How smart homes get consumer recognition

In January 2014, Google acquired the home smart thermostat Nest for $3.2 billion. In August, Samsung also released a big move, $ 200 million acquisition of smart home platform SmartThings.

At present, the smart home industry has become a battlefield without smoke, the competition has become increasingly fierce, many well-known companies have entered the smart home market, intends to show their talents in this "blue sea", to be a trend of children. Major companies have tried different directions in their respective fields, and products such as home entertainment systems, home security systems, and home appliance intelligent control are emerging in an endless stream. It is not difficult to see that companies want to personally participate in the new wave of smart homes.

The field of home appliance intelligent control is an important force for smart home companies. However, it is understood that the entire field of intelligent control of home appliances is still in a stage of divergent opinions and no leader. Many companies are also holding a wait-and-see attitude. What kind of products can be recognized by consumers?

The details determine the development of the smart home business users are more concerned about the use of feedback users, after all, whether the user is willing to pay, is the only manifestation of the vitality of the product, so we have repeated details of the details and details, so that the product packaging is engaged in very Perfect, but businesses also ignore the control of the overall situation. Currently, the demand for smart home users is relatively single. Some products with imperfect functions but with good details may be favored by users. Therefore, some businesses have begun to pay attention to the "details" that consumers are concerned about, but the products sold are only selling well. It is a short time. In order to promote or achieve reproducibility for a long time, the only way to control the overall situation is to better enable users to understand and accept your products.

Innovation determines the success or failure of new products The world does not conquer martial arts, but is not broken! Due to the booming smart home industry, creating a lot of innovative companies, the speed of these companies to release products is still more alarming, at least a lot more than those big leaders who have taken the lead, Not long after the first generation, the second-generation products came out. Although some products did gain recognition from users during the same period of time, sales of most products are still not optimistic.

Each smart home company has a different layout for the future, some want to gain the right to speak in the industry, and some just want to “make a fortune”. Therefore, in the future, users will have to base their actual situation on Certainly must buy "brand" products, but must recognize their own needs, is to meet the current needs or to prepare for the future layout of the entire smart home system, so the purchase of products is still much more consideration.

Grasping the details and innovations of the industry development trend is only one of the highlights of the development of the smart home industry, and there are more issues worth noting. At the Internet discussion conference that ended at the end of August, Wu Zhuohao, director of user experience in innovation workshops, mentioned domestic companies, such as Haier’s attempt in the field of smart home appliance control. This technology vertical website PINGWEST combined with Wu Zhuohao's remarks also put forward some essential elements of smart home appliance control products, from which we can also find some future trends in the smart home industry.

First of all, in order not to allow users to continuously adjust each device, an automated intelligent learning mechanism is indispensable. In this regard, both Nest and SmartThings have a “brain” to actively learn the preferences of the user. This “brain” can automatically learn, automatically adjust, and can set different modes according to different groups of people. If intelligent products have automatic learning capabilities, they can automatically predict when they encounter failures.

This point is applied to indoor environment control as well. Take air conditioning as an example. After all, in the process of using air conditioners, many users may feel that this is not what they want, and they hope to have an intelligent adjustment method. ,Automatic adjustment.

Second, from the perspective of the Internet, things are connected together, and smart home products are naturally no exception. Therefore, in addition to “self-intelligence,” indoor environment control products should also have “full connectivity” capabilities. Nowadays, people often have home-related equipment such as air conditioners, smoke detection, air purification, etc. If these devices can only be controlled separately, then surely it is not a smart home. Therefore, a truly intelligent indoor environment control product should be able to control every environment-related device. It should be a multi-brand, multi-category compatible and open-source product that supports personal development.

Finally, although we very much hope that the "brain" of the smart home will automatically help us to accomplish all things, this is the ultimate goal, and we must inevitably have occasional dealings with them. At this time, a friendly human-computer interaction mode is naturally essential.

As a family's owner, regardless of where they are, they can control the user remotely. Everything in the home is under control. When the brains of these smart devices malfunction infrequently, they can be done by simply sliding the screen several times. Combining cell phone control with remote operation, a “touching” mode of operation has become standard to some extent.

Therefore, an intelligent indoor environment control device not only needs an automated learning mechanism, connection capability, but also a touch-sensitive operation mode.

In terms of home intelligence, foreign companies like Nest, SmartThings and others have already done a lot of exploration. Some of these product-level features are also reflected in some domestic smart home devices. At present, domestic companies are also making some attempts, such as home appliance giant Haier, will domestic companies try to reflect these factors? There is no conclusive conclusion at this moment and we can only wait and see.

We also look forward to Haier's traditional home appliance companies that can eventually use their accumulated experience in the home appliance industry to make smart home products that suit the needs of domestic home users.