Popular Mechanics (South Africa)
On the cover:
We tested a full range of smart- home devices and present you with a list of things you can buy right now to take control of your home. The immediate future of consumer- grade IOT is already here.
The above exchange is a graphic verbal expression of buyer’s remorse. It happens every other day, when I confuse the skills of my two most-used voice assistants.
In the modern world of ambient computing – a world where the computers are all around you, awaiting your command – my fiefdom is ruled over by Siri and Google Assistant.
I picked up a Google Home on a heavy discount while off on an international trip because I simply couldn’t find an Apple Homepod in either Paris or Frankfurt. I found one in Dubai a couple of weeks later, however, at twice the price of what I paid for the Google Home. I didn’t buy it. And now, every so often, I really hate my digital life.
‘HEY, GOOGLE, PLAY ME SOMETHING I’LL LIKE…’ ‘OKAY, PLAYING “THAT’S WHAT I LIKE” BY BRUNO MARS ON PLAY MUSIC.’ ‘HEY, GOOGLE. NO… NEVER MIND.’ ‘PLAYING THE ALBUM NEVERMIND BY NIRVANA.’ ‘I GUESS THAT’S BETTER.’
But hindsight is 20/20 and in the fullness of time, the Google Home has proved to have far greater potential for achieving meaningful tasks in my household. When our new appliances arrive, for instance, Google Assistant will unlock the infinite potential of starting pre-loaded washing cycles from the comfort of a warm bed on a frosty Saturday morning and setting the fridge over to holiday mode while already en route, having remembered that we forgot to do that when we left the house.
That’s the dream, isn’t it? To have your home respond to the sound of your voice. Dust gets busted at your command. Movies start before you’ve shovelled the first kernels of popcorn into your mouth. Lights switch off at a whisper.
You could do all of that right now if you wanted to. You’d also need to be able to afford it, but let’s not let an unflattering bank balance get in the way of a good story.
We don’t give our home appliances the credit they deserve. You buy them for less money than you spend on a new computer and then expect them to run flawlessly for at least the next decade. It’s a piece of technology and that’s the expectation. A car that costs 10 times as much isn’t even expected to last that long.
And you know what? Those invisible appliances just keep on chugging and mostly exceeding expectations. Most fridges nowadays can long outlast their warranty periods. The TV you replaced with that beautiful new 50-inch UHD panel will probably still fetch you a couple hundred bucks if you take it to Cash Converters.
But we have all heard a horror story and know those brands that we should shy away from. LG is not one of those brands. In fact, LG might be making a serious case to become your preferred brand of home appliance.
In 2001, the company started using linear inverter compressors in its highend refrigerators, which resulted in less internal friction than in conventional reciprocating compressors, so extending the lifespan of the compressor. Other benefits of this technology are a 32 per cent energy saving, less noise and less vibration overall.
In the ensuing decade, the company deployed inverter technology into its entire line-up and pioneered the use of direct-drive brushless inverter motor technology in washing machines. This long history of inverter development means that high- end LG appliances are many steps ahead of competitors that are only now entering that market. This also allows the company the freedom to experiment with different technologies – artificial intelligence and ambient computing, for example.
When LG debuted its Smart Thinq connected device ecosystem at the 2018 Consumer Electronics Show, it was a shot across the bow of its main compatriot and competition. And interviewing the respective local execs of Samsung and LG to gauge each brand’s smart home readiness was quite the contrast.
Samsung is still trying to get the IOT pipeline going. The company’s multidevice strategy took a shot in the arm with the HARMAN acquisition, but there seems to be quite a lull between integrating those technologies and delivering devices to consumers. It’s weird, though, because Samsung had quite a big smart-home lead with the Smartthings ecosystem and Samsung Hub refrigerator.
LG, however, has already brought the Twinwash washing machine and Instaview refrigerator to market and is following that up with the W8 OLED TV and all its voice- controlled- and Google Assistant integration. And that’s the killer app: the Smart Thinq platform is open source and fully integrated into Google’s AI.
Everything that gets connected to the platform can then be controlled by Google Assistant and, in turn, by any smartphone running the Assistant app, or by talking with Google Home. Which brings us back full- circle to my buyer’s remorse not being so bad anymore.