LG Homechat brings texting feature to Smart Appliances

LG is planning to showcase its next generation of smart innovations and technologies that take advantage of Natural Language Processing (NLP) to allow customers to communicate, control, monitor and share content with LG home appliances through the mobile messenger, Line and LG’s HomeChat service.

There is no learning curve with Homechat because it was specifically designed to be used with LINE, which has 310 milion users worldwide. Available on all major smartphone platforms including desktops and laptops running on Microsoft windows and MAC OS X. Smart appliances with the ability to understand natural language implies that owners can interact with appliances with messages like ” I’m going out for Christmas” and smart appliances would in turn respond with their own message for instance, “Should I convert to vacation mode”, and if the user responds yes, it will turn on the refrigerator’s power-saving mode. Now that would be so cool!.

The services and products, which will debut at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas in January, include near field communication (NFC) technologies such as NFC Tagging and Smart Diagnosis, which allows customers to resolve minor issues without home technician visits. NFC tagging also allows owners to download new wash cycles for LG washing machines. Further, LG announces that the HomeChat service will be initially available in English and Korean languages, while support for more languages will be introduced in 2014. As of now, LG has not revealed any details of the upcoming smart home appliances.

HomeChat can also be used to remotely start a load of laundry, monitor the status of the washer and receive push alerts via smartphone or LG Smart TV when a wash cycle is completed. Due to the messaging capabilities of HomeChat, LG smart appliance owners will be able to receive real time status updates from their refrigerators no matter where they are. Family members can upload photos to the fridge from their smartphones using Line and display on the refrigerator’s display panel. With the Smart Manager’s Freshness Tracker, users can input various foods and check their expiration dates. Smart Manager also has the capability to recommend dishes to prepare based on the ingredients available in the refrigerator. –