LG CES 2014 plans: impressive smart appliances that communicate via mobile messenger
LG has big plans for CES 2014, as the company is preparing to introduce its latest smart appliances that chat with users via mobile messenger.
The company's next-generation appliances will debut in January at CES, boasting HomeChat service integration and the popular messenger called LINE.
LG's latest smart innovations use Natural Language Processing (NLP) to allow users to communicate, control, monitor, and share content with the company's new home appliances via LINE and LG's HomeChat, which was designed to work with LINE.
The LINE messenger already has 310 million users worldwide and is available on all major platforms, including Android, iOS, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Nokia Asha, as well as Windows and Mac OS X. HomeChat allows homeowners to easily communicate with their LG smart appliance from their smartphone or desktop.
"Always at the forefront of innovation, LG is continually striving to inspire smarter consumer lifestyles in meaningful ways," Seong-jin Jo, president and CEO of the LG Electronics Home Appliance Company, said in a press release on Thursday, Dec. 26. "We're excited to be able to bring to CES our smart appliances with the newest communication and intelligence capabilities."
Future owners of devices from the 2014 smart appliance lineup will be able to control all their compatible appliances via HomeChat from a single device. For instance, texting "I'm going on vacation" in HomeChat will prompt the reply "Should I convert to vacation mode?"
As LG explains it, confirming that vacation mode will turn on the refrigerator's power-saving mode, and homeowners can even set the robotic vacuum cleaner to sweep the floor every day at a given time, or set the washing machine to run a wash cycle in their absence. According to LG, only English and Korean will be supported at first, but more languages are "in the pipeline."
LG's smart appliances range for 2014 includes a high-end refrigerator that serves as a complete food management system, a smart vacuum that can be programmed to clean at set times, a washing machine that can be remotely controlled and push notifications to the owner's smartphone or LG Smart TV, as well as a smart oven that gives recipe recommendations, auto-selects the appropriate settings, and more.
Check out LG's press release for more details regarding each of these smart appliances set to debut at CES 2014. The company makes no mention of pricing, but it will likely be quite steep.