I watched LG’s new home robot CLOid do laundry but I have questions

CES is always chock-full of robots, and this year electronics giant LG announced a new bot, dubbed CLOid, that it claims will revolutionize household chores (as in, you won’t have to do them anymore).

CLOid is described as an AI-powered home robot, designed to assist its user with a wide variety of domestic tasks — from folding laundry to making breakfast to patrolling a home for signs of trouble. The company says that, eventually, it envisions the device “evolving into an ambient-care agent that supports everyday life.”

The bot was announced during LG’s keynote earlier this week, but it was also available for inspection via rolling presentations on the convention room floor. I went to check one out, where I saw the bot, alongside a human presenter, performing a variety of tasks for an enthusiastic audience.

CLOid has autonomous movement, so it can get around by itself, and comes equipped with a variety of cameras and sensors that, when paired with LG’s smart home ThinQ app, can leverage situational and environmental data to make proactive suggestions for how to make its user’s life better, LG says.

The bot also has speakers so it can communicate with its user. LG says that CLOid runs off a vision language model that converts “images and video into structured, language-based understanding” and a vision language action program that can convert verbal commands into action (you know, like Siri).

The last few years have seen the introduction of a number of domestic robots, including Amazon’s Astro and Enabot’s EBO X. CLOid follows in their footsteps but seems designed for a broader array of domestic tasks than its predecessors. Unlike Astro and EBO (which are little more than squat, rolling automatons), CLOid has a large upper body and two arms — a physicality clearly designed to lift stuff and interact with its environment.

You’d think that would lead to some impressive results, right? Unfortunately, at the presentation I saw, CLOid didn’t do a whole lot. I saw the bot very gingerly take a shirt out of a basket and place it into a dryer. I also saw it pick up a croissant and (again, very gingerly) place it into an oven. In addition to the live performance from the bot, the presentation was intercut with highly produced videos of the bot in a number of hypothetical scenarios where it might prove useful to potential users.

CLOid was cute, and seemed affable enough, but the biggest thing you notice is how slow it is. During Tuesday’s presentation, when his human counterpart asked CLOid to make him some breakfast, the robot trundled over to the refrigerator, waited for the automatic door to open, and then stared into the fridge’s depths for an uncomfortably long period of time before ultimately selecting milk.

Yes, even the most lethargic human would likely win in a race against CLOid. However, speed isn’t really the issue here. The idea is to make sure that the bot’s human companion doesn’t have to do any work at all. It’s part of what LG refers to as its “Zero Labor Home” model, where automation takes care of all of those boring but essential domestic chores. You can be off brushing your teeth or answering a call from your boss while the bot is in the next room, prepping pancakes. That’s the idea, at least.

From the available presentation, it’s a little unclear when that idea will become a reality. I was unable to find out if and when the bot would actually be available to the public. A disclaimer at the bottom of the presentation’s videos read: “Products and solutions shown in this video are under development and not been released for commercial use, thus specifications may vary.”

An on-site LG communications staffer told me that CLOid would be available in the future, but she didn’t know when. I reached out to LG’s Home Solutions team for more information.

Thus, like a lot of other robots on display at CES, CLOid felt a little more like an ad for its company’s potential than an accurate representation of what it is currently offering. The bot also seemed well positioned to help market LG’s new AI home ecosystem, which represents a broader array of impressive smart home products, the bulk of which seem like easier lifts for consumers than a new robot in their home.

I got a brief tour of some of the latest editions of those products. In addition to the return of the LG Wallpaper (having spent a few minutes staring into its insanely thin but beautifully hypnotic surface, I can safely say I want one), the company had a variety of appliances on display this week, including an AI-powered oven that can identify particular ingredients and recommend recipes for you, and an AI refrigerator that you can talk to. All of these devices are supposed to synch with CLOid and are controllable via the company’s ThinQ app.