LG teased that it would be showing off a new robot for a “zero labor home” at CES. We now have a bit more detail on what to expect. The company says that its CLOiD home robot can fetch milk from the fridge, put a croissant in the oven, and even do some laundry, including folding and stacking clothes.
CLOiD isn’t the first laundry-folding robot we’ve seen, it’s not even the only one at CES this year — SwitchBot’s Onero H1 will also be able to tackle your hamper. LG’s does seem particularly impressive, at least on paper. While the Onero looks like someone stuck some arms on Stop & Shop’s Marty, CLOiD has two fully articulated arms with seven degrees of motion mounted on a torso that can tilt and bend.
Its head looks quite a lot like its Q9 robot, minus the handle, and will be able to communicate through spoken language and facial expressions. (Getting side eye from an annoyed robot is truly the future.) But another big selling point will be CLOiD’s ability to integrate with your smart home appliances. It’s basically a smart home hub with hands, but its support for ThinQ and ThinQ ON allows it to work particularly seamlessly with LG products. (No surprise there.)
Now whether or not anyone actually wants to have a robot wandering their home that they can boss around, or if they’ll even be able to afford such a thing, remains to be seen. But LG is clearly hoping that we’re all yearning for a mechanical butler / maid / chef / personal trainer.