Home brew
Home brew beer application
HomeBrew is LG’s capsule-based craft beer appliance that simplifies brewing by automating fermentation, carbonation, and temperature control. The companion app supports the experience with real-time monitoring, progress updates, and brewing alerts.
Timeline
4Q 2018 ~3Q 2019
Status
Shipped
Skills
Concept development
Product design
Interactive prototyping
User research
Branding
Executive communication
My role
Design Lead
As the lead designer, I drove the work end-to-end from identifying the opportunity and shaping the concept to storytelling, executive communication, and production execution. I also led the companion app from UX direction through UI delivery, including the visual system and interactive elements, and contributed branding assets for international exhibitions and trade shows.
Team
PM, Engineering, Design (1 Senior Designer)
Overview
Capsule it, Brew it
How it works
LG HomeBrew is a capsule-based craft beer appliance that simplifies brewing with single-use capsules, an optimized fermentation algorithm, and a self-cleaning system. It automates the full process from fermentation and carbonation to aging and serving while the companion app enables remote monitoring, progress updates, and alerts anytime, anywhere.
Driving HomeBrew from Concept to Mass Production
HomeBrew began as an early-stage concept and was approved for mass production after multiple rounds of stakeholder reviews and alignment ,becoming LG’s new capsule-based craft beer appliance.
Discover & define
User journey
How to make the user enjoy a long brewing process?
The whole brewing process could be categorized with 3 steps, preparation, brewing, after brewing in chronological order. My team members and I found that people had been through different level of excitement and interest for the each step of brewing. Especially, during the actual brewing, people get most bored because of relatively long waiting.
There is a different level of excitement and interest for the each step of brewing.
Brewing is an emotional journey, high excitement at setup and at the final result, with a dip during the long fermentation phase. By mapping these highs and lows across each step, we identified where users needed more support and where we could amplify delight.
UX Direction
Discover, Create and Share
We divided the brewing journey into three stages: ‘Discover’, ‘Create’ and ‘Share’, because each stage was different by its character and emotion how the user felt. Stories and visualizations were then added for each as much as possible. Each stage has specific message and role like below.
Develop
1. Essential content at each step
Designed each step with a clear, simple purpose.
Each step was designed to be as simple as possible. To make actions clear at every stage, we included only essential content and expressed it in a straightforward, easy-to-follow way.
Clarify the purpose of every stage
Discover helps users explore beer types and choose recipes that match their taste. Create uses an animated simulation to visualize the brewing process as it bubbles and changes color. Share lets home brewers invite friends to enjoy their latest creation, turning brewing from a task into a more engaging, interactive journey.
2. The fun of making my own recipe
Created a fun way for users to explore and personalize their own beer.
Above of all, the fun thing would be to choose the ingredients and make it by myself. In other words, the customization of brewing beer was powerful way to make the user feel fun. Also we provide the tip from the famous brewing masters so the user can refer to.
3. Visual storytelling
Focused on visualization and interaction using intuitive visuals and fun motions.
For the each step, the illustration and interesting animation are developed. According to the beer, there are different color themes. It is to provide the information of kind and state of beer intuitively.
Deliver
Application: Key screens
Product: Key screens
Branding
Impact
Global Debut at CES
(Consumer Electronics Show), 2019
HomeBrew launched globally as one of LG’s flagship smart-appliance innovations and received strong interest at CES 2019. The product was widely recognized for simplifying a traditionally complex brewing process through automation and a clear, intuitive companion app.
50%
Sales grew by 50%+ in the first half of 2020 vs. the same period in 2019 (analyst report).
Award Recognition
HomeBrew received multiple international design awards, including the iF Design Award, Red Dot, IDEA, UX Award, and was selected as a CES Innovation Award honoree.