LG strengthens IoT portfolio with Athom buy

LG has acquired an 80 p.c stake in Athom, a Netherlands-based good house platform firm, with plans to buy the remaining 20 p.c inside three years.

The acquisition will combine Athom’s in depth connectivity capabilities, which hyperlink 1000’s of home equipment, sensors, and lighting gadgets, with LG’s generative AI-enabled ThinQ platform. This mixture is predicted to create an AI house that delivers personalised environments tailor-made to buyer preferences.

“The acquisition of Athom is a cornerstone for our AI home-based business,” stated Jung Ki-hyun, govt vice chairman and head of LG’s Platform Enterprise Middle.

“By leveraging the synergy between the 2 firms, we are going to increase our open ecosystem and exterior integration companies, aiming to supply prospects with extra numerous and multidimensional area experiences.”

Athom, based in 2014, is understood for its good house hub ‘Homey,’ which has gained a loyal buyer base of a whole bunch of 1000’s of customers, primarily in Europe. The corporate’s flagship product, Homey Professional, can connect with greater than 50,000 gadgets and helps numerous connection strategies, together with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Z-Wave, Matter, and Thread.

The Homey App Retailer gives round 1,000 purposes for connecting and controlling house gadgets from numerous manufacturers. Many of those purposes are primarily based on official partnerships, whereas others are developed by the energetic Homey neighborhood.

LG plans to leverage this acquisition to include third-party gadgets and companies into its ecosystem, offering deeper insights into buyer utilization patterns and accelerating the supply of personalised companies. Regardless of the acquisition, Athom will proceed to function independently—sustaining its enterprise operations and branding.

This transfer aligns with LG’s broader technique of transitioning from a hardware-focused to a software-based platform enterprise. The corporate goals to ascertain steady relationships with prospects by means of gadgets related to the AI house, reworking right into a ‘Good Life Answer Firm’ that gives differentiated worth.

William Cho, CEO of LG Electronics, commented: “LG is evolving into an clever area options firm that connects and expands experiences in numerous residing areas.

“We are going to proceed to make strategic investments to shift our enterprise paradigm, as evidenced by our successive entries into platform-based equipment companies and options such because the webOS promoting platform and AI house.”

The worldwide good house market is projected to develop from $81.2 billion in 2023 to $260.24 billion by 2028, with a median annual progress fee of 26.23 p.c, based on market analysis agency TechNavio.

(Picture Credit score: LG)

See additionally: Samsung tackles grid stability with good house vitality system

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Tags: ai, synthetic intelligence, athom, generative ai, homey, homey professional, web of issues, IoT, lg, matter, good house, thinq, thread, z-wave