You don’t need to be able to predict the future to guess that our coverage of CES will be dominated by artificial intelligence — and LG is definitely on board. On Tuesday, December 19, LG announced that moving forward, all of its products that use A.I. — from household appliances to TVs — will unite under the new ThinQ brand.
“Our new ThinQ platform for LG’s intelligent products is the latest way that LG is delivering innovations that make consumers’ lives easier and more enjoyable,” LG Electronics USA vice president of marketing David VanderWaal said in a statement. “LG ThinQ enables deep learning technology and connectivity across household products, delivering even greater capabilities and convenience.”
The name ThinQ should seem familiar if you have experience with LG products. Many of the company’s products, like its washing machines, make use of the company’s SmartThinQ app, and at CES last year, the company chose the name DeepThinQ for the A.I. powering its home appliances. LG is already putting the ThinQ brand to work, using the name in its Dualcool ThinQ stand inverter air conditioner. And the company just announced the LG ThinQ, a smart speaker that comes with Google Assistant built in.
This new focus on smarter products has been fairly easy to see coming. Following the DeepThinQ announcement last year, LG announced an initiative to include Wi-Fi in its entire 2017 line of premium appliances. Then in June, the company launched its Artificial Intelligence Lab in Seoul, South Korea, with the aim of tying together all of its A.I. research under one roof.
This focus on A.I. doesn’t necessarily benefit only new products from LG. The company says that all appliances with SmartThinQ are built on an open platform, meaning they will continue to evolve and work with newer smart technologies and devices in the years to come. For example, the SmartThinQ app, which allows you to control all your LG appliances with one app, currently works with voice control via Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant, but could work with other voice control platforms in the future.
LG will be showing off a wide range of products driven by A.I. in the ThinQ Zone at the company’s booth at CES, which kicks off on January 9.
Few things ruin a quiet evening faster than a robot vacuum roaring through the living room. Most of us end up pausing the cleaning run, which defeats the whole purpose of owning one. Matic thinks it has the answer with its new Serene robot vacuum, and the big selling point is how little noise it makes.
The Matic Serene runs at 52 decibels even when cleaning at full power. To put that in perspective, Matic compares it to the hum of your refrigerator. It is available now for $1,695, which is $200 more than the original Matic’s current price.
Outdoor security cameras are not always practical if you live in an apartment or rental. Drilling into an exterior wall may be off-limits, while pointing a regular indoor camera through a window can create another problem once reflections start showing up after dark.
Baseus is trying to solve both issues with the new PrimeSentinel W1, a $69.99 security camera designed specifically to monitor the outdoors through glass. It mounts directly to a window without drilling and uses a 4K Starlight sensor with an F1.0 aperture for full-color monitoring during the day and at night.
This post is brought to you in paid partnership with Best Buy.
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