Tag Archives: Smart Home

Xiaomi’s Smart AIoT Products August Promotion

August 9, 2023 Joey T Leave a comment

Xiaomi is bringing fantastic deals on a spectrum of Xiaomi smart AIoT products for the entire month of August. If you’ve ever wanted to turn your home into a smart home, this is your chance!

Imagine catching up on your favourite shows on a voice-activated smart TV that also acts as your home’s AIoT hub. For those who dread doing chores after a long day of work, you can come home to clean floors with the help of a robot vacuum and mop. Feeling hungry? Look up and prepare more efficient meals by looking up smart recipes for your smart air fryer that can cook up delicious meals while you relax.

So if you’re looking at making your home smarter, you can take a dive into Xiaomi’s August Promotion and outfit your home with shiny new tech. The promotion includes products from smart household appliances to personal lifestyle gadgets and can be snagged at any Xiaomi Authorised stores across Malaysia. If you prefer online shopping, the promotions are also available online on Lazada and Shopee.

Here’s a sneak peek at some of the highlights from the promotion:

Xiaomi TV A2 58” – RM1,749 (RRP: RM 2,799)
Mi TV P1 55” – RM1,659 (RRP: RM2,499)
Xiaomi Watch S1 – RM549 (RRP: RM899)
Xiaomi Buds 3T Pro – RM249 (RRP: RM549)
Xiaomi Truclean W10 Ultra Wet Dry Vacuum – RM2,399 (RRP: RM3,599)

For more information and updates, you can visit Xiaomi Malaysia’s Facebook page.

Accessories, Consumer Electronics, Editorial, Lifestyle, Mobile, News

[CES 2023] More SmartThings for the Future – A Samsung Editorial

December 15, 2022 Darwin Sucipto Leave a comment

CES 2023 is upon us early in January of 2023, there is no surprises there. The show is also a place where you can find the latest and greatest from all sorts of electronics manufacturer, a sort of showcase of what end users like us can expect to see throughout the entire year. It is not uncommon to see new smartphone concepts, new laptop concepts, and even new ways to experience technology in the show. While it is happening early in the year, you can expect manufacturers to bring their big guns to the show. One of those manufacturers you can be excited about is Samsung.

Samsung is in a rather unique position in the world. It is a technology giant that is involved and participates in many industries. If you have not known yet, Samsung has rather unique role in the military equipment industry as well. What they are most known for today is their unique approach to smartphones with their folding flexible displays. But according to the latest editorial you can find in their newsroom, written by their current CEO, JH Han, that is not all they want to be known for.

It is no secret that Samsung, very much like Apple, wants to build an ecosystem for themselves. At some point, it looked like their ecosystem, known as the Galaxy ecosystem, built around the smartphone experience is going to take over and pivot the South Korean giant away from Google’s complete ecosystem. Now, they seemed to have turned things around a little and embrace Google a little bit more, save for a few things.

Samsung’s Galaxy ecosystem is not technically a failure though. It has evolved a little bit more instead. It has developed into something they call the SmartThings ecosystem.

SmartThings – The Heart of it All

SmartThings, in a lot of sense, has always been there. It is not a replacement to the Galaxy ecosystem; it is a big part of it. It has a lot more potential in the smart home space than you think though. For 2023 then, instead of focusing on the smartphone side of things, Samsung plans to bring more IoT products and expand on SmartThings, which could be more exciting than it sounds.

According to the published editorial, Samsung is working with more partners this time for SmartThings. That can only mean that Samsung is expanding its compatibility and ability to more than just Samsung products. They are integrating AI implementations into SmartThings too, which is not entirely unheard of, but just means that their SmartThings products can just be smarter and more intuitive to work with over time than before. Where this will sit between the Apple Home and Google Home IoT framework, only time can tell.

The focus is not to just make the SmartThings ecosystem smarter and more readily available for users, but to also make it more sustainable than ever before. In a way, Samsung wants to make SmartThings the center of your eco-friendly practices. That also means that Samsung will be committed to creating more energy efficient products and more environmentally conscious packaging decisions.

We mentioned earlier that Samsung is in rather unique position in the world. They are in all sorts of sectors and are rather successful in all the industries it has participated in. They make some of the world’s most popular Television, they are the world’s leader in terms of display technology, they are a leader in the world of smartphones in both popularity and innovation, they make very compelling and very clever home appliances. They are in the perfect position to introduce a whole host of products and solutions that can talk to each other and integrate them seamlessly into your lives.

From the published editorial, we think that we can be excited for Samsung in 2023. You can expect Samsung to shift its focus a little in 2023. Of course, that does not mean that you will not see the usual Samsung Galaxy S and Galaxy Z flagship smartphones being released and pushing smartphone technology to the limits. But you can expect Samsung to shift gears when it comes to their home appliances. For CES 2023 at least, we think that Samsung will focus more on smart home appliances or even announcing new partners to their SmartThings ecosystem. We can only wait and see.

News

LG WashTower Offers Seamless and Smart Laundry For All

December 10, 2022 Thina Hareesh Leave a comment

LG launches its latest solution for quicker, smarter and convenient laundry – the LG WashTower.

It is the first fully integrated washer-dryer combo in Malaysia, offering space-efficiency and convenience in one sleek body. Contrary to the conventional washers and dryers sold as combos, the LG WashTower is operated with a single control panel and utilizes AI for crosstalk between the washer and dryer. LG believes that this is the solution for the biggest laundry challenge faced by customers – long washing and drying cycles.

Washer-Dryer teamwork for faster laundry

LG WashTower 2 — Space saving sleek body and minimalistic aesthetics

To address this challenge, LG has implemented Smart Pairing between the washer and dryer within the LG WashTower. With the Prepare to Dry feature, it automatically sets the optimal drying cycle based on the previous wash cycle. The washer sends signals to the dryer to begin pre-heating before the wash cycle completion, cutting down on the drying cycle time. The LG WashTower also saves time in the wash cycle using the TurboWash 360 feature, which uses increased water temperature and spray nozzles to jumpstart the wash cycle. Customers can expect and overall reduction of 30% for their laundry time with LG’s latest solution.

Safer and more convenient laundry with LG

While speed may be important, LG also cares about the safety of your clothes with the AI Direct Drive (AI DD) Technology. The WashTower is able to detect the best washing pattern based on the type of fabric. It will adjust the drum motions, water temperature and wash cycle time to help reduce fabric damage by 10 percent, as claimed by LG. With the Dual Inverter Heat Pump technology, drying temperatures can be adjusted based on the drying load and fabric softness to reduce fabric damage and also save energy consumption. All features and operations are accessed from the unified CenterControl panel found at the center of the WashTower. To make things more convenient, the LG WashTower can be also controlled remotely using the LG ThinQ application. It enables remote start or stop of the washing cycle, send notifications on cycle completions and reminders for scheduled maintenance.

A stylish pairing with the LG Laundry Duo

LG is now offering the perfect partner to the LG WashTower, the LG Styler, as a package deal with special pricing. The LG Styler is an all-in-one garment steamer, sanitizer and dry cleaner. For garments that are too delicate for the standard washer-dryer cycles, the Styler is an alternative laundry solution. The highlight feature of the Styler is its Special Care Mode. These are tailor-made modes that can be downloaded through the ThinQ app for the cleaning of special garment types. The Styler would be the perfect laundry solution for suits, satin dresses, even hard to wash household items like pillows and teddy bears. There is also the gentle Dry mode, which uses low temperature drying that is faster than conventional air-drying. It even comes with a handy Pants Crease Care ironing system, where a presser helps hold your pants in place for easy, crease-free ironing.

LG styler inside — Spacious interior for multiple garments and a handy Pants Crease Care system.

Pricing and availability

The LG WashTower is available now at RM13,999 while the LG Styler retails for RM 8,499. With the LG Laundry Duo promotion, you can get both at discounted prices of RM 12,999 and RM6,399 respectively. This promotion will be available with the LG Trio Bonanza Sale-brations from now until 31st December 2022. For more information on the LG WashTower and LG Styler, visit the LG Official website and follow LG’s official Facebook page.

Accessories, Lifestyle, Mobile, News

[MWC 2021] Lenovo’s Smart Clock 2 is What Your Side Table Needs

June 28, 2021 Darwin Sucipto Leave a comment

The Lenovo Smart Clock was one of the simplest ways for you to get started on a smart home ecosystem. Right next to Google’s NEST speakers, the first iteration of the Lenovo Smart Clock is the best smart home peripheral you might be able to put on your nightstand. It does not look totally invasive as a home tech; it looks like a regular bedside clock. It is also powered by a Google Assistant. How could the Lenovo Smart Clock be better?

Lenovo has the answer to that in the new Lenovo Smart Clock 2 though. If it is not obvious enough with the naming scheme, the Lenovo Smart clock2 is the follow up to the original Lenovo Smart Clock. It shares all the great design cues that made the Lenovo Smart Clock a great one. Lenovo added a few more things to make it even better though.

lenovo clock smart clock gen 2 subseries feature 1 daily assistant — Source: Lenovo

The Lenovo Smart Clock 2 still has a 4-inch display. This time though it is an LCD display that you can use to display your photos and clock. It even has a night mode that turns down its display brightness just enough that it does not hurt your eyes when you see it first thing in the morning. While the display remains the same size, the entire device got a bigger compared to before though. That also means that it stands a little more upright than before.

While it is also still powered by a MediaTek processor that you find on the previous Lenovo Smart Clock, the larger body allows Lenovo to hide 3W front-firing speakers just below the display. The new Smart Clock 2 rocks a 1GB RAM to work with Google Assistant and to display your gallery. With 8G of storage, you can even store some music in the clock alongside photos you want to display.

Like the original Lenovo Smart Clock, the Smart Clock 2 does not have a camera to work with, or to spy on you. The new Smart Clock to also includes a button that a mute toggle to turn off the microphone at the back of the device. There are no USB charging ports on the clock itself though.

Source: Lenovo
Source: Lenovo
Source: Lenovo
Source: Lenovo
Source: Lenovo
Source: Lenovo
Source: Lenovo
Source: Lenovo
Source: Lenovo
Source: Lenovo

To remedy that is a secondary plate dock that you can use with the Smart Clock 2. The base adds an additional wireless charging pad that sits right beside the clock. The charges at up to 10W, which also means that it should quickly charge your smartphones, including the Apple iPhone. The base also adds a USB-A port behind the entire clock assembly for wired charging too.

The Lenovo Smart Clock 2 will be available globally September 2021 onward. It will be available in three colours – Abyss Blue, Cloud Grey, and Shadow Black. It will retail for US$ 89.99 (MYR 373*) onward. There is no word on whether we will see the Lenovo Smart Clock 2 coming to Malaysia though.

*Approximately based on exchange rate of US$ 1 = MYR 4.14 as per xe.com as of 28/06/2021

Consumer Electronics, Lifestyle, News

Samsung Makes the Kitchen Hi-tech with Family Hub

June 30, 2020 Nur Jeevan Leave a comment

Samsung has been hard at work revolutionising traditional living spaces with a touch of technology. They’ve done the living room and the outdoors with some impressive TV offering. Now, they’ve got their sights set on the kitchen with their new refrigerators. The new two door side by side refrigerators are imbued with technology to make life and meal planning easier.

The new Samsung side by side (SBS) Family Hub brings features that make grocery shopping and meal planning a breeze. The new fridge comes with a ViewInside camera which allows users to peek into the fridge without letting any of the cold air out. Not only is this convenient, it helps when it comes to maintaining the temperature of the fridge. It also helps with power efficiency.

The SBS Family Hub also gives you a screen that seamlessly integrates with any Samsung smartphone; allowing you to share precious memories on the screen. The screen can also act as a virtual bulletin board; bringing a traditional use of the refrigerator surface into the future. The Family Board feature also allows you to share music and images on an interactive screen.

The Family Hub brings connectivity to your kitchen like never before. As part of Samsung’s Smart Things ecosystem, it brings seamless connectivity to your kitchen. Interact with your other Smart Things enabled devices such as your Samsung TVs or even smartphones. Mirror your screens on the Family Board, bring your daytime soap opera to the kitchen as you get started cooking for the family or even put your favourite tunes on while you’re getting ready for your day with breakfast. The functionality isn’t device dependent, the Family Hub is able to support apps and independently run music streaming or video streaming apps.

Pricing & Availability

The Samsung SBS Family Hub is now available in Malaysia for MYR8,999.

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