Analysis of the Development of the Smart home Industry
1. Industry background
Smart home is defined as a system that utilizes comprehensive wiring technology, network communication technology, smart home system design solutions, security technology, automatic control technology, and audio-video technology to integrate facilities related to home life using the home as a platform. It constitutes an efficient management system for residential facilities and routine home affairs to enhance the safety, convenience, suitability, and artistry of home life, and also create an ecofriendly and energy-saving living space. Users can remotely control the connected home system, whether they are at home or not, which helps achieve more efficient energy and electricity use, and ensures the safety of the home during extended absences. Smart home technology is being used to create smart cities. A smart city functions similarly to smart home, where systems are monitored to operate the city more efficiently and save money.
According to statistics from www.chyxx.com, the output value of the global smart home market exceeded US$84 billion in 2017, and is expected to approach US$100 billion in 2018 and maintain high-speed growth in the next five years. It is expected to exceed US$150 billion (approximately 950 billion yuan) by 2023. In the North American market, brands such as Amazon, Google, and Apple stand out, driving the widespread adoption of smart home technology.
In recent years, with the development of China's economy, the improvement of people’s spending power, and the advancement of technologies, smart home products of multiple types have undergone explosive growth in sales volume in China. According to data from the Institute of Forecasting Industry, the domestic smart home market exceeded 80 billion yuan in 2017, and continues to grow rapidly at a rate of nearly 50% per annum. However, overall, for reasons such as the late start and the gap in per capita spending power compared to Western countries, there is still a certain gap between China's smart home industry and those of developed Western countries in current development level. The most notable feature is the one-sided emphasis on the creation of individual smart home products, and the lack of control over the entire smart home application ecosystem. The smart home market still faces issues such as high product prices, slow response, insensitive operations, and poor compatibility among different devices.
It can be seen that it is urgent to introduce the concept and industry of the smart steward to comprehensively enhance the development level of China's smart home industry, and improve factors such as product compatibility, product complementarity, and product synergy.
2. Development prospects of smart home
As mentioned earlier, the purpose of introducing smart steward technology is to address issues such as high product prices, slow response, insensitive operations, and poor compatibility among different devices in the Chinese smart home market, comprehensively enhance the development level of China's smart home industry, and improve factors such as product compatibility, product complementarity, and product synergy. For this purpose, it is necessary to understand the key future development directions of smart home products in China, so as to analyze forms and uses of the smart steward in a targeted manner. The following several smart home products are precisely new-type smart home products that many market research firms believe are at the forefront of the industry and have high demand for the smart steward.
2.1. Intelligent locks and intelligent dining tables
For example, intelligent locks are currently very popular emerging products on the market, favored by consumers for their high security performance, no need for key assistance, and difficulty in being pried open.
Prevailing mainstream performance standards for intelligent locks on the market are mainly based on standalone lock operation, with more emphasis on achieving the functions of conventional locks more conveniently. However, beyond mainstream standards, some emerging companies have achieved breakthroughs in several aspects, such as interacting with mobile apps, and enabling remote unlocking after multiple security verifications for consumers, thus eliminating the embarrassment of locking guests out; based on the linkage between the smart home hub and intelligent cameras, multiple verifications such as voiceprint, fingerprint, and face recognition can be performed simultaneously on the lock opener, maximizing the security performance of the lock without affecting the unlocking time; leveraging the image recognition function of intelligent cameras, it can alert the user when anyone suspicious appears near the door.
Furthermore, the concept of the intelligent dining table as a new product proposed by a domestic company has also garnered widespread attention. It precisely meets consumers' actual life needs with its features of convenience, safety, and high practicality. The conventional so-called "intelligent dining table" merely utilizes physical methods such as folding to alter the table's usable area, footprint, and add one or two functions, but fundamentally fails to embody the concept of intelligence and cannot meet consumers’ actual needs. The new "intelligent dining table" concept introduces some novel features: It can be operated in conjunction with a mobile phone and controlled via voice, making it more convenient to use. By placing bowls and chopsticks in corresponding positions, it can perform functions such as dishwashing, drying, and disinfection in one step. The faucet can be controlled by voice to extend or retract, and the water temperature can be automatically adjusted. Its biggest feature lies in the safety of the chair. By gently touching the edge of the chair, the legs will extend, and similarly, by gently pushing the edge, the legs will retract. An anti-pinch function is available on the inner front edge of the chair to prevent unnecessary accidents for children.
Undoubtedly, intelligent locks and intelligent dining tables cannot fully achieve the above functions on their own, but must rely on collaboration with other smart home systems. The rapid, efficient, and stable operation of such collaboration is evidently inseparable from unified control and effective information transmission, which is precisely where value of the smart steward.
2.2 Intelligent lamps and intelligent curtains
Lamps are electrical appliances available in a considerable quantity in every home. Switching between different lamps not only wastes a lot of time and energy for users, but also often leads to certain waste due to negligence or for other reasons, which is also an issue that cannot be solved by existing mainstream intelligent lamp products. Currently, some smart home companies have developed intelligent lighting products that can be remotely controlled by voice, remotely set to switch on and off at specific times, and remotely controlled via an app based on conventional intelligent lighting technology combined with voice control technology, AI deep learning technology, and intelligent lamp switch technology. These products also feature the deep learning function, which can intelligently adjust switching times according to user habits, greatly enhancing consumer experiences and reducing electrical energy waste.
In view of the increasingly sophisticated lighting design of homes, with numerous windows and more curtains, many companies have developed intelligent curtain products that can be installed on various common curtain structures and styles. These products also enable the remote voice control switching, remote switching time setting, remote app switching, and deep learning functions. Meanwhile, based on comprehensive applications of smart home devices such as intelligent lamps, intelligent curtains, and intelligent audio, it is expected that smart home theater systems designed to meet the increasing demand for home movie watching among Chinese people will be launched in the near future. With just one click, the smart home theater system can automatically close curtains, turn off lamps, and activate stereo speakers, providing consumers with the most convenient and high-quality home movie watching experience.
2.3 Whole-home smart home control enabled by "Tmall Genie"
Currently, the most eye-catching product in the smart home industry is undoubtedly Alibaba's Tmall Genie. It accurately grasps consumers’ needs, and allows all electrical appliances to be controlled through mobile app interactions or voice control for common functions such as switching on and off, replacing the remote control method that people have been accustomed to. Its significance lies not in the mere elimination of remote controllers, but in the realization of integrated control, where one simple sentence suffices: "The air conditioner understands what you say."
Tmall Genie is already a rudimental form of the smart steward. It enhances the practical functions of the product, highlights its intelligent features, reduces user operations, and improves user experiences. Therefore, it has to be improved continuously, so that smart home technology can truly enter the homes of most people.
3. Smart steward
The so-called smart steward, also known as the smart home hub, serves as the brain of the entire intelligent system. Currently, it is typically implemented in the form of an "intelligent hub", primarily functioning as a central control unit. For instance, the AmazingBOX intelligent hub can uniformly schedule and control all electrical appliances and terminals in the home. Currently, many domestic giants in the smart home industry are actively drawing on design experience of overseas smart steward products, fully utilizing their own smart home design and manufacturing capabilities, and striving to launch intelligent hub products with a small footprint, low power consumption, and stable performance. It achieves the control function for smart home products and the user data collection function. Leading domestic smart home manufacturers like Xiaomi have integrated their proprietary AI technology and voice recognition expertise into their smart home hub products. This integration has successfully enabled the incorporation of intelligent voice control devices into the hub, while maintaining effective control over size and power consumption. Users can manipulate the intelligent hub by speaking within a certain range, and remotely control most electrical appliances through the smart home hub, greatly enhancing user experiences. Some companies have also developed voiceprint recognition systems for the smart steward, effectively ensuring the secure use of the intelligent hub.
4. Development of smart steward software
In so-called smart home, hardware alone will always be standardized. Only with appropriate software can smart home unleash its greatest potential. To this end, smart steward software must have the following characteristics in order to enhance the functionality of the smart home system.
(1) Simplified operation process: The smart steward software should be fully coordinated with smart home products, simplify the operation process to the greatest extent, and enable consumers to enjoy the best smart home experiences through the application of non-contact control technologies such as voice operation technology.
(2) Versatile mobile apps: To enable users to achieve synergy among various smart home products anytime and anywhere through their mobile phones, resulting in a "1+1>2" effect, the smart steward must be provided with corresponding mobile apps. Consumers are allowed to gather information on virtually all operations of smart home products, including remote unlocking, remote video recording, remote lamp switching, and even remote cooking.
(3) Excellent full-series compatibility: To prevent fragmentation in the smart home product system, reduce the financial threshold for consumers to purchase products under the project, and attract more consumers who are hesitant about the project, smart steward products should not only achieve good internal access within the company's products, but also exhibit excellent compatibility with mainstream smart home products on the market, enabling good coordination with smart home products from other mainstream brands.
The emergence of smart home represents not only a qualitative leap in hardware but also raises higher requirements on the development of software platforms. Only through a well-crafted smart steward system can multiple smart home products coordinate with each other, achieving a "1+1>2" effect. The smart steward platform not only provides consumers with the most convenient smart home experiences and the lowest cost of ownership, but also serves as a crucial driving force for the rapid development of all smart home companies.