Now in its third year, LG’s Innofest roadshow is the South Korean company’s annual regional event, showcasing its latest products that are set to enter the market for that year. LG Innofest 2015 brought most of its exciting products that were unveiled at CES 2015, but with some major omissions.
Highlighting an array of new OLED TVs, LG Innofest 2015 also saw plenty of other interesting home appliances. What should have been the star of the show – LG’s new G Flex 2 smartphone – did not make an appearance.
Instead, LG focused on its home appliances, as well as elaborating more on its vision of the smart home. What’s interesting is in LG’s push for adopting open platforms including the AllSeen Alliance and OneM2M which has some of the biggest players in the smart home arena. In that sense, LG is pushing for a non-exclusive smart home that would not require you to only use one brand, and instead have those various home appliances from different brands sync seamlessly via the open platforms – which will be a huge advantage for consumers.
It is, of course, still early days in smart home development. The fruits of this labour will take years to trickle down our way. What will be available this year are LG’s latest line of home appliances, including its jaw-dropping line of OLED TVs. While it will most certainly not be made available in Malaysia, the 105UC9T is certainly one of the most astonishing releases in LG’s TV lineup this year. Boasting a 21:9 aspect ratio, this 105-inch TV is not only curved, but also has a 5K resolution display – that’s 5120 x 2160.
LG is also pushing hard on the OLED 4K TVs, which it expects to gain more consumer interest as the costs of producing OLED panels decreases. These TVs feature the company’s new Floating Art Slim design language, which places an emphasis on creating the slimmest TV silhouette possible and maintaining a simple and minimalist aesthetic. On the inside, these new OLED TVs feature LG’s Optimised True Colour technology, which regulates colour stability.
The lower-end ColorPrime series are LG’s mainstream 4K LED TV lineup for 2015. It features a new technology called ColorPrime, which increases colour production rate by up to 20% using a new Quantum Dot Sheet. True Black Control and CINEMA Screen further add to the new features that enhance the user experience of the ColorPrime UHD TV lineup.
At the heart of LG’s latest TV lineup is the new webOS 2.0 operating system, which delivers a more intuitive user experience and new features. On top of that, the platform now boots faster and allow users to customise the Launcher Bar.
But beyond TVs, LG is also further cementing its home appliance offerings, including a new lineup of CordZero vacuum cleaners that have integrated battery packs, allowing them to be used wirelessly; or the odd-but-functional LG TwinWash washing machine, which packs one large and one small drum to allow greater flexibility for consumers doing laundry; and the very interesting LG Styler, which is essentially a dry-cleaning machine that’s the size of a closet – too bad that’s destined for a Korea-only release. Even the new range of air conditioners come with interesting innovations such as Mosquito Away (ultrasonic blasts over 30kHz emanating from a speaker repels mosquitoes) and Voice Mate (voice control to activate commands on the air conditioners).
Finally, there’s the new LG Music Flow, which is a new range of wireless speakers and sound bars that eliminates the need for NFC pairing. The LG Music Flow WiFi, which comprises both speakers and sound bars, can be used independently or be paired together for a surround sound system. What’s more interesting is the new LG Range-of-Flow technology, which automatically plays music from a connected mobile device (such as a smartphone or tablet) when it is connected to the same WiFi network. Even more impressive is when you have multiple Music Flow speakers around your home – moving to a Music Flow speaker to within one foot of the mobile device will cause that player to start playing music and the previous speaker to stop playing.
While many consider LG to not have a large presence in Malaysia, that statement is only true of its mobile division. In TVs and home appliances, the company has a strong foothold in the Malaysian market, which explains why most of the products showcased at LG Innofest 2015 will be entering the local market at some point this year. Given the role that a smartphone plays in connecting a smart home, perhaps LG could consider working on expanding its mobile presence in the not-so-distant future.
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