LG is expanding its smart home offerings as the brand recently previewed its first-ever hub device: the ThinQ On. We don’t know the specifics about the gadget at this moment, with the company keeping many important details under wraps, but the information we do have paints an interesting picture.
The device itself is a small cylindrical hub sporting a muted gray color scheme. It is Matter-certified and supports multiple connectivity options, such as Wi-Fi and the Thread protocol. As a result, it can control both first-party and third-party smart home gadgets.
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Unique to this smart home hub is the company’s Affectionate Intelligence tech. It’s a form of artificial intelligence that serves as the driving force behind the device’s features. For starters, the software reportedly gives the ThinQ On the ability to learn “individual usage patterns,” allowing it to tailor the daily experience to individual users. It’ll understand your preferences for every appliance connected to the network.
Affectionate Intelligence also gives owners a way to control LG appliances and IoT (Internet of Things) devices via conversational voice commands in their smart home. The company states it aimed to create “an experience akin to conversing with friends or family. And the AI assistant can “understand the context of conversations” too. I’m not so sure how comfortable people are with telling friends and family to control appliances, but I digress.
While everything is happening, the ThinQ On can monitor the whole smart home ecosystem. It’ll let you know if, for example, the washer recently “finished a cycle or currently ongoing problems.” If that wasn’t enough, the hub can create routines for automating smart home operations.
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It seems there are big plans for the little gadget. LG states its hardware’s capabilities run on a “high-performance AI chipset” that was specifically “designed with future scalability in mind.” Future updates could bring a lot of new features. It’s unknown what this hardware is, although some reports claim it is the DQ-X AI chipset.
That’s pretty much everything important mentioned in the teaser. We still don’t know when the ThinQ On will launch or how much it’ll cost. LG states it will show off the hub at IFA 2024 in Berlin from September 6 to 10, so stay tuned. We could learn more about it during this time.
While we have you, be sure to check out ZDNET’s list of the best smart home devices you can buy today.