Soon You'll Be Able to Control Your Samsung Fridge With LG's Smart Home App
Soon you’ll be able to use your Samsung’s SmartThings app to control your LG refrigerator and your LG ThinQ app to change the channel on your Samsung television.
Saturday at the IFA tech show in Berlin LG and Samsung announced that the smartphone apps will be able to control each other’s appliances and televisions before the end of 2024, The Verge reports.
The move comes from the Home Connectivity Alliance, an industry coalition formed in 2021 that both companies belong to. The goal of that group is to provide interoperability between appliances made by different companies.
In January, The Home Connectivity Alliance released its 1.0 spec to allow that connectivity using cloud-to-cloud communication between appliances. That spec leverages industry standards to define cloud-to-cloud interoperability and covers both legacy appliances customers already have in their homes as well as newly released products.
Both Samsung and LG plan to roll out their implementations of that spec during Q4 in eight different countries: The United States, United Kingdom, Korea, Italy, France, Spain, and Turkey.
LG, Samsung, and Vestel are the first of the HCA’s 15 members to implement interconnectivity. Other members of the Alliance include Haier, GE, Frigidaire, Beko, AEG, Trane, Leader, Resideo, American Standard, and Arcelik.
Version 2.0 of the spec is expected to add electric vehicle chargers into the mix with home appliances and televisions.
While the interoperability is backward compatible, when it does launch it will require an app update.
Sign up for What's New Now to get our top stories delivered to your inbox every morning.
This newsletter may contain advertising, deals, or affiliate links. Subscribing to a newsletter indicates your
Read more on pcmag.com
