Tuya Smart partners with LocknLock to create smart appliances

The partnership is expected to expand LocknLock's smart appliance lineup worldwide

SEOUL, South Korea, June 15, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Tuya Smart (NYSE: TUYA), a leading global Internet of Things (IoT) development platform provider, and Lock & Lock, a world-renowned producer of kitchen and household goods, have collaborated to create smart appliances that deliver extraordinary experiences to consumers.

Recently, a young Korean woman living alone shared her own story that has impressed a lot of people: her mother was travelling from home to her daughter's city apartment every week to refill the refrigerator as she was worried about the daughter not eating properly due to her living alone. However, her mother recently fell ill and could no longer come. To reassure her mother, the young woman has since started cooking meals for herself every day before making a video call to show her mother the meals she had prepared on her own. She has now become a better cook thanks to the LocknLock Smart Steam Air Fryer that she bought. She has been eating healthier meals now that the air fryer has made cooking all that much easier for her.

With the steam air fryer, the young woman can cook any convenient instant food she likes. She can get the recipe from LocknLock's exclusive chef simply by scanning the barcode on the packaging of the food via the LocknLock app.  Like many other at-home chefs using the cooking appliance, she has immersed herself into the fun of preparing various instant foods by using the LocknLock app to scan the barcodes.

The launch of this innovative smart appliance is in line with LocknLock's vision of becoming an innovator that changes the way people live. Notably, the firm has been upgrading its portfolio with a full array of new offerings from dining utensils and cookware to small appliances with an eye to providing consumers with a wider range of quality products and services.

Both products and services stem from life

Thanks to LocknLock's focus on product quality, safety and consumer care services, the brand has received numerous awards in the traditional tableware and cookware markets while delivering strong performance in terms of innovation in electric appliances. The recognitions include the Red Dot Award, the Gold Award for the favorite kitchenware brands among households in the UK, and the first prize for sealed container brands in the Korea Brand Power Index (17 years in a row). Furthermore, the firm has recorded impressive sales of electric appliances in Korea and throughout Southeast Asia where the brand has become synonymous with high quality small appliances. In 2020, LocknLock was recognized as the Best Shoppertainment Growth Brand and the Top Selling Brand on LAZADA, the largest shopping platform in Southeast Asia. During the shopping festival in Vietnam, the company ranked second in all product categories following Apple, and took first place among small appliance and living brands.

With the increasing demand for healthier and smarter electric appliances, major household appliance brands worldwide have begun to develop smart appliance lineups. Given this scenario, LocknLock has also embarked on intelligent transformation by leveraging the increasing popularity of its electric appliances among at-home chefs in order to meet the expectations of both international markets and global consumers.

LocknLock mentioned two key points when talking about what kind of smart appliances it plans to create: on the one hand, in addition to performance, delivering an excellent customer experience is key -  the firm would focus on details by making sure that using the appliance is intuitive so that the user can easily figure out how to start using the smart appliance the minute it has been removed from the packaging. For example, a smart appliance should be designed to make it easy for the user to connect it to the app for the first time; on the other hand, it is essential for the firm to value responsiveness and practicality. The user would certainly be less inclined to use a product if he or she finds it difficult to operate or to get in touch with support services even if it has outstanding smart features.

In order to create smart appliances based on the concept of both products and services stemming from life, LocknLock chose to collaborate with Tuya Smart as the like-minded partner is capable of helping the firm create products that meet the expectations of consumers.

Providing global consumers with smart appliances that deliver pleasant experiences

Built on its success and years of experience in the global market coupled with its deep understanding of consumer needs, LocknLock put forward clear requirements to Tuya Smart in terms of intelligence: convenient of use, smooth operation and practicality. With the intelligent transformation, the household goods manufacturer has created barriers to rivals by developing smart appliances with competitive advantages.

Tuya's IoT development platform provides many low- and zero-code solutions that have reduced LocknLock's development costs and time. In addition, Tuya Smart has empowered LocknLock to seize and leverage the emerging opportunities in a timely manner by developing new smart products rapidly. For example, with a spike in sales of small appliances due to the Covid-19 pandemic, LocknLock launched several new products, including the the LocknLock Smart Steam Air Fryer. LocknLock plans to further expand its product portfolio in a move to provide at-home chefs with convenient and personalized smart appliances that help make tasty food.

By relying on the Tuya IoT development platform with its app development capabilities, LocknLock has created an efficient, useful OEM app through which users can integrate and operate smart appliances. Furthermore, LocknLock can flexibly and conveniently add features to the app at any time without the need to develop an app from scratch. At the same time, with its global business strategy and partnerships with many top cloud providers worldwide, Tuya Smart has enabled LocknLock to ensure smooth operation, safety and stability of its smart appliances and compatibility with operating systems around the world.

"Tuya Smart can save costs and time for companies that seek to enter the IoT market," said Lee Woong-Hee, head of the innovation team of LocknLock. "I believe that Tuya Smart has lowered the threshold for traditional household appliance manufacturers' entry into the smart appliance and IoT markets, providing a sound foundation for the expansion of their smart appliance lineups."

Taking LocknLock's star product, the LocknLock Smart Steam Air Fryer, as an example, with the air fryer's capability to deliver cloud-based recipes, the user can easily set up recipes from famous chefs and get recipes for fast food products by using the LocknLock app to scan the barcodes, as well as upload their own recipes. The air fryer then automatically chooses the optimal cooking mode, maximizing operational convenience for users.

This useful feature has also received positive feedback from users. LocknLock found that the usage rate of its app surpassed 145 per cent following the launch of the steam air fryer this March. It is common to see several members of a family downloading the LocknLock app, a revolutionary scenario that has demonstrated a high degree of satisfaction with the smart feature.

With the impressive performance in the market and its ongoing commitment to innovation in tandem with its brand power in China, Europe, South Korea, Southeast Asia and the US, LocknLock is expected to gain momentum in the smart appliance sector.

"Going forward, LocknLock, based on its original vision and consumer needs, plans to continue the collaboration with Tuya Smart to create a more connected IoT ecosystem that allows its smart offerings to interact with each other conveniently, with the aim of providing consumers with premium products and support services," added Lee.

In the smart era, intelligence has become an integral part of everyday life rather than being just a "gimmick". Through the collaboration with Tuya Smart and based on its understanding of actual consumer needs, LocknLock has rapidly developed and rolled out new smart appliances that deliver a better customer experience instead of being "served" by users. As a result, the new offerings have been well received among users. With the partnership, LocknLock plans to launch more innovative smart appliances and services in many countries and regions worldwide, among them, South Korea, the countries of Southeast Asia and the United States.