You may have noticed from previous blog posts that the team here at Battenhall have a sweet spot for the Internet of Things and the endless possibilities this development brings. The most recent news that got us quite excited is that of LG launching fridges, washers and cookers that chat.

As reported by the BBC, the new text chat service allows fridge owners to see what food is inside as well as controlling other home appliances. Bad news is, the app can only be used in South Korea for now, but plans are to extend it to US and UK markets soon after. LG's HomeChat appliances communicate with their users via Line, the popular chat app in Asia, and has features such as a Freshness Tracker that can tell you about items that have passed their expiration dates and remote washing machine activation. Samsung also has its rival Smart Home service in Asia, which has similar features.

It will be interesting to see how hacked homes develop further, as some experts think products that offer these features will only appeal to a niche audience. In the meantime, we also had a go at making appliances chat: every time our office beer fridge opens on a late Friday afternoon, this is automatically tweeted by our friendly BattenBot, the Battenhall Bot. Sadly tweets cannot yet force open the beer fridge... we're working on that!