LG Follows Samsung’s Move Into Pro Versions Of IoT Sensors, Via Majority Buy Of Homey

July 5, 2024 by Dave Haynes

LG has a funny way of mirroring developments by its Korean electronics rival Samsung, and that appears to be happening again as LG has acquired 80% of a Dutch IoT platform that offers the same kind of sensors ecosystem as Samsung’s Smartthings.

Samsung has recently added a pro version of its consumer-centric, and now LG plans to integrate a pro variant of the smart home tools of Homey into WebOS, making it available for “smart” digital signage screens.

Reports Sixteen:Nine’s German language content partner Invidis …

With the takeover, LG gains access to the Homey operating system and the ecosystem that Athom has developed over the past ten years. LG will further develop the B2C platform Homey Cloud and the professional platform Homey Pro and integrate them into its own devices. LG displays are to be expanded into a smart hub and central interface, similar to Samsung; for this purpose, Homey is to be integrated into WebOS.

Samsung and LG are following similar smart spaces strategies: Visual solutions and IoT platforms are closely integrated to manage and “orchestrate” IoT devices easily and securely.

invidis reader and Intuiface CEO Vincent Encontre has been an enthusiastic user of Homey for years and praises the “excellent graphical data flow editor with triggers and actions and the simple no-code approach to programming sophisticated scenarios.” Certain parallels to Intuiface are recognizable for digital signage experts.

For context, Samsung launched smart displays, then LG did. Samsung went into kiosks. Then LG did. And so on …

That noted, this is a smart move by both companies. Smart digital signs have a natural and logical relationship with smart sensors.