South Korean media The Bell (March 19) published a blog post reporting that LG Electronics closed its XR (extended reality) development division, which was established only a year ago, and turned to the fields of artificial intelligence home appliances, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) and robotics.
XR (Extended Reality) covers virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR), which merge virtual and reality through multi-sensory interaction.
LG established the XR R&D Lab at the end of 2023, which was once regarded as a core growth point, but eventually adjusted its direction due to the market performance falling short of expectations. IT Home previously reported that LG reached a strategic cooperation with Meta in February 2024, but in the past 3 months, friction arose due to differences in direction and finally gave up the cooperation.
The media believes that the reason why LG shelved the XR business is, on the one hand, the failure of Apple's Vision Pro, and the sluggish sales of Apple's headset due to the lack of software ecology, which affects industry confidence; On the other hand, there is the disagreement with Meta, which directly led to LG suspending its XR business and focusing on more deterministic areas.
According to sources, LG's next strategy focuses on three aspects: AI home appliances (combined with intelligent algorithms to optimize product functions), HVAC (improving the energy efficiency and intelligence of air conditioning systems) and robotics (accelerating the process of acquiring Bear Robotics and strengthening the research and development of service robots).