The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2026 has become the stage for a bold new vision of domestic life, with tech giants Samsung and LG leading the charge. The focus has shifted from mere connectivity to intelligent, seamless automation, where displays, sensors, and robotics work quietly to manage daily chores and personal care.
Samsung's Vision: Invisible Care and Disappearing Screens
Samsung's showcase presented a home where technology blends subtly into the background while offering proactive assistance. A key highlight was the AI Beauty Mirror, positioned as an intelligent personal beauty platform. This device goes beyond reflection, using a hybrid mirror display, sensors, and on-device AI to analyze even invisible skin conditions.
The mirror employs multi-spectrum skin analysis based on RGB, UV, and polarization to generate tailored skincare advice. In demonstrations, it integrated research from AMOREPACIFIC to assess skin and recommend products. Furthermore, using TWINIT's AI engine, it offers personal color analysis by examining skin tone, eyes, and lips to create a styling palette.
Another innovative offering is SmartThings Pet Care with a Pet Disease Detection feature. This service uses AI Vision to analyze photos of dogs for issues like dental problems, patellar luxation, and cataracts. The process is simple: follow on-screen guidance, take pictures, and receive AI-driven results in just three seconds. Samsung states the system is trained on a database of over 10,000 to 30,000 cases to provide data-driven insights and care information.
For home aesthetics, Samsung introduced its Transparent Micro LED screen, promising design flexibility without size limits. The company claims it offers a true glass-like appearance with high transparency and outstanding image clarity. It achieves high brightness without a rear light-blocking structure and is said to have twice the clarity of OLED and higher brightness than traditional transparent OLEDs.
Complementing this is the expanded Samsung Art Store, which turns compatible TVs into rotating art galleries. It offers thousands of curated works from prestigious institutions like The Met, MoMA, Tate, and Musée d'Orsay. The service is available across The Frame, QLED, Micro LED, and OLED TVs.
The Frame Pro TV also received updates, featuring Wireless One Connect via Wi-Fi 7 for cleaner installation, Neo QLED picture quality, and enhanced glare-free technology for brighter rooms. On the security front, Samsung's AI now provides Now Brief summaries of home events and allows users to create a voice-activated 'Away Mode' to mimic occupancy.
LG's Answer: The Zero Labor Home with a Robotic Helper
Meanwhile, LG Electronics presented its counter-vision: the Zero Labor Home, centered around the public demonstration of the LG CLOiD home robot. This AI-enabled robot is designed to perform and coordinate household tasks by integrating with LG's ThinQ ecosystem.
LG demonstrated scenarios where CLOiD retrieves milk from a fridge, places a croissant in an oven, starts laundry cycles, and even folds and stacks dried clothes. The robot features a head, a torso with two articulated arms (seven degrees of freedom each), and a wheeled base. Its hands have five independently actuated fingers for fine manipulation.
The core intelligence, dubbed Physical AI, combines a Vision Language Model (VLM) to understand surroundings and a Vision Language Action (VLA) model to execute tasks. These models were trained on tens of thousands of hours of household task data. Steve Baek, President of the LG Home Appliance Solution Company, stated the robot is designed to naturally engage with and understand the humans it serves.
LG also revived its iconic Wallpaper TV concept with the OLED evo W6, now branded as a True Wireless Wallpaper TV. With a body as thin as nine millimeters, it uses a Zero Connect Box to wirelessly transmit visually lossless 4K video and audio from up to 10 meters away, aiming to be the world's thinnest true wireless OLED TV.
The Future of Domestic Living
The innovations unveiled at CES 2026 by Samsung and LG signal a decisive move towards homes that are not just smart but perceptive and helpful. The competition is no longer about who has the best screen, but about who can best eliminate daily friction and admin through a combination of AI, robotics, and seamless design. The Indian market, with its growing appetite for premium technology and smart solutions, is poised to be a significant beneficiary of these advancements, potentially transforming urban living spaces in the coming years.
