CES is always packed with robots, and this year consumer electronics giant LG announced a new bot called CLOid that it claims will revolutionize housework (or eliminate the need to do it).
CLOid is said to be an AI-powered home robot designed to assist users with a variety of household chores, from folding laundry to preparing breakfast to patrolling the home for signs of trouble. The company says it envisions the device to eventually “evolve into an environmental care agent that supports daily life.”
The bot was announced during LG’s keynote earlier this week, but was also available for inspection through a rolling presentation on the convention room floor. I went to check one out and saw bots working alongside human presenters to perform various tasks to an enthusiastic audience.
CLOid has autonomous mobility capabilities, allowing it to move around on its own, and is equipped with a variety of cameras and sensors. When combined with LG’s smart home ThinQ app, CLOid can utilize situational and environmental data to proactively make suggestions on how to improve the user’s life, LG said.
The bot also has a speaker so it can communicate with users. LG says CLOid is powered by a vision language model that transforms “images and videos into structured language-based understanding,” and a vision language action program (similar to Siri) that can translate verbal commands into actions.
Over the past few years, many home robots have been introduced, including Amazon’s Astro and Enabot’s EBO X. CLOid follows in those footsteps, but seems designed for a wider range of household tasks than its predecessors. Unlike Astro and EBO (which are nothing more than squatting, spinning automatons), CLOid has a large upper body and two arms, and its physicality is clearly designed to pick things up and interact with its environment.
You’d think you’d get great results, right? Unfortunately, in the presentations I saw, CLOid didn’t do much. I watched as the bot very carefully took the shirt out of the basket and put it in the dryer. I also watched them lift a croissant (again, very carefully) and place it in the oven. In addition to live performances by the bot, the presentation included highly produced videos of the bot in several hypothetical scenarios that may be helpful to potential users.
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CLOid seemed cute and friendly, but my biggest concern was that it was slow. During Tuesday’s presentation, when a human robot asked CLOid to make breakfast for it, it trudged to the refrigerator, waited for the automatic door to open, and stared into the back of the refrigerator for an uncomfortably long time before finally selecting milk.
Yes, even the most lethargic person would probably win in a race against CLOid. However, speed isn’t really the issue here. The idea is to ensure that the bot’s human companion doesn’t have to do any work at all. It’s part of what LG calls its “Zero Labor Home” model, where automation takes care of all the tedious but essential household chores. While the bot prepares pancakes in the next room, you can brush your teeth or take a call from your boss. At least, that’s the idea.
From the available presentations, it’s a little unclear when that idea will come to fruition. It was not known if or when this bot would actually be made available to the public. A disclaimer at the bottom of the presentation video reads: “The products and solutions shown in this video are under development, have not been released for commercial use, and specifications may vary.”
LG communications staff onsite said CLOid would be available in the future, but they didn’t know when. We reached out to LG’s Home Solutions team for more information.
So, like many of the other robots on display at CES, CLOid felt more like an advertisement for its potential than an accurate representation of what it currently offers. The bot also seemed well-positioned to help market LG’s new AI home ecosystem. This ecosystem represents a wide range of impressive smart home products, many of which seem easier for consumers to lift than installing a new robot in their home.
We have briefly introduced some of the latest versions of these products. In addition to the return of LG’s wallpaper (I spent several minutes staring at its insanely thin but beautifully hypnotic surface, I can definitely say I want it), the company was also showing off a variety of home appliances this week, including an AI-powered oven that identifies specific ingredients and recommends recipes, and an AI refrigerator that can talk to you. All of these devices are supposed to sync with CLOid and can be controlled via the company’s ThinQ app.
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