Upcoming LG ThinQ TVs will support Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa

LG recently revealed ThinQ, a new platform that would unify its smart home products and AI services. This was followed soon after by the announcement of a Google Assistant-powered ThinQ speaker that would marry LG and Google technologies. Today, LG has outlined further plans to integrate third-party digital assistants into its products, this time into its next-generation ThinQ TVs.

These upcoming TVs, powered by LG’s new Alpha 9 processor, will be on show at CES 2018 and will support both Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. LG says you’ll be able to “speak directly into the remote control” of the upcoming TVs for voice assisted features, including searching for “information, images or videos featuring specific content by making a verbal request […] such as ‘show me all the movies this actor has starred in’ or ‘show me yoga videos.'”

The TVs would also use LG’s DeepThinQ AI in combination with the Electronic Program Guide (EPG) to facilitate requests like “search for the soundtrack of this movie” or “turn off the TV when this program is over” — without requiring that you state the name of the program or provide a timescale.

Finally, LG says that its ThinQ TVs can function as “smart home hubs, offering access to other smart home products such as robotic vacuum cleaners, air conditioners, air purifiers, smart lights, smart speakers and many other devices that can connect to the TV via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.”

Right now, LG’s ThinQ TVs sounds a lot like a TV with a built-in Google Home or Amazon Echo, but we don’t yet know to what extent these digital assistants have been implemented. We also can’t say when the TVs will be available or how much they’ll cost, but we should learn more on all of those scores next week at CES 2018.