LG Labs opens door to unconventional idea seekers

South Korea’s home appliance giant LG Electronics Inc. has launched LG Labs, a playground for those wanting to test unconventional ideas that can add innovation and fun to people’s everyday lives.

LG Labs is now available at LG Electronics’ official website, according to the company’s website on Friday.

There, visitors can find products and services that are very different from LG Electronics’ well-known white goods like refrigerators and washing machines.

That's because at LG Labs, innovative ideas are vigorously tested and developed into products, services and marketing activities by people both inside and outside LG Electronics, according to the company.

Last week, LG Labs launched brid.zzz, a sleep care device developed by Sleepwave Inc., an LG Electronics company-in-companies.

The brid.zzz wireless earbuds are designed to help sleep-deprived people enjoy deep sleep by analyzing their brainwaves to generate signal frequencies that help reduce stress and promote deep sleep, explained the company.

INNOVATORS’ PLAYGROUND

It is just one of many projects the leading Korean appliance maker is experimenting with at LG Labs in hopes of finding new innovative business ideas. 

Pluspot is another service that debuted through LG Labs. Developed by LG, it is a micro-mobility service that encourages scooter and bicycle users to park their two wheelers at pluspot stations after use.

Anyone returning a scooter or a bike to a nearby station gets awarded with points, which can be used to borrow a scooter later.

The service is already offered in Suwon, Gyeonggi Province, and will be rolled out in other areas.

Monshoecl is another unique LG Labs-generated service in which people can collect and resell exclusive shoes in both real and virtual worlds with non-fungible tokens (NFT).

Jointly developed by LG and Induk University in Seoul, Monshoecl showcases more than 5,500 pairs of “monster shoes” created with NFT motion designs and allows NFT shoe owners to manage and collect their real and virtual shoes via the LG ThinQ app’s Shoelife feature.

Users can even store and trade their collection on cryptocurrency wallet Wallypto, developed by LG, and Kakao Corp.’s digital wallet Klip.

LG Labs also presents the hover gym — personalized home-fitness gear centered on muscle training; and an immersive indoor cycling device, dubbed excicle, which allows users to switch between spinning and outdoor cycling modes.

LG Electronics on Thursday also dangled DUOBO by LG Labs, a dual-capsule coffee extraction machine that allows users to create their own blends by mixing two shots.

BEYOND TRADITIONAL HOME APPLIANCES

LG Labs will perform a test bed role for a range of innovative products and services for LG Electronics, according to the company.

The plan is in line with the electronics giant’s ambition to transform from a traditional home appliance maker to a platform-based tech behemoth by 2030.

Early this month, LG Electronics CEO Cho Joo-wan announced the company’s new goal of transforming into a smart life solutions provider “that connects to various consumer experiences” and to achieve 100 trillion won ($77.8 billion) in annual sales by 2030, sharply higher than 65 trillion won in 2022.  

LG Electronics has vowed to boost sales of non-hardware products, promote business-to-business models and explore new growth sectors such as EV charging and digital health, which are expected to take up more than half of the company’s annual sales and operating profit by 2030 under Vision 2030, Cho said.

Write to Ye-Rin Choi at rambutan@hankyung.com
Sookyung Seo edited this article.