Seemengly our favourite Dutch company will be completely purchased by LG Electronics.
What is your thoughts?
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Hope that the same doesn’t happen as what happened with Harmony.
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Nice for the boys to cash out, too bad LG isn’t exactly known for its stellar performance when it comes to smart homes (my LG airconditioners used to have API connectivity issues all the time, until I hardware-modified them for 100% local control).
Also: “The acquisition of Athom will also enable LG Electronics to integrate third-party devices and services to obtain more customer usage data and accelerate the delivery of customized services.”
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For me, looks very similar as Sansung did with SmartThings long time ago. Hopefully the ecosystem will keep main structures.
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It’s even worse:
According to LG Ad Solutions this data will be sold by the Company to third parties.
Athom has sold its soul: 
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I can recommend Home Assistant 
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Also: does that mean app developers will finally get paid? I mean, it’s their apps that will be collecting the user data that gets sold 
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Now it is also clear which is the next programming language I have to learn…
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LG, they were quite good…maybe 5-6 years ago. But their way of keeping things developed and uptodate, kind of sucks.
Really, that’s very sad story.
The Korean electronics company said Wednesday it has acquired 80 percent of the company, based in Enschede, the Netherlands, and will acquire the remaining 20 percent in the next three years.
https://www.publicnow.com/view/3DB2E6BAFA618DB8B24AA05E12714F14116CB4EC?1719981957
Even after the acquisition, Athom will continue to operate independently, maintaining its business operations and branding. This strategy is designed to maximize Athom’s growth potential and unique strengths while fostering synergies in business, research and development capabilities, and platform utilization.
I guess only for some time…
Their own statement:
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Yeah, pretty incomplete statement. Thanks for sharing Dijker.
Not a word on customer privacy. I guess we’ll soon see an update of the terms.
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It’s always the same marketing “blah blah blah” and in the end everything we’ve built up is ruined
After the crash on the highway, I thought it couldn’t get any worse this week.
You can be so wrong…
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Hope you are OKay. 
The way you feel when you’re rammed sideways by a Porsche Cayenne with a trailer at 100 kilometers per hour …
…
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Here’s our press release: https://homey.app/en-us/news/we-are-joining-lg-electronics/
I’d like to chime in here. Nobody should worry about any data collection, that will not happen under my watch, and I plan to stay on for a long time.
Honestly that one Australian article totally got it wrong and I don’t understand why. LG’s PR team is calling them right now to rectify their false statements.
LG really wants us to grow Homey worldwide. Homey only works as a neutral entity, they understand that very well.
The main reason for this acquisition is so they get access to Homey OS for their own smart home products. Maybe the terms will change for their own products, but for the Homey-branded lineup we will sail our own course.
We have a very bright future ahead with great new Homey products & updates coming, and I can’t wait to share those with you!
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For minimum 3 years I guess.
On the bright side, Athom would likely get more funding and resources.
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That depends and yes, you used “likely” word correctly. When you are owned by 80%, then you are not really the one making the key decision alone anymore. Even as CEO. Also from the “investment” side, they will be dependent on LG decisions and LG growth/decline.
Let’s see how Athom employees will react, we will see immediately on how the development will go in next few weeks&months. I just expect quite a significant hiccup here.
Anyway, keeping fingers crossed that will be not the case.
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