Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Audio / Video
  3. News

LG’s WebOS 6.0 adds a content-first experience and a new remote

By
LG WebOS 6.0 Home Screen
LG

While all eyes were on LG’s CES 2021 announcement of its new, brighter OLED TVs and mini-LED equipped QNED TVs, the company also revealed that its WebOS software is getting a major overhaul. WebOS 6.0 is designed to bring the software into the modern era of content-oriented home screens. Previous versions of WebOS provided a simple ribbon of apps at the bottom of the screen, which, while easy to use and navigate, didn’t really highlight the content available within these apps.

The new home screen experience, which Park Hyoung-sei, president of LG Home Entertainment Company, has described as “the most significant update since we first introduced WebOS in 2014,” looks a lot like smart TV interfaces from Google, Apple, and Amazon. It features a curated content section called “Top Picks For You,” which selectively pulls shows and movies from your favorite streaming services based on your viewing habits, as well as an easy-access search process.

Recommended Videos

As the software develops a profile of users based on their watching habits, a Next Picks feature recommends two live programs from broadcast or set-top box offerings, as well as one video-on-demand title or app that it thinks viewers will want to watch next.

Apps are still accessible from the new home screen but appear as a sliding ribbon amid the other content instead of being the sole visual elements. LG has also added a widget area at the top of the screen that can display various utilities. In the provided press images, this widget shows a local weather display from AccuWeather.

LG Magic Remote 2021
LG

There’s also a very prominent sponsored module in the top-left corner of the full-screen display, which illustrates why LG has revamped WebOS to become a content portal and not just an app-selection tool. Smart TV software is rapidly becoming a secondary source of revenue for both TV and streaming device makers alike, with advertising and data collection being two major pillars.

But LG seems to be taking this approach to the next level with WebOS 6.0. A new feature called Magic Explorer mimics the X-ray feature found in Amazon Fire TV devices by highlighting content that’s related to what’s playing, including information about actors, locations, and other items of interest. Where Magic Explorer goes further than X-ray is in its shopping integration. When viewing select broadcast channels and LG TV services, including Live TV, Gallery, Settings, and TV Guide, the color of the cursor will change whenever Magic Explorer has information to share.

Speaking of cursors, LG has also given its Magic Remote a refresh. The new, more ergonomic design now features dedicated buttons for LG’s ThinQ voice service, as well as Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, making it the most agnostic of all TV voice remotes. A clever new feature on select Magic Remotes is an NFC-enabled tap-to-share system called Magic Tap. Tapping an NFC-equipped smartphone to the remote lets you quickly cast content from the phone to the TV, or vice versa, which LG calls reverse mirroring.

WebOS 6.0 will be included on all new 2021 LG TVs, but when Digital Trends asked if previous models will be updated with the new software, an LG spokesperson told us they had no information to share on that topic.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Simon Cohen
Simon Cohen
Contributing Editor, A/V
Simon Cohen covers a variety of consumer technologies, but has a special interest in audio and video products, like spatial…
You have until June 9 to save $500 off an 85-inch Samsung The Frame TV
A painting being displayed on a Samsung The Frame QLED.

Looking for great TV deals? You still have time to save $500 on the Samsung 85-inch The Frame QLED TV when you head over to Samsung. It usually costs $4,300, but right now the popular and stylish TV is down to $3,800, making it more affordable than before. If you’re keen to invest in a large TV but love to save money too, this is a good opportunity. Here’s what you need to know about the TV before you decide to buy.

Why you should buy the Samsung 85-inch The Frame QLED TV
One of the best QLED TVs around, the Samsung 85-inch The Frame QLED TV is a delight in so many ways. At its core, it’s a fantastic QLED TV with 100% Color Volume with Quantum Dot technology saturating the screen with a billion colors. QLED adds a layer of quantum dots to a TV’s LED backlight with these dots, once exposed to light, emitting their own light with a high level of efficiency to provide great picture quality.

Read more
It’s your last chance to get up to $1,900 off a Samsung OLED TV
The Samsung S90C in a living room environment.

There’s still a little time left to snap up one of the best TV deals available today, with Samsung still selling the 83-inch S90C OLED TV for $3,500 instead of $5,400. The $1,900 discount is a pretty vast one and one that you certainly don’t want to skip. If you’re looking for a great new TV for your large living space, you’re going to love this deal. Let’s take a look at how great the Samsung S90C OLED TV is.

Why you should buy the Samsung 83-inch S90C OLED TV
Samsung makes some of the best TVs around and we’re huge fans of the Samsung 83-inch S90C OLED TV. It has an OLED panel so you get self-lit pixels which can light up independently of each other. That means that you can enjoy the deepest blacks and the brightest colors all on the same scene, ensuring you never miss a detail. The Samsung 83-inch S90C OLED TV uses a Neural Quantum Processor with 4K upscaling so its AI-powered processor can transform whatever you’re watching. There’s also HDR OLED which uses AI deep learning to analyze each scene, detecting areas that need to brighter, darker, or simply richer in color.

Read more
This Sonos Bluetooth speaker has a discount in time for beach weather
Sonos Roam SL in black on a rainy rock outdoors.

A day out at the beach. Cooking outside using a discounted grill or smoker. Pool party madness. What do they all three have in common? A lot of fun, but also a great chance to get any sound equipment ruined by a sudden downpour or a splash of inevitable water. That's why there are models of waterproof Bluetooth speakers, of which the Sonos Roam SL is one. And the good news is that you can get yours at a discounted rate before summer officially gets here. Right now, the Sonos Roam SL is just $127, which is $33 down from its typical price of $160. To get yours, all you need to do is tap the button below. Consider also reading below, as we examine the speaker and see why it is considered an easy pick up.

Why you should buy the Sonos Roam SL
The Sonos Roam SL is an easy-to-use, compact speaker for wherever you roam. Connect to it easily over Wi-Fi at home or Bluetooth on the go, giving you easy options to control the sound in a way that makes sense for you and your location. If you're at home and connected to your Wi-Fi system and have other Sonos speakers, you can even get the Sonos multi-room experience, which syncs everything in a nice way. So, you can keep the Sonos Roam SL out on the patio (where it might get rained upon) and keep the best Sonos speakers indoors and have a really cool, worry-free party experience that not many others will be able to replicate.

Read more