LG has just announced their HomeChat service, which does exactly what the name implies; you can text your home appliances to get them to do stuff. The service will be based on the Line messaging app, and you'll be able to send SMS messages to your ovens, refrigerators, or washing machines to get them to manage your house while you're away.
LG is working on making this work with casual commands, so you can tell your refrigerator that you're going on vacation, for instance, and it will go into a power saving mode. You can also ask it what's in the fridge while you're at it. You can let your robotic LG vacuum cleaner know that you're on the way home so it can start vacuuming for you, or you can tell the oven to go ahead and preheat itself. I'm not sure if these functions will only be available to LG branded smartphones, but considering most manufacturers want to try to rope consumers into using one brand for all of their electronics, it wouldn't be surprising.
Home automation can still be a little quirky at times, so it'll be interesting to see if LG can pull this off well. They'll be announcing their new appliances at CES this year, so expect more information about it next month.
source: Engadget
