[CEO of Grib, Cheong Yeonkyu]

What were once simply niche products for the tech-obsessed, smart home appliances are now being 

mass-produced and marketed to mainstream consumers. By using these smart home products, mundane 

household tasks have become easier with voice activation or outright automation. The floodgates have opened, 

and tech companies are scrambling to give us the next “smart” IoT product. All of  this is enormously exciting ? 

not only for the sheer novelty and thrill of being able to speak to our appliances and have them understand, 

but for the time and (human) energy-saving implications.

But, there’s a catch.

With all the different smart products on the market, once the consumer brings the product home, he will often 

need multiple networking devices and/or apps to bring their products to life. This has resulted in technological 

fragmentation of the smart home ecosystem, and it is the reason why the smart home market ? especially in the 

US? has yet to truly take off.

Grib(CEO Cheong Yeonkyu) is in the business of providing interconnectivity to heterogeneous IoT devices. 

They have a proven track record in their partnership with LG U+, with numbers that speak volumes. Thanks to 

Grib’s advanced connectivity hub, LG U+has acquiredover a million subscribers. These kinds of numbers would be difficult to attain without faith in their technology, Mr. Cheong stresses. 

The following is an excerpt of Korea IT Times’ interview with the CEO of Grib, Cheong Yeonkyu.