While it’s been a good number of years now since LG’s exit from the smartphone market, the South Korean tech giant remains one of the biggest consumer electronics brands worldwide with a massive selection of home appliances, which include both your usual everyday electronics, as well as newer and smarter approaches to household hardware. With that in mind, the company recently announced the ThinQ ON hub, an AI-infused smartphone command system.
What makes it different from other smart home hubs though? LG says that it’s packed some unique and brand-exclusive features on the ThinQ ON, which it hopes will be enough to make it stand out in an ever-growing market of AI-powered smart home systems. That being said, let’s check out what LG has to offer with this one.
Design and Hardware Features
It’s pretty clear that LG wants the ThinQ ON to blend with the rest of your household. Despite being loaded with tech, the hub features a rather minimal build overall that allows it to stay discreet without being too distracting, while at the same time featuring a look that doesn’t look too plain. The ThinQ ON hub comes with a rounded form factor, similar to smart home assistants like Amazon’s older Echo Dot devices or the Google Nest mini. It’s available in grey and white colour variants as well, adding to the overall focus on minimalist hardware design.
For hardware, the hub comes with a built-in AI speaker system that allows users to stream media, and lets them communicate with the hub’s AI assistant as well. For connectivity, the ThinQ ON supports Wifi and Thread options, and a set of touch controls for volume and control. Meanwhile, underneath the device is an ambient lighting system which relays notifications, as well as power and connection status.
Software and AI
Of course the main highlight of the ThinQ ON is the software – the advent of modern AI technology has seeped not only into smartphones, but with smart home setups as well. The ThinQ ON hub is no different, and LG says that the hub is designed to let users control other AI appliances, IoT hardware, and even Matter-enabled devices via spoken commands, as well as user requests spoken in a conversational tone. The company says that this adds a “human dimension” to user-device interactions.
The hub is able to understand conversational context, allowing it to figure out user preferences on an individual basis depending on the connected appliance being used. The ThinQ ON is also capable of monitoring different tasks and ongoing commands, and will notify users once certain tasks are completed. For security, the hub comes pre-installed with LG Shield, which encrypts user data and stores it in a separate server. The LG ThinQ ON will be available for viewing at LG’s display during IFA 2024 at Berlin.
