LG Electronics stated on Wednesday that it has acquired an 80% stake in Dutch good dwelling platform agency Athom, with the remaining 20% to be purchased within the subsequent three years.
The South Korean dwelling equipment maker stated it plans to combine Athom’s Homey platform which gives intensive connectivity that hyperlinks home equipment, sensors, and lightweight units, with its personal generative AI-enabled LG ThinQ platform.
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This can permit LG to achieve “deeper insights” into prospects’ way of life and utilization patterns that may, in flip, allow prospects to create a customized setting tailor-made to their preferences of their “AI properties”, it stated.
In line with LG, Athom gives its open good dwelling platform Homey that connects with dwelling home equipment and IoT units. Since launching in 2014, Homey has gained lots of of hundreds of customers in Europe and it is usually out there in North America, Singapore, and Australia, LG stated.
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Athom’s flagship service Homey Professional can join over 50,000 units, together with these from companions Philips Hue and Ikea, by means of Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Z-Wave, Matter, Thread, and different big selection of connection strategies, the South Korean dwelling 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 units and companies will likely be built-in into LG’s dwelling equipment ecosystem, it stated, and it plans to proceed strategic investments into platform-based dwelling equipment options reminiscent of webOS commercial platform and AI dwelling.
LG gives all kinds of {hardware} we discover within the dwelling, from TVs, washing machines, fridges, and others. Since launching its webOS TV platform in 2021, it has been eager to capitalize on this huge portfolio by connecting these units by means of 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 supplied on its TVs.
The acquisition of Athom reveals that it additionally desires to find software-based enterprise fashions, by having the AI-enabled LG ThinQ platform connect with extra units, in different home equipment by means of the chance offered by the latest AI growth.