At CES 2016, LG unveiled its Signature line of appliances, including a fridge that opens its door when you wave your foot under it. Confusingly, LG has also developed premium appliances under the name Signature that won’t be marketed as LG appliances. These pricey fridges, dishwashers, microwaves, ranges, and ovens were on display at the Kitchen and Bath Industry Show this week, and several of them bring smart capabilities to the high-end market.
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Like connected LG appliances, the 25.6-cubic-foot-capacity Signature Kitchen Suite Built-in Side-by-Side fridge works with the SmartThingQ app. Unlike smart fridges from Bosch, there aren’t cameras inside that snap photos so you can check on your stock of string cheese. Instead, the fridge will simply alert you if the door is hanging open. That alert was actually beamed to the Arch — a smart-home hub that looks suspiciously like the LG SmartThingQ hub — at the KBIS display. The Arch might not actually be released, but it would let you play music and read alerts, check weather, and see your calendar on its display.
The $1,299 Signature Kitchen Suite Fully Integrated Dishwasher also works with SmartThingQ, letting you see just how long you have to wait before your favorite mug is clean. In addition to Wi-Fi connectivity, the dishwasher is ultra-quiet at 40 decibels and has a TurboSteam function that supposedly makes pre-rinsing pointless.
The Signature brand is supposed to be luxurious, and the appliances bearing the brand are priced to match. The built-in fridge will cost $9,799 when it’s released this year, while the side-by-side version will be $4,499. That’s pretty close to the expected $5,000-plus price tag of Samsung’s touchscreen fridge, but Sub-Zero’s non-smart-fridges are several thousand dollars more. Signature also pledges a high level of service with its Signature at Your Service app, which connects you to a “Kitchen Concierge” if something goes wrong. And with its built-in connectivity, your appliance might even be able to diagnose itself.
