LG: Unlocking the Full Potential of Matter-enabled Homes powered by Google Home

LG Electronics, a global leader in technology and consumer electronics, partnered with Google Home to redefine smart home experiences. Leveraging its ThinQ and webOS platforms, LG delivers convenience, control, and connectivity throughout the ThinQ app and webOS smart TVs in the user's home.

Together, they bring to life the vision of the "LG AI Home", pioneering how we interact with our living spaces and future home experiences. The ThinQ app provides mobile control from anywhere, and LG TVs serve as a central hub for intelligently managing the entire smart ecosystem, including lighting, appliances, HVAC, and more.

The Challenge

LG Electronics is on a mission to create a seamless "whole home" experience where users can control and manage all of the smart devices in their home. To accomplish this, LG faces the challenge of unifying the user experience across devices, ecosystems, and protocols such as Matter, the new standard for smart home interoperability. Solving this challenge transforms LG TVs into central and intelligent hubs that orchestrate the entire home, going beyond their traditional role as entertainment devices.

As part of achieving this ambitious vision, LG sought to integrate the best of Google Home into its own ecosystem. This includes low-latency local control¹ and improved reliability for Matter devices, accessing Google Home's vast network of 600M+ devices, and ensuring changes are seamlessly reflected across all of a user's LG and Google home experiences.

What They Did

Collaborating with Google Home, LG embraces both Home runtime and Home APIs to unlock new levels of innovation for their smart home users.

Home runtime transforms compatible LG TVs running webOS into full-fledged hubs for Google Home, deepening the integration with Matter and expanding its capabilities. This not only optimizes the user experience with features like low-latency local control, improved reliability, and remote access, but also enables seamless interaction with any app built on Home APIs, such as LG's ThinQ app (coming soon) or the Google Home app. By adopting Home runtime and Home APIs, LG reinforces its TVs' central role in the smart home ecosystem and paves the way for a robust development framework for the future.

Coming soon, LG will integrate Home APIs into their ThinQ app and incorporate over 600 million devices connected within the Google Home ecosystem, all manageable through a single set of APIs. LG users now can easily manage their entire smart home ecosystem and enjoy a unified experience, seamlessly adding, updating, removing, and controlling devices—whether local Matter-enabled or cloud-connected—all within the ThinQ app.

We're excited to have Google Home runtime on LG's webOS TV as it enables customers to access and control a wide range of IoT devices on LG TVs and strengthen LG's presence in the Home IoT market.

SP Baik, Vice President of LG Electronics

Results

By integrating with Home APIs and runtime, LG leverages Google's infrastructure while concentrating its resources on core business innovations, extending access to more device categories and elevating the user experience. This enables LG to deliver:

• Matter compatibility and device type support: With Home APIs and Home runtime, LG expanded its smart home ecosystem while embracing Matter. LG users can now seamlessly connect and control a wide range of devices from various brands, and enjoy all the local promises that Matter offers.

• Unified device control and management: The integration with Home APIs empowers users with centralized control over their entire smart home, regardless of device type or connection method, through a single interface – either their LG TV, the ThinQ app, or any app built on Home APIs.

• Robust foundation for future smart home innovation: LG's collaboration with Google Home unlocks a future of intelligent and personalized living, with continuous advancements in webOS and ThinQ enhancing the smart home experience for their users.