LG apparently wants us to have a good chat with the washing machine, tumble dryer and robotic vacuum cleaner.
LG have just announced you’ll soon be able to use the Line messaging app and a new service called HomeChat to give natural language commands to its 2014 Smart Appliance lineup. Of course the press releases for this sort of stuff is obviously due with CES in Las Vegas due to take place soon so, we should have expected it.
It is reported that if you tell the system “I’m going on vacation,” for instance, it’ll put your refrigerator into power-savings mode and program the robotic vacuum cleaner. Or how about messages faked up to make you feel better such as the vacuum cleaner or oven telling you that it will miss you whilst you’re away on a trip, really? This is the best use of this technology?
The app will also update you as to what’s in the fridge, show a history of your robotic vacuum’s cleaning trips and recommend recipes via the smart oven, to name a few other features.
LG also announced NFC tagging and smart diagnoses for its upcoming smart appliance lineup, a scheme that LG says will help you avoid unnecessary repair visits, download new washing machine cycles and more. The effectiveness of these systems have ben called into question however by the trade as many are merely glorified fault codes that can lock you into expensive manufacturer only service arrangements for some brands.
Regular readers of this website will know that we were not fans of these kinds of appliances and we fail to see why that this level of interaction is needed on major domestic appliances. After all, we’ve spent decades trying to automate them so that we don’t have to interact with them all the time, in fact, as little as possible.