We expected robots, smart homes, and AI to play a major role at IFA 2024… and LG has delivered by combining all three into one new product set to launch in South Korea in the first half of 2025.
It’s a cute little two-wheeled bot with a handle and big eyes, which has been inexplicably corporately named the “LG Self-Driving AI Home Hub.” Not exactly the cutesy title you’d expect for something like this, but given that you summon it by saying “Hi LG,” I might call it “Eljy.”
To be fair, the official name is pretty descriptive for what it offers. It acts as a sort of AI smart speaker that you can give commands to, and with LG’s new AI platform (which do (has a cool name: FURON), it apparently has multiple LLMs to draw knowledge from and uses ChatGPT 4-o to communicate naturally even with the strangest requests.
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♬ original sound – Ny Breaking
There’s also a neat trick where you can draw something in a companion app on a tablet. You can then ‘send’ the drawing to the robot, and the generative AI will create an original story based on the elements in the drawing.
You can shout to call the robot to you, and it will come to you and announce itself charmingly (at least it was charming during a demo at a trade show, you might want to turn it off in real life). I saw it navigate through a very empty environment, so I don’t know how well it avoids objects, but it seems to have a good range of sensors on its front.
And like I said, it’s a smart home hub and can control all sorts of smart home tech. LG recently acquired a smart home control open platform that works with a bunch of brands and with Matter support on board it should be very flexible.
You can ask the robot to make changes to your smart home controls, but it can also respond contextually. One option LG highlighted is that you can tell the robot to stay with your kids as they move around the house. It will then follow them around, and when the clock says “time for bed,” it can dim the lights in the room they’re in.
Obviously, the little wheels can’t carry it up stairs, but it does have a handle for that. I’ll also say that it wasn’t the smoothest mover – it seemed a bit stuttery and didn’t quite know which way to go when an LG demo guy asked it to come over, but that could just be a problem with having a large group of people staring at it. Of course, all of this could be improved by the time it launches.
What’s more important is the way it moves when it talks to you. It wobbles sideways and forwards as it gets more excited, and can turn its handle to emphasize “emotions” – like a combination of a cute, enthusiastic aunt and a cat.
That’s while it talks in a fairly natural voice – although not at of course. I think it’s a nice balance between friendly and robotic.
I can imagine wanting one to keep an eye on the house when I’m away. LG had a larger demo of its vision of a smart home powered by generative AI assistants, where something like this robot could roam around your home and make changes to your heating or cooling system depending on the temperature and humidity in each room.
It would be great to have it as a sort of video surveillance dog, like many similar home robots that have turned themselves up and react to sounds when it knows I’m gone. Maybe it could pretend to be armed with a taser to ward off intruders. Or maybe it could tell them a funny story and lull them into a false sense of security while it automatically calls the police. We’ll see!
Of course, LG hasn’t announced a price yet, so who knows if it’ll feel remotely appealing when we do. But it’ll be damned charming either way.