OFweek smart home network news: Today smart home has gradually emerged from the illusory concept of words, and develop into a new industry with more market value and scale. According to a Research and Markets report from research institutions, the global market for smart home equipment and services will grow at an annual rate of 8% to 10% over the next five years, and by 2018, the market size will reach US$68 billion. By 2020, China is expected to become the largest smart home market in Asia.
Smart home is just starting
The biggest feature of smart home is different from that of smart hardware products. It is through the central system that each smart home device can work collaboratively, and the sustainable evolutionary intelligence uses the basic functions of each device to make daily home life more intelligent. Everyone said that smart homes are a true portrayal of the future of public life. Even governments in all regions are vigorously promoting the development of smart homes. But as of now, smart home life still seems to be on paper, and the concept is larger than reality. In fact, the overall development of the current intelligent industry is still in its infancy, especially in many areas where exploration is still in its infancy. There are problems such as insufficiently high levels of intelligence and inconsistent industry standards.
The advent of the Internet portal has rapidly promoted the introduction of smart home blueprints. Both home appliance giants and foreign-funded enterprises see smart homes as a “big cake†that needs urgent development. Among them, there are international companies such as Alibaba and Google, as well as Internet upstarts such as Xiaomi and LeTV. Most of them are micro-startup companies lacking resources and technology. In the past few years, many companies that deploy smart homes have grown wildly and viciously, which has had a tremendous negative impact on the smart home industry. Fortunately, in recent years, it has been the iterative layout of Changhong, Haier and other integrated home appliances companies, and the future of smart homes. Development is again possible. However, at present, it still belongs to the stage of market testing and technical molding, and companies still have a long and tedious process.
We must also realize that smart homes have now entered the more advanced and more systematic “smart home ecosystem†from the initial level and individualized intelligence, which is a little bit of progress, but this is not the ultimate goal. The monotonization of products in the entire smart home market and the lack of a unified standard or interface are still a challenge to the development of the industry. The inability to implement unified operation and control of a device for different brands of products means that a variety of smart home appliances cannot be interconnected to provide personalized services to users, not to mention that “want to watch TV automatically turn on TV and want to eat and cook automatically. , want to go out and call cars "and other ideas to achieve. Therefore, all major companies are exerting their power in the direction of intelligent product control and integration. The introduction of a connection hub to promote the interconnection of various brands of products can not only unlock the interconnection problems but also effectively launch their own brands.
Vyo's smart home robots, Sentri from Taipei, and even Apple TV's Apple TV are smart home control hubs for smart home life. In addition, Xiaomi Lei Jun’s smart routers and smart modules that had been deployed for a long time, Gree Dong Mingzhu’s mobile phones, etc. are the absolute cores of the smart homes it intends to create, but “who said that her husband is reasonable, the public said public reasonableâ€, said that their own control The central product is good, but it is the future development trend.
Smart home control center dispute
The major brands launched their respective control center products, and the core camps of the different smart home systems were clearly targeted. They were all looking for differentiated competitive advantages, paving the way for future smart home wars. Unlike smartphones, smart robots, smart speakers, and other additional third-party connection hubs, smart refrigerators and smart TV products that are accompanied by an aura of home appliances have naturally become the core of many home appliance companies competing for the connection center. The smell of gunpowder is full.
The camp with smart TV as the core center has made significant efforts in the near future. On the 28th, Changhong launched a new smart life solution platform called AI Center centered on smart TVs, and two artificial intelligence TVs CHiQ Q5N and CHiQ Q5A (OLED) equipped with the platform. The CHiQ smart TV equipped with the Ai Center platform achieved intelligent communication with air conditioners, refrigerators, lighting, speakers, and security devices. The user can easily complete a series of complicated preparations such as turning on the lights, pulling the curtains, and opening the sound by simply controlling the television through the remote controller. Even if the user does not get up, the air conditioner and the refrigerator can be used. The air purifier regulates and controls the installation of cameras and alarms. The whole process is performed in one go and the concept of smart home life with artificial intelligence TV as the core is fully considered.
Coincidentally, Alibaba has always insisted that "TV will become the core of smart home." As early as last October, Alibaba Group’s digital entertainment division had a strategic cooperation with Youku. Alibaba’s home entertainment strategy will focus on Youku and upgrade for multi-screen development. It is committed to building “Chinese Chinese regional entertainment content An ecological". The chairman of the Alibaba Group Entertainment Development Committee and Chairman and CEO of the Group One (Youku Tudou) said: “With video from PCs and mobile Internet users moving towards home users, the importance of the big screen has increased. Both content and users In the case of liquidation, there is a good combination of cultural and entertainment ecology and e-commerce ecology."
Different from insisting that smart TVs are the connecting hubs, smart refrigerators, as the core of the kitchen economy, are deeply favored by some white-collar workers. The layout of core areas of smart home control has become a consensus. In this regard, Baida Haier has more say. At this year's AWE in Shanghai, Haier and Baidu Artificial Intelligence announced the release of Haier Xin Kitchen Internet Refrigerator. This refrigerator has made the interaction between users and refrigerator more natural and convenient by introducing Baidu artificial intelligence voice technology. Users can control the refrigerator through voice, instead of traditional music, radio, video, shopping and other manipulation interface instructions, such as the user can cook, voice accused the refrigerator to play music, watch the day of social news, drama, etc., completely liberate the user's hands . Not only that, Haier Xin kitchen refrigerator Internet pioneers the smart food ecosystem, but also to provide users with one-stop fresh buying services. From the original planting of foodstuffs, food processing, inspection and quarantine, purchase of ingredients, cold chain transportation, etc., we can open up channels from the fields to the user's dining table...
After all, smart TVs and smart refrigerators will most likely become the core of the control center of the smart home in the future. At present, it is still not conclusive, but no matter which one, it is necessary to finally ensure the stable realization of the entire smart home system, through intelligent improvements. Collaboration between equipment and equipment to achieve linkage control, this is the so-called primary automatic control. Some industry experts believe that the higher-level control should be the automatic control of artificial intelligence algorithms. The precondition is that more data should be used. For the current situation of the industry, it requires the active participation of users until the automatic control of artificial intelligence algorithms develops. After the stage, it can slowly develop into a real smart home.
Smart home exploration is a long way to go
The fierce competition in the smart home control center means that the smart home industry has become more popular. According to research institute Juniper Research, the global smart home market will reach 71 billion U.S. dollars in 2018, of which the Chinese market will account for 32%, which means that smart homes will form a huge market with more than 140 billion yuan. There is also data to predict that by 2020 the overall output value of smart homes in China will exceed one trillion yuan, and the market potential for smart homes in the future will be enormous.
It is not hard to imagine that with the continuous penetration of the smart home industry and the in-depth layout of enterprises in various fields, the stone barriers that will be placed on the way forward for the smart home industry will become more and more and more. At the moment, the development of the smart home industry faces many challenges:
First, the experience of using smart home appliances is poor. After years of accumulation, this year's AWE, "Smart Home Appliances" finally succeeded in becoming the best protagonist. However, the concept of smart homes has been frittered for many years. In reality, the user experience of using smart home appliances is still somewhat “legal†and the performance is poor. In addition, in the past few years, the smart hardware industry became prevalent and the products that blessed “smart†labels were generally much more expensive than similar products. This gave some merchants an opportunity to focus on design and function gimmicks, and then sell the "smart" concept at a high price to consumers. Therefore, for a long time, "pseudo intelligence" has become the first impression of ordinary consumers on intelligent products.
Second, in the industry, the connection hub is not unified and it is still not interconnected. This part is precisely what the above said, television and refrigerators do not seem to be in the parallel line of two home appliances category, because smart home control center this point and put together for comparison, when there is an industry recognized unified connection hub appears, perhaps two The war between the people will not end. However, the reality is that the connecting center of the smart home industry is not yet unified.
Some industry experts believe that in the current situation where the smart home is still in a single product, intelligent control system integration, the establishment of different brands of product ties and promote the joint landing of their products, may be the real open up the entire smart home ecosystem, to achieve smart home The most viable method of serving the user’s life.
Third, consumer awareness and acceptance of smart homes are not high. According to the "China's smart home equipment industry development prospects forecast and investment opportunity analysis report," China's smart home equipment sales accounted for 80% of sales through the project channel, through the retail channel sales accounted for about 20%. This shows that few consumers will actively purchase smart home devices through retail channels, especially if the smart home devices are not easy to use, consumers are even more reluctant to buy. Consumers’ awareness and acceptance of smart home products are still limited, but they only stay on the level of “I know there are smart products in the market, but whether they need to be taken into considerationâ€, especially refrigerators, range hoods, etc. Traditional home appliances. However, in the field of television, the conversion from traditional LCD TVs to smart TVs has begun to be on the right track, and consumer acceptance is relatively high.
The reason is that middle-aged and old people have strong purchasing power, but they have weaker ability to accept smart homes, and young people who are full of curiosity about smart homes have insufficient spending power. Faced with such development status, the smart home industry should be dedicated to solving users' pain points and meeting user needs. In smart product design, we must pay attention to the ease of use and practicality of the product.
In summary, the development potential of smart homes is great, but progress is still a long way to go, especially with respect to the unification of industries in the control of the central area will be the focus of future development. It can be foreseen that with the continuous improvement of smart home server products, the trend of connecting everything will unlock the current competitive situation. No matter which kind of connection center camp wins, it will become a booster for high-speed takeoff in the smart home field.