LG is looking to take a leadership position across the home appliances market-place similar to their current leadership in the front-loading clothes washer segment which they have held for the past 4-years.
Washer and Dryers
To maintain their competitive edge, LG is introducing their fastest and largest capacity washing machine. The washer has a more streamlined user interface and includes a smartphone application to notify of simple problems like leaving the door ajar. And might I say, it is a pretty mean looking machine.


Refrigerator
LG introduced it's largest capacity french-door refrigerator at 31 cubic feet of storage. No only does this refrigerator feature a nice contemporary look but also contains some very state of the art features.

The appliance is smart, like all the LG home appliances and tracks what it's contents. And using the your smartphone you can make a grocery shopping list, scan your grocery receipts to automatically add items purchased to refrigerator inventory and even purchase items right on the display. The app will allow you to see what is in your fridge and what needs replacing while you are shopping.

Take recipes found on the fridge and send them to your LG oven

Another innovative feature is the Blast Chiller that will quickly cool two cans of soda or beer in just 5 minutes or a bottle of wine in 8 minutes. It is accomplished this through a controlled, circular chilled airflow.

Smart ThinQ
All these devices are functioning across the LG Smart ThinQ network to allow these and future capabilities.

84" 3D display at the LG CES 2012 Press Conference (as seen through the glasses)

LG opens up the first presentation of CES 2012, Wayne Park President and CEO of LG Electronics USA walks the packed crowd of press and analysts through the past year and introduces a wave of presenters to cover all through all the product categories. One business note worth mentioning is that LG USA grew 8% last year even in this challenging economy.

Home Entertainment

LG is focused on larger display sizes this coming year including 55, 60, 72 and 84 inch varieties. The 84"  includes an Ultra Definition with is equal to 4 x 42" high-definition televisions.

Core to much of LG's television line relies on a Nano Full LED (every pixel has its own small LED light source) and Cinema Screen design that enables these displays to approach nearly edge-to-edge display. 2012 models have a 1mm bezel and 28mm depth.

In an effort to push the capabilities beyond traditional internet/smart televisions, LG has developed their own high-performance L9 chipset that features a multi-core CPU/GPU (the brain and graphics technologies) to enable faster innovation on their solutions.

Magic Remote introduced last year has been highly successful and this year the new models go beyond just pointing by adding a wheel, pattern gesture (moving the wand around like a Nintendo Wii remote) and voice recognition for text input capabilities. And with an additional camera technology similar to the Microsoft Kinect, LG TVs will have an additional 3D Gesture Interface your body movements will control aspects of the user experience.

LG has also advanced their Smart Share Plus network technology inside of their home entertainment products by including a network file browser, wi-fi screen share for mobile devices, 2nd display configurations, MHL Mobile HD Link between devices and support for WiDi from Intel that allows WiDi-enabled laptops to share their content wireless on the TV.

With regards to 3D capabilities, LG was pretty much the lone voice last year talking about passive 3D glasses versus the active glasses. Passive glasses are similar to those you get when you go to a 3D movie at the theaters. Active glasses run on batteries and had a very fast flicker shutter that controlled the 3D affect. The passive glasses are lighter, don't require charging and are far more inexpensive. LG's predictions have proven correct and consumer trends are moving toward the passive solutions.

LG also announced their support for Google TV and in 2012 there will be two televisions that support those capabilities.


We also received a preview of future technologies with a look at the largest OLED at the show. LG's 55 inch creates stunning imagery and is a peek at where the world is going in the coming few years.


LG has demoed a glasses-free 3D display for personal experiences on smaller devices. This is definitely an area that many are pursuing to remove the glasses from the equation as some point once that technology evolves over the next decade.

You can read more about CES and Future product trends at WouldntMind.com.