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LG debuts the kitchen of the future with smart fridges, dishwashers, and ovens

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LG is hoping to catapult your home into the future one room at a time — starting with your kitchen. At CES 2018, the company unveiled its concept for the connected future, and much of it appears to be predicated on a hands-free experience in one of the most central rooms of your household. And while you’ll still need to use both hands to chop and saute, you may not feel the need for four extra pairs of hands to help you do everything else in the kitchen.

With new products like the InstaView ThinQ refrigerator, the EasyClean oven range, and the QuadWash dishwasher, LG hopes to maximize efficiency and allow you to spend less time stressing in the kitchen and more time enjoying being at home.

First up is the LG InstaView ThinQ refrigerator, which boasts a 29-inch touchscreen LCD display that can either serve as a computer display or a transparent window. So whether you need to look up a recipe or look at what’s inside your fridge, you can do so with nothing more than two knocks on your fridge door.

The smart refrigerator will also recommend recipes based on what ingredients you already have at home, and once you’ve selected a recipe, the necessary information will be sent to preheat your connected oven, while the integrated Amazon Alexa feature will guide home chefs through each step of the meal. The refrigerator will also play your favorite songs from Amazon Music, iHeartRadio, and other streaming services.

Thanks to LG’s Smart Tag feature, you can add stickers, tags, and expiration dates to foods in your fridge, reminding you of when you may need to buy more milk or throw out that last carton of eggs. And because your smartphone can be connected to the wide-angle PanoramaView camera inside the InstaView ThinQ, you never have to wonder if you still have enough broccoli at home — just take a peek inside the fridge from the grocery store.

Then, there’s the LG EasyClean oven, which can not only automatically preheat based on recipe selection, but can also alert you as to when it needs to be cleaned. Any time it’s getting a bit too dirty, it will send you a smartphone notification. Similarly, the LG EasyClean oven will send information to your connected QuadWash dishwasher, so even as it’s baking your latest casserole, it’s thinking about how it’s going to get that casserole dish clean.

The QuadWash dishwasher will select a longer run cycle with hotter water for a greasy dish, and a shorter cycle with cooler water for a lighter dinner. And with its four multi-motion spray arms, cleaning up after dinner regardless of what you eat should be a breeze. 

“The seamless connectivity inherent in LG’s smart kitchen solution will revolutionize the cooking and dining habits of consumers,” said Dan Song, president of LG’s Home Appliance & Air Solution Company. “By streamlining food preparation and cleanup from start to finish, LG’s use of artificial intelligence in the kitchen enhances quality of life by offering innovative solutions to everyday struggles in the kitchen.”

Pricing information and availability has not yet been made public, but we’ll update you as we hear more.

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