LG Electronics has made a strategic move to acquire 80% of Netherlands-based smart home company, Athom, aiming to enhance LG’s connectivity within open smart home ecosystems.
The company plans to acquire the remaining 20% of Athom within the next three years.
By integrating Athom’s capabilities with LG’s Affectionate Intelligence technology, the company hopes to be a leader in the AI-driven home innovation era.
Athom is a smart home technology company that sells the smart home hub ‘Homey’, which connects with home appliances and IoT devices, and also offers cloud subscription services.
Founded in 2014, Homey has spent the last decade growing mainly throughout Europe with a loyal customer base of hundreds of thousands of users. As of 2023, Homey devices are available in Australia, Singapore, the US and Canada, as well as Europe.
Through the acquisition, LG plans to integrate Athom’s extensive connectivity with the generative AI-enabled LG ThinQ platform, aiming to create an AI home that delivers optimal space solutions by gaining a deeper understanding of the customer. In LG’s AI home, customers will engage with generative AI, which will manage appliances and IoT devices to create a personalised environment tailored to their preferences.
The company also envisions expanding outside of the home, taking the differentiated customer experience of AI home to various spaces where customers spend their time, such as commercial spaces and mobility environments, ultimately realising and advancing the concept of ‘Intelligent Space’.
Positioned to significantly enhance the scalability required for implementing AI homes, LG aims to achieve the highest industry standards by integrating its LG ThinQ platform’s smart home technology with Athom’s open ecosystem and IoT device connectivity.
The acquisition will also enable LG to incorporate third-party devices and services into its ecosystem, providing LG with deeper insights into customer usage patterns and expedite the delivery of personalised services.
Following the acquisition, Athom will continue to operate independently, maintaining its business operations and branding. This strategy is designed to maximise Athom’s growth potential and unique strengths while fostering synergies in business, research and development capabilities, and platform utilisation.
LG aims to establish continuous relationships with customers through numerous devices connected to the AI home, ultimately transforming into a ‘Smart Life Solution Company’ that provides differentiated value.
William Cho, CEO of LG Electronics said: “LG is evolving into an intelligent space solutions company that connects and expands experiences in various living spaces. We will continue to make strategic investments to shift our business paradigm, as evidenced by our successive entries into platform-based appliance services and solutions such as the webOS advertising platform and AI home.”
Main image: LG Electronics