LG Electronics is expanding the role of its artificial intelligence (AI) home hub ThinQ ON, which consolidates and controls multiple smart appliances and Internet of Things (IoT) devices. It combined the existing structure—where a single dedicated device serves as the AI home's control tower—with an AI agent (assistant) that understands the user's situation and intent to proactively propose and carry out necessary actions. Unlike some competitors that prefer to distribute hub functions across multiple devices such as TVs and refrigerators rather than mandating a separate hub, LG Electronics is further advancing an AI home experience centered on ThinQ ON.
On Sept. 4 (local time), LG Electronics held an AI home tech briefing at Messe Berlin in Berlin, Germany, where Europe's largest home appliance and information technology (IT) exhibition, IFA 2026, is being held. Noh Beom-jun, executive director and head of AI Home Solutions Business Development within the Home Appliance & Air Solution (HS) Company that oversees the appliance business, took the stage to outline the AI home strategy.
Noh said, "After consolidating spaces and homes with AI and people, we realized that what ultimately matters more than the technology itself is the experience customers have," adding, "Based on ThinQ ON, we introduced the agent ThinQ Claw, which combines local connectivity with security, privacy, and AI."
ThinQ Claw expands the existing ThinQ ON's capabilities from simple appliance control to understanding the user's situation and proactively proposing actions. It is a text chat–based AI agent (assistant) integrated into ThinQ ON that proposes necessary actions by synthesizing conversation content, schedules, living patterns, and the home environment, without the user having to specify each appliance and issue commands. After grasping the user's intent and context, it consolidation relevant services and devices to carry actions through to execution.
ThinQ ON is the next-generation AI home hub that LG Electronics unveiled at a previous IFA. It has controlled appliances consolidated by voice and understood the context of users' questions. Noh said, "Through ThinQ ON, we brought together appliances, spaces, and AI functions so people can experience AI in daily life," adding, "Since then, through collaborations with various construction companies and business-to-consumer (B2C) channels, we have learned quite a lot."
◇ "I'm heading home now"… Reads preferences and location to propose appliance operations
With ThinQ Claw added, the operating scope of the AI home expands beyond the house. Users can consolidation with the AI home not only through the ThinQ app but also via messengers they use daily, such as KakaoTalk or Telegram.
Noh said, "Through ThinQ Claw, we expanded the interface so you can experience AI in your home and daily life even when you're outside," adding, "We made it possible to talk with your home via KakaoTalk and converse with your appliances and consolidated services so you can feel the real experiential value of AI."
When a user out of the house types "I'm heading home now," ThinQ Claw considers the current location, the time it takes to get home, and preferred indoor settings. It may then proactively ask whether to run the air conditioner or air purifier to create the desired environment by the time of arrival. LG Electronics is currently testing integration with messenger apps such as KakaoTalk and Telegram. It plans to expand to the most-used platforms in each country going forward.
Actions judged by AI are not executed immediately. LG Electronics adopted a human-in-the-loop approach in which a person makes the final go/no-go decision. Noh explained, "Rather than AI doing everything, it asks, 'Shall I do this for you?' and completes it when the customer approves."
It can review children's academic schedules and calendars to propose indoor settings and robot vacuum runs tailored to vacation periods, or check travel plans and recommend turning off lights and the TV while the home is unoccupied. It also presented a method of recommending menus based on shopping information and refrigerator contents and consolidation with cooking appliances.
They are also developing a feature that remembers conversations with users over a long period to raise the level of personalization. The AI learns from repeated proposals and customer responses to determine which actions are preferred and needed. Noh said, "There's no such thing as perfect personalization from the start," adding, "It's important to try quickly and build data to learn which proactive proposals customers like and which they don't find necessary." He continued, "The goal is how long we can remember conversations and provide tailored proactive proposals based on them."
◇ Samsung distributes hub functions across devices… LG centers on "ThinQ ON"
LG Electronics' approach differs from methods that distribute smart home hub functions across multiple appliances. Samsung Electronics is pursuing a Hub Everywhere strategy in which, while placing the smart home platform SmartThings at the center, devices such as TVs, smart monitors, Family Hub refrigerators, and soundbars can serve as smart home hubs without requiring a separate hub installation. This lowers the need for a separate dedicated device by embedding consolidation and control functions into products people already own.
LG Electronics strengthened the central role of the AI home by combining consolidation functions and a large language model (LLM) into the separate ThinQ ON device and adding ThinQ Claw. ThinQ ON and the ThinQ platform consolidation not only with LG Electronics products but also with devices from various manufacturers through Homey by Athom, a Dutch smart home platform company acquired by LG Electronics in 2024. Based on this, LG aims to bind appliances, services, and spaces into a single AI home ecosystem.
However, LG Electronics said it has not fixed a dedicated hub model as the final structure of the AI home. Noh said, "We view ThinQ ON itself as a major experiment," adding, "From a product roadmap perspective, we are examining how the customer experience differs when an LLM-and-connectivity-enabled hub is placed in a space, when an appliance itself becomes a hub, and when a small language model (SLM) is embedded in an appliance." He continued, "We are not putting emphasis on declaring that a hub is absolutely necessary or that it must exist as a standalone hardware form."
The idea is to place ThinQ ON in real spaces and observe how users interact with AI. Noh said, "We are experimenting along the lines of finding out what customers ask by voice and what they consider important when we place a hub in the space that contains an LLM and consolidation functions."
Because it uses sensitive information such as personal schedules and living patterns, security and privacy are also key tasks. LG Electronics is applying the integrated security framework LG Shield across the AI home ecosystem. ThinQ Claw also operates based on information and consolidated services to which the customer has consented.
As early as this month in Korea, LG Electronics plans to begin beta testing of ThinQ Claw with the goal of launching within the year. It will then consider launches overseas, including in the United States and Europe. In energy-sensitive Europe, it also plans to examine demand for related services such as detecting energy waste during absences and comparing occupancy patterns. Noh said, "We will continue to advance customized AI tailored to spaces and situations to understand customers' daily lives and move together, and we will further develop a variety of AI home services."