LG’s new WiFi Music Flow speakers aren’t like any other speakers. What makes these so unique? You can send your Music Flow speakers a text message. Yep, you read that right! LG has created a new way for you to dialogue with and control your speakers - via text.

How it Works

LG’s new speakers use a messaging service called Line to make communication between users and the speakers comprehensible. Users will be able to send basic commands to the speakers (play, stop, pause, etc), and it will also be possible to tell the speakers to do something a bit more complex like, “play beach tunes.”

Another really interesting feature of the new speakers is that they can detect smartphone life. If the speakers notice that a smartphone is nearby, they will automatically begin to play any songs that are currently playing on that phone. The idea here is that you can simply connect anywhere in your home, and play music seamlessly from one room to another, or from, for example, your car to your living room.

Connectivity

The WiFi Music Flow Speakers are wireless, and they connect through dual-band WiFi. Since LG has chosen to work with both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands here, the speakers have better sound than most other Bluetooth options. It’s also possible to connect these speakers to a larger audio system for a complete surround sound effect.

The LG Music Flow Speakers aren’t available yet, but LG will be unveiling them at this year’s CES conference in 2015. Since these are the first speakers that can take text commands from smartphones via WiFi, there’s bound to be a good deal of buzz surrounding LG’s recent innovation. The speaker set that LG will reveal at the upcoming conference will include three soundbars, three wireless speakers, and a newer portable speaker model that LG is calling the NP8350.

Pricing and Other Details

LG hasn’t listed pricing for the new text speakers yet, but I’m guessing that price tag will be on the higher side of the competitive curve. Since LG has the first technology that both seamlessly connects devices to the speakers and works through text commands, it’s unlikely that these speakers will be on the lower side of the price spectrum.

Ever since LG sent out the press release about these new speakers, a lot of attention has been turned towards this new tech. While holding a remote in one hand or using your tablet to control speakers is the norm these days, nobody has yet thought of a texting solution. Yet, texting your speakers makes sense, since texting is now the world’s favorite pastime - something that LG understands well.

It might be odd to think about texting your speakers, but it’s also a really innovative way to give users ultimate control over speaker functions. You’ll have to wait for the CES conference to get pricing on these speakers, but they will, presumably, be available through the LG site and through various other retailers in 2015.