News is breaking that Korean LG (stock XKRX) has acquired 80% of Dutch Athom B.V.
According to the Korea Times, financial details of the deal haven’t been disclosed, but LG is set to acquire 80% of Athom immediately with plans to acquire the remaining 20% over 3 years.
Athom are the makers of the much-loved Homey Pro smart home hubs. I personally recently bought a Homey Pro as part of my first steps into building out a smarter home.
The Korea Times articles went on to include “LG Electronics said it plans to create AI-operated homes that understand customers’ needs and provide optimal solutions through the purchase of Athom. This will be achieved by leveraging Athom’s connectivity and integrating generative AI into LG’s ThinQ platform.”
Implications
It’s too early to say what this means long term, but if I had to bet, I would say this is good news for anyone already bought in to the Homey ecosystem.
With the backing of LG, it seems likely that Homey will be planning for greater distribution and deeper pockets for support and developing the product roadmap.
Making a splash
With the acquisition of Athom, LG are making a statement about the importance of the smart home for their business.
They no doubt see opportunities for deeper integrations, better distribution and acquiring the existing Athom intellectual property rather than building from scratch.
As a customer who recently bought a Homey Pro (I haven’t set it up yet, stay tuned), this seems like very good news for the future viability of Homey. I guess we’ll have to see how it all plays out, but I think this makes Homey an even bigger contender in the smart home hub/ecosystem market.
Yes, there have been plenty of products and brands that were acquired by large companies only to be sent to the dark corner of a basement, but this doesn’t feel like one of those situations.
Congratulations to everyone involved in the deal and here’s hoping Homey soars to new heights on the back of this deal (even if the LG stock price didn’t think much of the news!).
