LG have announced an updated version of their ThinQ brand of smart appliances and new Home Energy Management System (HeMS) at CES 2012.
The idea is that ThinQ links your devices over Wi-Fi and ZigBee letting you check the inventory of your fridge, which you have to painstakingly enter on its integrated LCD panel, while downloading new wash cycles to your washing machine with just a few swipes at the smartphone interface. HeMS is new, and lets you monitor the daily power consumption of your ThinQ fridge, washing machine, oven, and even HOM-BOT robotic vacuum down to the minute, and then adjust your usage based on off-peak energy prices published by the non-existent Smart Grid.
In our opinion, as we’ve said before, this seems a compete waste of time.
Not only will you have to enter in what you’ve just filled a trolley with at the supermarket before you put it away, you then have to check it all out on the fridge’s LCD screen as well. Somehow we can’t see that working for most families.
The feature that’s bound to be most useful in the fridge range is the new “Blast Chiller” compartment found in LG’s new large-capacity French-door fridge that can cool a can of beer or soda in less than five minutes.