LG’s IFA 2014 showcase was not just about its exciting G Watch R, but the company also took the opportunity to further demonstrate its Smart Home concept. The company’s vision for a connected home of the future, the concept actually lets you literally chat with your home appliances on the popular social messaging app, LINE. No, I’m not kidding.
Of course, the Smart Home concept is a lot more than that. LG Smart Home lets you control virtually every home appliance just from your smartphone, and uses open-source software sponsored by AllSeen Appliance. With LG Smart Home, users can monitor their homes, control the settings on connected home appliances and even have all these appliances working together in an interrelated home of the future. In fact, LG isn’t even calling them home appliances anymore; they’re now known as “social appliances”.
Look closely, and you’ll see a shopping list that your fridge just sent you. The future, ladies and gentlemen.
Most of these are possible with LG HomeChat, which can be described as a LINE group chat between you and the various connected home appliances. For example, you can type “Grocery shopping”, and your fridge will reply you with a shopping list it has intelligently gathered based on what’s in your LG Smart Refrigerator. It then sends you a photo of the contents of your fridge, so you know exactly what to get. This fridge also has its own energy management system, which uses less energy during periods of low activity, such as sleeping hours or when nobody is at home.
You can also type “Coming home”, and the central heating system will warm or cool the home temperature, while the lights turn on as soon as you open the door. What’s more, if you’ve been listening to music on your phone, Smart Home will instantly pair your phone with your home theatre speakers seamlessly. If you’re baking something, or started the washing machine, you’ll also receive a notification on LG HomeChat, while the lamps will blink intermittently for a few seconds.
On top of that, LG HomeChat also lets you leave your home with peace of mind. Type in “Leaving home” or “Vacation”, and Smart Home enables My HomeGuard mode. This mode switches on the Hom-Bot Square robot vacuum cleaner to cycle around the home, and turns the lights on and off periodically to mimic the presence of people at home. On top of that, should the robot vacuum detect movement, it instantly relays that information to you in the group chat and can even snap a photo of what’s going on. The Hom-Bot Square’s Home View can also let you manually control the vacuum using your smartphone.
The LG Smart Home concept may not be coming to Malaysia anytime soon, but it will be coming to North America later this year, where the company’s smart home social appliances will integrate with Nest, the Google-owned home automation gadget.
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