LG ThinQ

Review by eFreeware

Most connected homes end up with a drawer full of mismatched apps, one for each appliance brand. If your kitchen, laundry room and living room are filled with LG products, that fragmentation is avoidable: LG ThinQ is the company's own app for pulling those devices into a single place, and it comes from LG Electronics itself.

The app is free, carries no advertising and offers no in-app purchases, so there is nothing to buy inside it. It has been on Google Play since November 2015 and has passed 100 million installs with a 4.4 average from roughly 1.48 million ratings. That kind of reach tells you this is the default tool for a large number of LG owners rather than a niche extra.

What I want to work out here is what the app actually does once your appliances are registered, where its stated limits bite, and which households will get real value from it.

What you get once your appliances are registered

The core of the experience is the Home tab, where connected LG appliances appear and can be controlled from wherever you are. That is the basic promise: your washing machine, air purifier or oven answering to your phone rather than to a panel on the wall.

Beyond direct control, the app draws on usage history to suggest how to manage your appliances better, and an Explore area points out features you may not have tried. I like that second part in principle, because appliance apps often hide their more useful functions behind unfamiliar menus. Whether the recommendations are worth acting on will depend on how varied your routines are.

There is also a ThinQ Play section. From there you can download apps intended for LG ThinQ On, the company's AI home hub, and add new features to products you already own. The idea is that the appliances you bought do not stay frozen at their launch capabilities.

Routines that run the house without you

Smart Routines is where the app moves from remote control to automation. The examples the developer gives are straightforward: lights and an air purifier coming on at wake-up time, and products switching off automatically while you are away so energy is not wasted on an empty house.

This is the part I would expect to matter most over time. A single tap to start a wash cycle is convenient; a schedule that handles the house while you are traveling is a different kind of usefulness. The app also uses your location as part of routines, which is one of the reasons it asks for location access.

The obvious caveat is that routines only work with the appliances you have registered and the features those models support. A routine is a set of instructions to hardware, and the hardware has the final say.

Energy data and comparing your usage

Energy Monitoring is a separate strand of the app. It shows your power consumption and lets you compare it with your neighbors', which is an unusual angle: rather than just reporting a number, it gives you a reference point. You can also set savings goals and receive usage notifications so that the feedback arrives while you can still act on it.

For anyone trying to understand which appliance is driving up a bill, that combination of goals and notifications seems more useful than a static chart. Care services for your products are gathered in the same area, which keeps maintenance and consumption in one place instead of scattering them.

How detailed any of this is will come down to the appliances involved. The app is the window; the measurements come from the products.

Diagnosis, repairs and asking questions

When something goes wrong, the app offers two routes. Smart Diagnosis checks your product's status, and if that is not enough you can book a visit from a professional engineer for an inspection and an accurate diagnosis. Handling the first pass yourself and escalating only when needed is a sensible arrangement, and it saves the guesswork of describing a fault over the phone.

Chat with LG is an assistant for questions about ThinQ appliances. The developer says its answers are tailored to your product's situation and condition, which suggests it draws on the details of the appliance you have registered rather than giving generic replies.

I would treat that as a useful first stop for questions about settings or error codes, with the engineer visit as the fallback when a real inspection is required.

What the app asks of you, and the limits it admits

ThinQ requests a long list of optional permissions: calls, location, nearby devices, camera, photos and video, microphone, notifications and music and audio. Each has a stated purpose, from connecting to Wi-Fi during product registration to taking a profile picture or attaching photos to an inquiry. The key point is that these are optional, and the developer confirms the basic functions of the service still work if you decline them. Notifications are described as essential for product status updates and important notices, so that is the one to think about carefully.

Availability of tools also depends on the model you own and where you live. That is the honest boundary of an app like this: it is a controller for hardware, and the hardware determines what is possible. Two households with different LG appliances, or the same appliance in different countries, may not see the same screens.

One specific note is worth flagging: the accessibility API is used only to relay the signal you press on the TV remote to your phone during the View Phone Screen on TV's Larger Screen feature, and the developer says nothing beyond the minimum needed to operate the phone is collected or used. The most recent update, from September 21, 2026, focuses on making the app easier and more stable to use.

Households that will get the most from it

This app is built for people who already own LG appliances and want them managed from one place. If your home has several compatible LG products, the appeal is obvious: one app for control, routines, energy reporting and service requests instead of separate tools for each device.

It also suits anyone who likes the idea of automation without a smart-home hobby. The routines are practical rather than experimental, and the energy comparison gives feedback that non-enthusiasts can act on. People who want to tinker with third-party devices and platforms are a different audience.

Because the app is free and carries no ads or purchases, the cost of trying it is your time spent registering products. That is a low barrier for the convenience it promises.

A worthwhile download for LG appliance owners

LG ThinQ is a well-established companion app for LG's connected appliances, and the numbers back that up: over 100 million installs and a 4.4 rating from a large pool of users. It covers control, routines, energy monitoring, diagnosis and service booking in one place, and it does so without ads or in-app purchases.

The trade-offs are the ones the developer itself acknowledges. Features depend on your specific product model and region, the permission list is long even if optional, and the app is only as capable as the appliances it talks to. None of that is surprising for a hardware companion.

If your home runs on LG appliances and you want them in a single app, this is the one to install. If you are looking for a general smart-home platform for mixed brands, this is not what it is built to be.

What's new

We’ve improved the app experience to make using ThinQ easier and more stable.