While CES 2018 doesn’t officially start until tomorrow, January 9, that won’t stop major brands from jumping the gun with their own press conferences, and it doesn’t stop our coverage either. LG’s press conference kicks off today, and you can watch it right here.
Given the sheer number of product lines coming out of LG, expect a fairly diverse spread of topics throughout the stream. The company has already announced its 2018 line of TVs, as well as its new smart home appliances. That said, we can expect to see them covered here as well, if only briefly, along with the company’s new ThinQ sub-brand, which ties together all of LG’s smart and A.I.-driven products.
Any of the announcements the company has already made will likely be featured as well, but we can likely expect a few surprises to be thrown in, too. Will we see anything as impressive as the 65-inch UHD rollable OLED the company introduced over the weekend? Hopefully.
The press conference kicks off January 8 at 8 a.m. PT/11 a.m. ET at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, and can be watched in the embedded video once it kicks off.
Digital Trends own editor in chief offered some insights into what to expect from this year’s consumer electronics show, and the emphasis was squarely on the smart assistant space:
The big story in 2017 was the rise of the smart assistant, with Alexa embedded in everything from speakers and lights to cars and even furniture. This year promises even more pervasive adoption of voice computing, but the ubiquity of “touchless” interfaces should make voice assistants far more versatile in the year ahead.
That means voice-enabled products more than anything else, something we anticipate seeing from major appliance manufacturers like LG:
The widespread acceptance of voice assistants will be a huge driver for the smart home in the year ahead, and I expect will be the primary driver of smart home products. You bought a speaker, so why not get lights and locks and thermostats to work with it?
What will LG announce? Only time — and ultimately, the press conference itself — will tell.
