LG Electronics (LG) has acquired an 80% stake in Athom, an industry-leading smart home platform company based in Enschede, Netherlands.
The agreement also includes plans to acquire the remaining 20% within the next three years.
This strategic move is aimed at strengthening LG's connectivity within the open smart home ecosystem. By integrating Athom's capabilities with LG's Affectionate Intelligence technology, LG aims to lead the era of AI-driven home innovation.
LG plans to integrate Athom's extensive connectivity, which links thousands of home appliances, sensors and lighting devices, into its generative AI-enabled LG ThinQ platform.
The integration aims to build an AI home that provides optimal spatial solutions by understanding customers better.
LG's AI Home allows customers to work with generative AI to manage their home appliances and IoT devices, creating a personalized environment tailored to the customer's preferences.
LG envisions extending the differentiated customer experience of AI Home to various spaces where customers spend time, including commercial and mobility environments, ultimately realizing and developing the concept of “intelligent spaces.”
Athom is a technology company that sells the smart home hub “Homey,” which connects to home appliances and IoT devices, and also provides cloud subscription services.
Founded in 2014, Homey has expanded primarily in Europe over the past decade, garnering a loyal customer base of hundreds of thousands. As of 2023, Homey devices are sold in Europe as well as Australia, Singapore, the United States and Canada.
Athom develops its own hub and OS and builds an independent smart home ecosystem. Its flagship product, Homey Pro, can connect to more than 50,000 devices and supports a variety of connection methods, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Z-Wave, Matter, and Thread, making it versatile and open.
The Homey App Store, managed by Athom, offers around 1,000 applications for connecting and controlling home devices from brands such as Philips Hue and IKEA.
Many of these applications are based on official partnerships, with a number of apps developed by the Homey community.
This developer community actively contributes to Athom's open platform and is continually expanding the range of brands and devices that can connect to the hub. Users can easily create a smart home environment by simply downloading the app from the store and linking their devices.
LG is poised to significantly enhance the scalability required for AI Home implementations, aiming to achieve the highest industry standards.
This is achieved by integrating the smart home technology of the LG ThinQ platform with Athom's open ecosystem and IoT device connectivity.
The Athom acquisition is particularly noteworthy because it will enable LG to incorporate third-party devices and services into its ecosystem. This integration will give LG deeper insights into customer usage patterns and speed up the delivery of personalized services.
“The acquisition of Atom will be the cornerstone of our AI home business,”
Chung Ki-hyun, executive vice president and head of the Platform Business Center at LG, said the Atom acquisition will be the cornerstone of LG's AI home business.
“By leveraging the synergy between the two companies, we aim to expand our open ecosystem and external integration services to provide customers with a more diverse and multi-dimensional space experience,” he said.
“Following the acquisition, Atom will maintain its business operations and brand and continue to operate independently.
“The strategy is designed to maximize Athom's growth potential and unique strengths while driving synergies in business, R&D capabilities and platform leveraging.”
LG's launch of AI Home, which integrates Athom's open smart home platform with its own AI technology, underscores the company's efforts to transition from a hardware-centric platform business to a software-based platform business.
LG entered the TV platform market in 2021 with its webOS platform, expanding its TV business from hardware to software.
To support this transformation, LG has acquired Alfonso, a US-based global technology company specializing in television media, machine learning and big data analytics.
Alphonso now operates as LG Ad Solutions, a core part of the webOS content and services business.
LG aims to transform into a 'Smart Life Solutions Company' that builds ongoing relationships with customers through a multitude of devices connected to its AI home and ultimately provides differentiated value.
According to market research firm TechNavio, the global smart home market is expected to grow from $81.2 billion in 2023 to $260.24 billion by 2028, at a compound annual growth rate of 26.23 percent.
LG Electronics CEO William Cho said LG is evolving into an intelligent spatial solutions company that connects and extends experiences across different living spaces.
“We will continue to make strategic investments to transform business paradigms, as evidenced by our successive forays into platform-based appliance services and solutions such as the webOS advertising platform and AI Home,” he said.