LG has a funny way of drumming up interest. The South Korean company likes to pre-announce its announcements so you know what it’s announcing when it announces it. The newest announcement from LG? ThinQ ON, a new smart home hub, will turn up at IFA 2024 in Berlin next week.

It might look like a hockey puck (or an Amazon Echo) but this little pucker has some personality, according to the company. That’s because this smart home device includes a voice assistant, powered (of course) by AI.

ThinQ ON that

ThinQ ON isn’t just intended to control LG’s own products, though it will certainly do that. But it’ll also integrate Matter products, via Thread or WiFi, into its little ecosystem. Interoperability is the name of the game if you’re smartening up your home, lest you are locked into a single provider’s products (and prices).

The new smart home gadget is also being bolstered by LG’s recent acquisition of Athom, a dedicated smart home company, earlier this year. That’s not speculation, either.

The company is very upfront about it, saying it “plans to maximize the advantages of the ThinQ ON’s open platform by continuously expanding the range of supported brands and devices”. It’ll do this by exploiting Athom’s Homey tech including its app.

LG is punting the security of its new ThinQ ON device, pointing out that it’ll incorporate LG Shield, its proprietary security system that uses a dedicate (and presumably well-protected) server to manage customer data. Add that to voice interactions with LG’s home assistant, which lives inside ThinQ ON, and the ability to use the little hockey puck for music and the company might be onto an excellent product. If, that is, the AI assistant proves to be at least marginally useful.

Launch date and pricing isn’t known yet. The company has to keep something secret for its IFA 2024 debut, after all.