Can the success of nest inject a shot in the arm into the smart home industry in China, which is far away from the other side of the ocean? Change the tepid situation of domestic smart home industry?
Subversion begins with imitation.
Founded only four years ago, nest has become one of the top ten thermostat suppliers in the United States, second only to Honeywell, which ranks first.
Four years ago, Tony Fadell and Matt Rogers, who had made great contributions to Apple, jointly founded nest. Two years later, the company’s market value was 800 million US dollars, and this year it was acquired by Google for 3.2 billion US dollars. They pay attention to the field of household electronic products forgotten by Silicon Valley, and introduce new designs to make products more intelligent. So far, they only have two products, namely intelligent thermostat and intelligent smoke sensor.
Thermostat is an automatic control device that operates according to the temperature change and is used to keep the required temperature of the regulated object. Although thermostats are not common in China, European and American families have long been a must-have product. Honeywell has always been an unshakable leader in the field of thermostats, occupying a very high market share.
Nest learning thermostat is not a new product, and it can even be said that it is challenging a relatively mature product. This intelligent thermostat can automatically control heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment (such as air conditioner, electric heater, etc.) to keep the indoor temperature constant at your set temperature.
Some people call nest an "artificial learning machine". Intelligent thermostats with sensors can learn people’s habits and simulate people’s thinking or thoughts. After the server analyzes the data, the room temperature is kept at the most comfortable temperature, and even when there is no one in the room, it can keep the energy-saving state. There is a data model in the background of nest, which simulates users’ behavior habits and then matches them according to the temperature and humidity of the space scene.
Many similar products in China make a fuss about panels or mobile devices to achieve one-button control or scene control. But I didn’t think about how to design actively according to the space environment or the needs of users, like a housekeeper, like nest.
Needless to say, Honeywell has a smooth control interface based on ipad, a building automation protocol, and a well-controlled interface and terminal. Honeywell, with rich experience and technology, is quickly surpassed by nest because of intelligent learning, which imitates human behavior instead of setting a bunch of complicated parameters. This is also the soul of nest.
In fact, nest’s thermostat is a simple installation. Users can connect it to the original thermostat and use it as usual. After one week, they can discard the previous thermostat. This is what makes nest great. It has become a control panel for consumer electronics rather than system integration.
Founded only four years ago, nest has become one of the top ten thermostat suppliers in the United States, second only to Honeywell, which ranks first. Subversion from internet companies has surpassed a large number of established companies that have been working hard for decades or even hundreds of years at the end of building automation in a short time.
Of course, why is the acquisition of nest 3.2 billion instead of 32 million? The value of nest is definitely not only two small products, but also an important pawn in Google’s layout. Google with Android system can make more layouts along the hardware direction, all of which starts with the change of intelligent thermostat. In the future, it may be a smart door lock or an open source hardware electric iron. You can try to connect all kinds of household appliances, and finally plan the whole smart home based on Android platform.
There is a famous cartoon in foreign countries, in which Google is beating with nest. Who is Google knocking at? Apple? Microsoft? Or the original complex system of intelligent building enterprises? Obviously, these are the objects that Google wants to beat. Just like what Jobs did with a Mac to a closed, ugly PC like IBM. Google has said no to the closed system through nest! Outline smart home with open source systems and hardware. Of course, it needs two excellent products that are deeply rooted in people’s hearts to get out of this way.
Just need is a false proposition
Wang Jian, CTO of Alibaba Group, said that there may be no reason to connect home appliances to the Internet, but in many cases, home appliances are connected to the Internet before finding applications.
People often ask, which product in smart home is just needed? In fact, smart home itself is not just needed, but a product to improve life. It is not that you can’t survive without a smart product at home. Many families in the United States don’t have nest, and they have no problem with Honeywell, so just need is a false proposition.
Compared with just need, the high-frequency use and rapid growth of smart homes are obviously more reliable. The smog continues to hang over the city, and breathing fresh air has become a luxury. People can’t help thinking, the outdoor air condition will be difficult to improve for a while, can we make the indoor air cleaner? Indoor air testing purifier has become a product that people pursue, which is close to people’s rigid demand.
Last year, the sales of air purifiers in JD.COM Mall was 1 billion yuan, and this year it is expected to reach 3 billion yuan. This is just an electronic mall in JD.COM, and it does not include Taobao and agents under various air purifiers. The idea of this kind of products is basically the same. First, monitor the temperature, humidity, PM2.5 and formaldehyde, and then control them together to improve the indoor air quality. It is a top-selling product in JD.COM, with a price of 18,000 yuan. The product is very simple, and there is no LCD panel. The filtering effect is very good. It is not difficult to see from the user evaluation that this product has become the first choice of foreign companies.
Recently, Haier Air Box started the first round of limited online pre-sale, which made its debut at CES in January this year. Haier air box can monitor indoor PM2.5, VOC harmful gases, as well as temperature and humidity. Users can know the air quality at home anytime and anywhere through the mobile App, and remotely control the air conditioner and air purifier switch at home through the App.
Network security vendor 360 will cooperate with TCL, a home appliance company, to launch an intelligent Internet air purifier — T3 Air Guard, which is expected to be officially released on April 9. Compared with traditional products, the biggest advantage of T3 Air Guard and traditional air purifier is that they can be connected to the Internet through WiFi module for 24 hours, thus combining air purifier, mobile phone App and 360 cloud platform. Maybe when you use T3 Air Guard, 360 will remind you that the air quality in your home has defeated 99% users in the country. I believe that 360 can bring a big breakthrough in user experience.
The market penetration rate of air purifiers in the United States is about 30%, and the domestic figure is only a few thousandths. Undoubtedly, this is a field with low base and high growth. It is not difficult to understand that Internet companies and home appliance manufacturers are accelerating their layout.
have equal shares (of sth)
It has become a future trend to connect all aspects of home life intelligently by using integrated wiring technology, network communication technology, smart home-system design scheme security technology, automatic control technology and audio-video technology. As Wang Jian, CTO of Alibaba Group, said at the strategic cooperation agreement meeting between Midea and Ali, there may be no reason to connect home appliances to the Internet, but in many cases, home appliances are connected to the Internet before finding applications. At least this point has been recognized by many home appliance manufacturers, so that every home appliance is connected to the internet, thus enhancing the user experience.
As the destination of smart home, cloud has also been recognized in the industry. Alibaba and Midea jointly build an open platform of Internet of Things based on Alibaba Cloud to realize the connection dialogue and remote control of home appliances. Alibaba Cloud will provide computing, storage and network connection capabilities, and Midea can connect products to the platform. (Source: OFweek Internet of Things)
Coincidentally, Haier Group recently held a smart life experience sharing meeting in Shanghai, and released a brand-new U+ smart life operating system, which is divided into multiple intelligent management modules such as air, water, food, life and community. Users can communicate with all smart home terminals in 12 seconds through this system. Connect all home appliances to the cloud, but Haier is going it alone, and Midea chooses to cooperate with Ali, who is strong in the cloud.
As an important part of smart home, smart TV and box became one of the hottest products last year. Most Internet companies start with boxes and cooperate with traditional hardware manufacturers to try their best. Few of them independently produce smart TVs from beginning to end like LeTV.
Xiaomi only involves the field of smart TV, and does not dare to jump into the smart refrigerator and smart air conditioner industry. The reason is very simple. Unlike the fast-iterative Internet products, the industrial chain model of the home appliance manufacturing industry is very heavy. Without a lot of money, if you don’t know how to play, you will surely stumble. This is also one of the important reasons why internet companies have not blindly entered the field of smart home appliances, just spinning around on the edge, or choosing to cooperate with traditional home appliance companies.
The domestic smart home has just started, and it is still difficult to judge whether the platform for connecting smart home appliances to Internet companies or home appliance manufacturers has its own platform. Both sides have their own advantages and disadvantages, and they also have the opportunity to seize smart homes. (Source: OFweek Internet of Things)