE Profile 4-Door French-Door Refrigerator ($4,899, available in April) is far from the first fridge to feature an LCD touchscreen and an interior camera, but GE believes it can be the winning tortoise in a race against the hares.
Unlike the tech giants from overseas—Samsung and LG, specifically—that lean hard into high-tech flash, GE is a decidedly more conservative company that believes customers value reliability over flash. While there may be some truth to that, it’s hard to deny that LG and Samsung appliances have made serious gains into American homes in the last decade, and following close behind is the Chinese-owned Hisense, which also takes a more tech-centered approach. So it seemed inevitable that something like the newly announced GE Profile fridge would eventually arrive.
New for 2026: The GE Profile Smart 4-Door French-Door Refrigerator with Kitchen Assistant
GE states that it set out to solve three consumer problems: the hassle of food shopping, the complexities of meal planning, and shame and guilt around food waste.
The new GE Profile fridge is built on a solid foundation. In essence, it’s a GE Profile PVD28BYNFS—a best-selling fridge that we reviewed favorably back in 2020—with the addition of some new hardware. But that new hardware makes all the difference.
On the front panel is a full-color 8” LCD screen that replaces the former touch controls for the through-door water and ice. The screen is small—nothing like Samsung’s Family Hub—but a first for GE.
Barcode Scanner
Underneath the screen is where things get interesting. There, you’ll find a scanner that reads the barcodes of your food items. Rather than taking inventory as they enter the fridge, as Samsung and LG do, the GE fridge is intended to tally what you don’t have. In practice, you’re meant to scan the barcode as you finish an item and throw the container in the trash. Once scanned, GE’s SmartHQ app adds that item to a list of suggested grocery items for your next shopping trip.
The AutoFill water dispensing system is carried over from other models, but will now also activate via voice command.
In-fridge camera, with privacy tools
This is also the first GE refrigerator to feature a camera inside the interior. While the core technology falls short of Samsung’s newly announced Family Hub, GE has taken some common-sense privacy steps that consumers should appreciate.
The camera only faces into the fridge, so there’s little chance of it capturing you in its footage unless you plan to crawl inside. The camera also has a physical slide cover if users are uncomfortable with the surveillance implications.
While Samsung’s new Family Hub uses Google Gemini AI to visually recognize up to thousands of items, the new GE Profile will have limited AI visual recognition. Rather, the camera takes footage each time you open the doors, with special attention paid to the produce drawers (often a messy trouble spot for smart fridges). Later, when you’re at the grocery store, you can open the app and see a recent photo history of the interior of your fridge and the drawers.
GE believes this approach is more practical and offers a more consistently positive experience than its competitors. It also states that future software updates will expand the camera's capabilities.
Recipe recommendations on-screen
Recipe recommendations are nothing new for most refrigerator brands, including GE. Now, however, the company has partnered with Taste of Home to curate and recommend recipes based on data from the food inventory barcode scanner. Recipes will appear on the fridge’s screen and on your mobile device via the app.
While GE states that the refrigerator’s screen will not be used to display advertising, they do plan to show users sponsored recipes. Privacy hawks may not see much of a distinction there, but then again, privacy hawks are perhaps unlikely to purchase a fridge with a built-in camera and microphone.
GE also stated that the data collected by the refrigerator will remain stored strictly within the U.S. (GE Appliances is a wholly owned division of Haier, a Chinese-based company.)
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