One of the stars of last week’s CES in Las Vegas was Cloid, an AI-powered home robot from LG Electronics as part of the company’s vision of intelligent machines handling everyday chores through robotics and connected home integration.

Cloid uses AI and vision-based technology to perform household tasks such as cooking and laundry, connecting seamlessly with LG’s ThinQ ecosystem to automate home life.

At CES, the company showed Cloid operating in diverse home environments. In one scenario, the robot retrieved milk from a refrigerator and placed a croissant into an oven to prepare breakfast. Cloid can also initiate laundry cycles and fold and stack garments after drying.

The robot consists of a head unit, torso with two articulated arms and a wheeled base equipped with autonomous navigation. The torso can tilt to adjust its height, enabling the robot to pick up objects from knee level and above. Each arm has seven degrees of freedom, matching the mobility of a human arm. The shoulder, elbow and wrist allow forward, backward, rotational and lateral motion, while each hand includes five independently actuated fingers for fine manipulation. This configuration allows it to handle a wide range of household objects and operate in kitchens, laundry rooms and living areas.

The wheeled base uses autonomous driving technology derived from LG’s experience with robot vacuums. This form factor was selected for stability, safety and cost-effectiveness, with a low centre of gravity that reduces the risk of tipping if a child or pet makes contact.

The head acts as a mobile AI home hub. It is equipped with a chipset for a brain, display, speaker, cameras, sensors and voice-based generative AI. Collectively, these allow the robot to communicate with humans through spoken language and facial expressions, learn the living environments and lifestyle patterns of its users, and control connected home appliances based on its learnings.

At the core of Cloid is the company’s physical AI technology, which combines a vision language model that converts images and video into structured, language-based understanding, and vision language action that translates visual and verbal inputs into physical actions.

These models have been trained on tens of thousands of hours of household task data, enabling it to recognise appliances, interpret user intent and execute context-appropriate actions such as opening doors or transferring objects.

Cloid’s capabilities expand through its integration with LG’s smart home ecosystem, including the ThinQ AI home platform and ThinQ On hub. This connectivity allows Cloid to orchestrate a wider range of services across LG’s various appliances.

Alongside the home robot, LG introduced Actuator Axium, a brand of robotic actuators for service and robots. An actuator serves as a robot’s joint, integrating a motor that generates rotational force, a drive that controls electrical signals and a reducer that regulates speed and torque. As one of the most critical and cost-intensive components in a robot, actuators are widely regarded as upstream technology in the emerging era of physical AI.

LG’s ultimate goal is to create an AI home where housework is entrusted to AI appliances and home robots, allowing people to rest, enjoy themselves and spend their time on more valuable activities.

“The LG Cloid home robot is designed to naturally engage with and understand the humans it serves, providing an optimised level of household help,” said Steve Baek, president of the LG’s home appliance company. “We will continue our relentless efforts to achieve our zero-labour home vision, making housework a thing of the past so that customers can spend more time on the things that really matter.”

South Korean firm LG (www.LG.com) has its US subsidiary in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. In the USA, LG sells home appliances, home entertainment products, commercial displays, air conditioning systems and vehicle components.