From gateways to guides and now to agents, LG Electronics’ ever-evolving family of robotic devices for the home has welcomed its newest member, and this newest generation wants to be both a smart home hub and a personal companion.

Although its latest smart home Artificial Intelligence (AI) agent is built to move, learn, comprehend, and engage in complex conversations, it’s not yet been given a ‘human’ name by its developer parent. It has been given several ‘human’ capabilities, such as the ability to learn, to move, to see, and to connect with others.

Introduced during the 2024 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), this new device is designed to navigate the home independently on its ‘two-legged’ wheel design, positioning it for a role as all-around smart home manager because it can interact with and control other smart home appliances and household IoT devices.

This latest LG release is also described as a smart companion, able to verbally interact with people and express emotions. LG says the use of multi-modal AI technology, which combines voice and image recognition along with natural language processing, enables the new smart home agent to understand context and intentions as well as actively communicate.

Back in 2017, LG introduced a forebear, the Hub Robot, calling it a gateway, an intelligent home notification centre.

The Hub Robot did connect to other smart appliances and devices in the home, as it incorporated the voice recognition technology of Amazon’s Alexa to perform tasks such as turning on the air conditioner or changing a dryer cycle via verbal commands.

The Hub Robot kind of danced or swivelled in place, and it could express some limited emotional context through the electronic face on its display (where you could also see information like the contents of your fridge).

Building on its smart home platform ThinQ, which connects the manufacturer’s line of smart appliances like washer/dryers, ovens, and refrigerators, LG said at the time its robots would soon come to have more technical capabilities, and more human characteristics.

In 2019, then, LG president and CTO Dr. I.P. Park introduced CLOi, calling the device a GuideBot, as it helped him deliver the CES keynote address. Assistance on stage was one thing, but LG’s vision for a ‘Zero Labour Home’ positioned artificial intelligence as a key asset for fuller automation.

The ability, opportunity and potential for data gathering from LG’s products could be harnessed, the company knew, to further train its artificial intelligence capabilities in understanding and predicting a customer’s behaviours and needs.

Thanks to LG’s ongoing collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., this newest AI agent is equipped with the powerful Qualcomm Robotics RB5 Platform, a key to its many AI features such as face and user recognition.  For example, new camera and image features are said to be compatible with 8K video recording, concurrency for up to seven cameras, 200-megapixel photos, and simultaneous capture of 4K HDR video and 64 MP photos (with zero shutter lag).

The AI agent and robotics platform are a powerful combination, making use of not only its built-in cameras and image sensors, speaker and multi-mic, as well as various other sensors that gather real-time environmental data about the space it is working in, including temperature, pressure, humidity and indoor air quality. LG’s advanced AI technologies analyze this data, continuously learning and combining it with external information, such as from other gadgets and sensing devices in the home. The AI agent can even act as a pet monitor and security guard, the manufacturer describes, providing agent owners with the ability to see and care for their pets remotely and sending them alerts if any unusual activity is detected.

The bot self-balances on two motorized wheels as it moves across floors and carpets on its own, aided by built-in inertial measurement units (IMUs check balance, position, speed and acceleration) and its optical and depth-sensing cameras. Robotics platforms like those from Qualcomm also feature multiple programming tools and software development options (SDKs), multiple I/O interfaces and sensors arrays, as well as the neural processing capabilities used in machine learning and artificial intelligence platforms.

Of course, the company touts, its newest bot can also be used as a simple smart speaker: in traditional Alexa-like fashion, making use of its voice recognition, natural language processing, synthetic voice module and speaker, it’s capable of carrying on conversations with users regarding things like news, weather reports and daily schedules.

What LG’s smart home AI agent cannot say, at least at this point, is how much it costs or when it will be available on the open market.

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