Haier: What are the ambitions of smart homes?

Appliances Lao Haier released its “U+ smart operating system” in Shanghai in a high-profile manner. Through this system, users can realize cross-brand and cross-product interconnection with all smart home terminals; Haier’s smart home debuted at the US CES in early January. The product Haier Air Ball (also known as Air Box) also launched a pre-sale on the Internet recently.

According to relevant Haier sources, the Haier U+ smart living system is an upgrade of the previous Haier e Alliance. It is an open cooperation platform that includes open SDKs, API standards, access to various brand categories, and the opening of the platform. Covering a full range of smart home solutions, U+ smart home connected platform, U+ cloud service platform and U+ big data analysis platform are the technical support. Based on this platform, a wide range of household appliances such as home appliances, lighting, curtains, and security in the user's home can realize cross-brand and cross-product interconnection.

To put it bluntly, after using Haier’s operating system, it is only necessary to use one terminal to control various smart objects in the home, just like controlling TVs with a remote control. However, compared to TV remote controls, the new terminal has thousands of miles before Remote control, the function of the Internet of Everything.

Haier Air Ball is a smart hardware similar to NEST. It detects indoor air temperature, humidity, VOC, PM2.5, etc. It can also control home air conditioners, air purifiers and other home appliances to work. Haier said that consumers can use this air ball to connect air devices in their homes infinitely, intelligently, and conveniently and remotely through mobile phones and other mobile terminals.

On one side is the box and the other is the operating system. Haier is obviously well-prepared. How often does Haier have a smart home ambition behind it?

Before answering this question, it is necessary for the author to take a look at the status quo of smart homes and do a little "science popularization."

Smart home is not a new concept. Its development has been more than a decade old. From Google Android@Home to Microsoft HomeOS, there are many players from abroad to home.

When it comes to smart homes, people first think about networking. Such as refrigerator Internet access, washing machine Internet access, TV Internet access, microwave oven Internet access, these products are traditional manufacturers thinking to do "smart home", in fact, not much intelligence. Moreover, similar smart homes have high penetration rates due to high prices, low practical value, and high costs for follow-up use and maintenance. They are only used locally in small areas.

The "smart home" that has been promoted by manufacturers for more than a decade has been thundery and rainy, and has not been developed. What are the reasons? In addition to being influenced by the atmosphere of innovation and the market, there are no uniform standards for the industry, and all vendors are in their own hands. The lack of an open mind is also the main reason.

Smart home is not an isolated application, but it should be a complete system. Its operation requires the integration of numerous resources. The difficulty in resource integration lies not in technology. The difficulty in integration between different industries does not lie in integration, but in the integration and balance of benefits between multiple parties. The smart home industry is not a single company that can do it alone. Cross-sector, cross-industry, and industry-wide alliances will be the trend.

Although on the surface, smart homes have stagnated, they are actually turbulent. Well-known columnist Borton summarized the current entrants in the field of smart homes into three categories: the Haier model of traditional home appliance giants using the Internet for open innovation; the founder model represented by the small startup team iKair; and the Internet. The user-oriented millet model of integrated manufacturing services (millet launched the millet router blade refers to the smart home control center).

If you make a brief analysis, it is not difficult to see that the product directions of these three types of companies have similarities. Millet just hot the phone, can not wait to develop intelligent routers, because the router is almost every home must-have network terminal, is a good entry point into the smart home; iKair is also the main air intelligence products, air quality is When the most sensitive topics of the Chinese people are concerned, it is easy to draw attention; Haier Airball has functionally deployed two lines: air equipment management and air quality management monitoring.

To sum up, they are all trying to penetrate a high-viscous product that can catch the user's "pain point", attract users, and then take the entrance of the smart home, grasp the entrance, and then create an open platform, access to the The three parties’ software, hardware, and services are stationed.

Having said this, it is not difficult to understand why Haier will launch Haier Air Ball and the U+ operating system intensively. The two seem to have little relevance, but in reality they are closely related. The air ball is to occupy the entrance, and the U+ operating system is to build an open platform and an ecosystem to take control of the smart home. This should be the true purpose and ambition of Haier's latest series of actions.

Although Haier has not officially stated the relationship between Haier air ball and U+ operating system, I suspect that Haier air ball should be based on the U+ operating system, which is an application example. Haier should not be satisfied with this entrance to the air ball, media reports also show that Haier is also developing its intelligent router products. Haier's elephant is frequently shot and will undoubtedly pose a great threat to Xiaomi and iKair.

The beautiful scene of smart homes is imaginative, and the elephants are dancing and the crowds are the biggest attraction of smart homes. This is destined to become another round of new hot spots after the PC era, the Internet era, and the mobile internet. Last but not least, it is necessary to remind those companies that still remain in the smart upgrade of single products: Take too slow, be careful about losing the team!