IFA 2022: Eyes On the LG SmartThinQ Hub With Alexa

It's starting to feel like but about everything is getting Alexa, Amazon'south digital vocalisation banana that can written report the traffic and weather, brand shopping lists, and play your favorite music. At IFA this calendar week, LG announced Alexa integration for its SmartThinQ Hub.

This move makes sense because it looks and works an awful lot like the Amazon Echo. We got a chance to encounter it in activity at the show.

Like the Amazon Repeat, the LG SmartThinQ Hub is substantially a cylindrical speaker with some buttons for control on the top. The biggest distinction between the two is how the latter uses a pill-shaped 3.5in LCD on the height edge, wheras the former doesn't accept a display. Information technology can bear witness information like the weather and notify you if your doors and windows are locked. Information technology's a useful add-on, though it isn't terribly sharp. As you can meet below, the edges of numbers and letters are piffling blurry.

LG Hub

When LG introduced the LG SmartThinQ Hub at CES earlier this year, the only options for control are the buttons on top of the speaker or through a companion app.

Alexa integration adds vocalization control to the mix. Using phonation commands, you can directly the program to add events to your calendar, control music playback, or cheque the traffic and weather. Unfortunately, you can't use it to claw into your other smart abode devices, like calorie-free bulbs or door locks, similar you can when using an Amazon device.

To actuate Alexa, you need to printing a button on the hub itself, like the Amazon Tap. That means y'all tin't trigger it from beyond the room by phonation, like y'all tin with the original Amazon Repeat.

LG doesn't yet have a price or release date for the LG SmartThinQ Hub, so there is plenty of time for the company to bake in its ain smart home command functionality. If it wants to compete with the Amazon Echo, it's going to have to cadet up.

About Timothy Torres

Timothy Torres

Timothy Torres is a Junior Annotator on PCMag's consumer electronics team. He covers wearables, digital domicile, and various cool gadgets including the occasional video game. He has written all mode of copy for Estimator Shopper, The Jersey Periodical, Radio One, Random House, and 2D-X. Before entering the tech world, he attended New York University and worked in education every bit an art teacher. In his spare time he dabbles in theater, sketches comics, eats a lot of sushi and watches likewise many movies. Twitter: @pleasedtomeetya