LG Wants to Smarten up Your Kitchen Appliances
LG have been showing off their range of smart appliances recently at CES 2014 in a bid to make you realise how adding some apps to your fridge, oven or washing machine could make life easier.
LG’s new Home Chat service takes this one step further by allowing you to talk to your LG smart appliances via text messaging. How it works is you can text your fridge to see if you need milk, or ask your washing machine what it’s up to, or tell your robot vacuum cleaner to start doing its rounds.
LG’s range of smart appliances, branded Smart ThinQ, include a fridge that features an 8” LCD display that shows you a wealth of info including what’s inside your fridge and possible recipe ideas from The Food Channel. Once you have chosen a recipe it’s then send to your Smart oven which powers up to the right temperate and time, sending you an alert once your dinner has finished cooking.
Using the fridge’s display you can also prepare a grocery shopping list based on what’s inside or what you have run out of, which then gets updated on your phone. The app also lets you check if you turned off all the burners on the stove, so you don’t have to worry about the kids burning themselves or accidentally melting your phone on the hob whist charging it (as I did once).
These futuristic functions are part of the future that involves your whole life being more connected, with the ability to see remotely if you need milk or cheese pretty handy, but knowing if your washing is finished doesn’t exactly rock our world (unless you live in a mansion and walking to your washer on the other side of your estate is a huge chore). My washer is about 10 feet from my living door, so the lack of noise coming from the kitchen is usually enough for me to deduce that it’s finished. The oven monitoring app is cool but putting in a lasagne and asking Siri to set an alarm for 30 mins is no great problem either.
Overall, there is a lot of merit to making your home more connected but the main downside with LG’s Smart range is the price. The refrigerator has a suggested selling price of $3,499, with the oven retailing for $1,399 and washing machine at $1,599. Although some will see this as just a gimmick, LG won’t be the last in trying to ‘smarten’ up your home and over time this may become the norm.
Visit LG Smart ThinQ for more info.Google+
About the Author
Paul Edwards A lover of beautiful technology and useful gadgets. If only I had the money to match my desires.
