Today, we got the information from LG that ahead of the CES 2024, they announced a new consumer product to complement their smart home portfolio. The Seoul-based electronics giant introduced something they refer to as a “smart home AI agent” that is planned to incorporate robotics and AI into its tech stack to improve further the user experience of someone who already has invested in other LG smart home solutions, pursuing their vision of a “Zero Labor Home.”
The unnamed AI robot to manage your LG smart home
The unnamed “smart home AI agent” is a bi-pedal robot with wheels for mobility. It is projected to move through the house on its own and would be able to greet you coming home or patrolling the estate, at least on the floor that it’s left at. LG communicates that it is planned to have the AI agent check things like if the windows are all closed and will inform the homeowners via app notification if it comes across anything that it considers an anomaly. It is said to help conserve energy by turning off unused devices on smart outlets when connected to power management, which would be useful but wouldn’t need a robot to roam the location to work.
Next to that, LG seeks to enable futuristic interfacing options such as the AI agent being able to understand your emotions by analyzing voice patterns and facial expressions and expressing emotion through movement and verbally reacting to you. With all such capabilities under the hood and supported by the Qualcomm Robotics RB5 Platform, it is said to be able to understand users better and comprehend context and intentions. From a positioning point of view, it might be between a smart home hub and a robotic pet or companion.
Comments and missing tech details
President of LG Electronics Home Appliance & Air Solution Company, Lyu Jae-cheol, comments, “Our groundbreaking smart home AI agent combines cutting-edge autonomous mobility and AI technologies with advanced communication capabilities and services to help free customers from household chores,” … “A smart life solution company, LG will continue to help customers experience a smarter, more enjoyable life at home.” How users could achieve such an enjoyable life and what else they need for the smart home AI agent to work is not fully disclosed, but it could also mean that it would only work with other LG smart home household appliances.
The company has not revealed too many technical details yet, and there are also no videos available at the time of writing this article. LG does not mention smart home standards or protocols and does not communicate if the little robot would be compatible with other solutions such as Amazon Alexa, Apple HomeKit, Google Home, or similar hub providers. There is no pricing information or details on when this might become available and for what regions. In summary, the news release feels a bit like bait for getting more visitors to their booth at the upcoming CES in Las Vegas from January 9-12, but perhaps there is more to this than a marketing stunt. Even the lifestyle photo that was attached to the press release was only a generic stock image that they used to photoshop their product into. I am curious to see if this product will really hit the market or if it was all only talk to attract more visitors to the event.
Photo credit: The feature image is a mockup showing the LG product based on a photo done by FamVeldman. The product images in the body of the article are owned by LG and were made available as part of a press release.
Source: LG press release
