Earlier, we discussed the current upsurge of smart home industry and listed some problems faced by the industry. In the current situation of surging clouds and the dawn, combined with the problems faced by the industry, let us do some calm thinking and response:
1. products and technologies: although cutting-edge technologies are gradually injected, this is only the beginning.
With the participation of international IT giants and the attention of IC industry, the author thinks that it means that the user experience of products will continue to make some qualitative leaps. From the previous handheld remote control to the control of smart phones and tablets, it has been greatly improved, so that all smart home systems have developed applications based on Apple iOS, Google Android, and even Microsoft Win8 and BlackBerry. Samsung's latest S4 smart phone and smart TV are equipped with gesture recognition, voice recognition and other functions, which will greatly improve the user experience as the man-machine interface of smart home system.
The author also noticed that the industry is more of a "semantic recognition" cloud platform service, which can truly realize intelligent conversation on the basis of specific speech recognition in the past, that is, whatever you say in the future, your smart home system will be able to understand, not just simply "turn on the TV" and "turn on the light"; Instead, "I want to watch Hunan Satellite TV" and "the lights are too bright" ... This may be the function that housewives want.
2. System form: Although new brands emerge one after another, the product direction is still debatable.
Nowadays, most brands have ardent hopes for the broad market in the future, and they have devoted themselves to the smart home business and invested huge sums of money to build brands. But judging from the products of most manufacturers I visited, I still can't get rid of the traditional big and comprehensive system concept: I have repeatedly developed a set of incompatible lighting systems, curtain systems, security systems, HVAC control systems, and home appliance control systems ... This can be described as repeated construction, which wastes people and money, but in the initial stage of the industry, a strong standard has not yet been formed. But from the trend, the open and unified pattern is inevitable: the system remains compatible and open, and the protocols are interconnected and unified. Only in this way can the whole system add value, and ultimately consumers are more willing to pay the bill.
According to this direction, like any other industry, no one can say that a closed system can conquer the world, but seek more industrial division and cooperation to win; In recent years, international and domestic smart home industry-related associations, alliances and even clubs have surfaced, which is a good open communication channel, and everyone can discuss the development of the industry together.
3. Consumption acceptance: At present, it is still in the primitive accumulation stage, and it is difficult to make a substantive breakthrough in a short time.
Everyone in the industry knows that although the industry has developed for so long, the popularity of consumers is still quite low. Although the concept of smart home has been implanted into the consciousness of a large number of people after more than ten years of pioneering efforts by people in the industry, and it has indeed formed a consumption force among high-end people, just like the era when mobile phones were born, the current smart home is still mainly the exclusive product of high-end people. The author believes that if there is no product with absolute high price and high credit ratio, it is difficult to make a substantive breakthrough in this case, which means that many of our brands must think twice about their popular positioning.
Above, the author has done some thinking from three different angles: technology, products and consumers, which is a bit of a cold water. However, the author has no intention to attack the current situation of the industry, nor to dampen the enthusiasm of peers, but to try to give some objective industry knowledge to peers, so that we can all meet and embrace the future of the industry in a down-to-earth manner. Science and technology is an industry with rapid development and change, which hides various opportunities. But we should recognize the reality and be fully prepared. Let me say the following before I set foot in the smart home industry.