LG Electronics stated on Wednesday that it has acquired an 80% stake in Dutch sensible residence platform agency Athom, with the remaining 20% to be purchased within the subsequent three years.
The South Korean residence equipment maker stated it plans to combine Athom’s Homey platform which gives in depth connectivity that hyperlinks home equipment, sensors, and light-weight gadgets, with its personal generative AI-enabled LG ThinQ platform.
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This may enable LG to achieve “deeper insights” into prospects’ life-style and utilization patterns that may, in flip, allow prospects to create a personalised surroundings tailor-made to their preferences of their “AI properties”, it stated.
In keeping with LG, Athom gives its open sensible residence platform Homey that connects with residence home equipment and IoT gadgets. Since launching in 2014, Homey has gained a whole bunch of hundreds of customers in Europe and it’s also obtainable in North America, Singapore, and Australia, LG stated.
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Athom’s flagship service Homey Professional can join over 50,000 gadgets, together with these from companions Philips Hue and Ikea, via Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Z-Wave, Matter, Thread, and different wide selection of connection strategies, the South Korean residence equipment maker stated.
The Homey App Retailer additionally gives roughly a thousand apps based mostly on collaboration with different firms and the Homey group that continues to develop the open platform, LG stated. This implies extra third-party gadgets and companies might be built-in into LG’s residence equipment ecosystem, it stated, and it plans to proceed strategic investments into platform-based residence equipment options similar to webOS commercial platform and AI residence.
LG gives all kinds of {hardware} we discover within the residence, from TVs, washing machines, fridges, and others. Since launching its webOS TV platform in 2021, it has been eager to capitalize on this broad portfolio by connecting these gadgets via software program for brand spanking new income streams aside from strict {hardware} gross sales. Considered one of its newest pushes is free ad-supported streaming channels provided on its TVs.
The acquisition of Athom reveals that it additionally needs to find software-based enterprise fashions, by having the AI-enabled LG ThinQ platform hook up with extra gadgets, in different home equipment via the chance offered by the latest AI growth.