In this review I wanted to find an innovation in the world of ‘home goods’ and every day life in the home. I believe that the LG AI robot is a great example of the forefront of gimmicky, at home technology. I believe that there will be something to learn about what is valued in the home, or at least what LG thinks people value. I also hope to find innovations in this article that I didn’t know existed.
We were expecting robots, smart home, and AI to be big at the IFA 2024 trade show… and LG has delivered by combining all three into one new product that’s going to be released in the first half of 2025 in South Korea.
It’s an adorable little two-wheeled bot with a carry handle and big set of eyes, which has been given the inexplicably business-minded name of ‘LG Self-Driving AI Home Hub’. Not really the cutesy title you expect for something like this, but given that you summon it by saying the word “Hi LG”, I might call mine ‘Eljy’.
To be fair, the official name is very descriptive for what it offers. It acts as a kind of AI smart speaker that you can give commands to, and with LG’s new AI platform (which does have a cool name: FURON) behind it, it apparently has multiple LLMs to draw understanding from, and uses ChatGPT 4-o to be able to understand and communicate naturally, even to weirder requests.
”You can call out to summon the robot over to you, and it’ll come to where you are and announce itself charmingly (at least, it was charming in a trade-show demo, maybe you’ll want to turn it off in real life). I saw it navigating a very empty environment, so I don’t know how good its object avoidance is, but it seems to have a good range of sensors on the front.
And as I mentioned, it’s a smart home hub, and can control all kinds of smart home tech. LG recently acquired a smart home control open platform that works with tons of brands, and with Matter support on board, it should be very flexible.
You can ask it to make changes to your smart home controls, but it can also respond contextually – one option LG highlighted is that you can task the robot to stay with your kids as they roam the house, and it will follow them around, and then when the clock hits ‘time to get ready for bed’ it can dim the lights in the room they’re in” (Bolton, 2024).
Although the system is a bit gimmicky, and full of the ‘latest technologies’, I think there’s something valuable to learn about its intended purpose. If you are able to purchase or have other smart home tech in your household this robot could make your daily life that much easier. LG’s goal seemed to be to create an all encompassing partner robot to help and guide you with your daily life. As mentioned in the last paragraph the LG robot can ‘babysit’ your kids, if you’d feel comfortable relying on a robot to look after your kids while you may be busy elsewhere (Bolton, 2024). The use of AI is something that seems to be integrated into many new technologies, but this one in particular can help with the minuscule day to day activities or questions you may not realize you find annoying to do yourself. Seeing as LG has produced an AI powered robot to help with day to day activities in the home, how can design use innovations to create an uninterrupted experience in the home?
Source
Bolton, M. (2024, September 5). Oh no, I might actually want LG’s infuriatingly adorable AI Robot Smart Home Hub. TechRadar. https://www.techradar.com/home/smart-home/oh-no-i-might-actually-want-lg-s-infuriatingly-adorable-ai-robot-smart-home-hub
