LG Electronics is at IFA 2017 this week to promote its agnostic approach to the smart home.
The company said it has committed to its “Open Partnership, Open Platform, and Open Connectivity” strategy by steadily building up its smart ecosystem with a lineup that includes not only intelligent home appliances but also robots that greet, clean and mow.
Wi-Fi has been built into all of its 2017 appliances, and LG’s own WebOS smart platform is compatible with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant and its own Deep ThinQ intelligent voice platform.
SmartThinQ Hub plays a central role in LG’s smart home platform by collecting information from smart appliances as well as conventional devices connected to SmartThinQ sensors via Wi-Fi, ZigBee and Bluetooth. Information is displayed in the form of notifications on the LCD screen or announced through its embedded speaker.
LG will be showcasing its intelligent robots for the first time in Europe at the Berlin show, led by the Hub Robot, which uses voice-recognition technology to connect to other smart LG devices to make household tasks less of a chore. A verbal command prompts the robot to execute tasks such as adjusting the dryer cycle from hot to warm or turning on the air conditioner in another room.
The Airport Guide Robot and Airport Cleaning Robot form the foundation of LG’s out-of-home service robots initiative. Using LG’s own voice-recognition platform, the Airport Guide Robot understands Korean, English, Chinese and Japanese — the four most popular languages spoken at Incheon International Airport, Korea’s largest. With a quick scan of a visitor’s boarding pass, the robot provides flight information as well as the time and weather in the destination city. The robot is currently in full operation at Incheon.
LG’s Lawn Mowing Robot, meanwhile, is said to trim lawns accurately, reliably and safely. Equipped with many of the advanced sensors found in the Airport Robots, the Lawn Mowing Robot recognizes its own location at all times and keeps track of every visible obstacle — such as trees and hedges — to maximize cutting performance.
“The development of voice recognition technology plays a crucial role in advancing our own IoT and smart technologies,” said Song Dae-hyun, president of LG’s home appliance and air solution unit. “By adhering to LG’s Open Platform philosophy, we’re able to deliver a diverse range of benefits and services for our customers that is unrivaled in the industry. By strengthening our relationships with Google, Amazon and other players in this space, we’re making amazing headway in the fourth industrial revolution.”
