Last week, we attended the LG InnoFest Asia 2015 in Kota Kinabalu which is an annual roadshow for LG to showcase its new line of smart home appliances and entertainment system. Among the line-up, a huge 105-inch 4K OLED Curved UHDTV took the center stage.
This is the second year that LG is hosting its annual Innofest Asia which is an opportunity for the brand to introduce new products to the regional market (although most of them were shown in CES as far back as 2014). Based on the number of attendees and the 4-day program, the event is mainly tailored for distributors and dealers although a few members of the media from over 10 countries were also invited.
There were a lot of new connected appliances featured this year, but the highlights were focused on new 4K and OLED TVs ranging from 55, 65 and 77 inches with much larger ones going up to 105 inches.
LG is positioning their flagship TVs to sport an OLED display with 4K Ultra HD resolution in either curved or flat display which provides viewers with the best color reproduction, image quality, great contrast and the best viewing experience. We saw the 65-inch Floating Art Slim Curved 4K OLED TV (Model EG9600) which was first showed and won a show award in CES 2015 just last month. The line-up also includes the 77-inch Art Slim Curved 4K OLED TV (77EG9700) and 55-inch Floating Art Slim CURVED 4K OLED TV (55EG9600).
All of LG’s 2015 4K OLED TVs and 4K ULTRA HD TVs feature webOS 2.0, the latest version of LG’s advanced smart TV platform. webOS used to be the mobile operating system from Palm which was bought by HP for their tablets and eventually licensed by LG to be used for its Smart TVs.
LG has also integrated a sophisticated 4K upscaler algorithm into the 4K Ultra HD TV models for smooth rendering of SD, HD and full HD content into near life-like quality images.
Together with the new line-up of TVs, LG also introduced its new Music Flow Series lineup at the roadshow. The lineup includes the new WiFi Sound Bars (Model HS9 and HS7) and the portable WiFi Speaker (Model H4 Portable), which were introduced at CES 2015 in Las Vegas.
The Music Flow series uses LG’s Range-of-Flow technology to automatically stream music from mobile devices. Just bring the device within one foot distance from the speaker, music playing on the device will automatically play on the speaker, removing the necessity of direct NFC tags.
Online music services such as Spotify, Deezer and TuneIn are also supported on the WiFi streaming audio system.
The system also comes with LG HomeChat, a feature which allows the user to control any LG HomeChat devices with a text messaging app on a smartphone or tablet. To use this feature, users merely send a text message to the speaker with simple commands such as “play songs for a party” or “turn off the music after one hour.”
With HomeChat, the LG Music Flow WiFi Series can also act as a personal assistant, setting alarms and alerting users of upcoming events on command.
Other home appliances were also featured, including a new line-up of coreless vacuum cleaners. Comprised of CordZero, CordZero Handstick, CordZero Bedding and Hme-Bot Square, LG’s CordZero line of vacuum cleaners are among the most interesting across all the home appliance line-up outside of TV and AV. Of the lot, the HOM-BOT Square (pronounced as home-bot) is most interesting for its autonomous operation and a futuristic design that resembles a drone or RC toy.
Like most other robot vacuums before it, the Hom-Bot Square works very easily – just set it up and forget it. Once it’s done with its chores, it will victoriously crawl back to its charging port and play a tune. With a price tag of about $800, this is a pretty expensive robot vacuum cleaner.
We’ve seen many other impressive home appliances as well – from dishwashers to water purifiers, washing machines and stylers right up to multi-door refrigerators with double door-in-door features.
However, what really captured a lot of people’s attention is the gigantic 105-inch OLED TV on display.
The LG 105UC9 (104.6-inch diagonal) is by far, the biggest OLED display LG has ever built for a commercially available TV. It was first introduced last year during CES 2014 and reportedly had a price tag of $100,000.
The LG 105UC9 has a display resolution of 5120 x 2160 pixels, technically putting it way over the usual 4k resolution. The set comes with built-in a 7.2 surround sound speaker system designed by Harman/Kardon and a power output of 150 watts.
The TV is also powered by webOS 2.0, which is perhaps the simplest but most intuitive smart TV UI in the market.
LG is now introducing the same model in South East Asia this year, following the availability of the 98-inch OLED TV LG Philippines released in the country just this December 2014. The 98-inch model has a local price of Php1.5 million so we’re not going to be surprised if the 105-inch will fetch close to Php2 million when it arrives here later in the year.
