"The Final End of Smart Speakers May Mirror Smart Watches"
Last year, my colleagues and I experimented with HTC Vive while walking along Bentham Street. I was incredibly excited. At that time, we aimed to create a "slotslot index" for tech products. This meant counting the number of products with the highest street presence to gauge which products stood out. HTC Vive had an exceptionally high lying slot index, and even our younger colleagues were sprawled out by the end of the demo.
This year, I read some media reviews of Nintendo's new Switch handheld console and "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild." They introduced a fresh term I interpret as "time freshness," which refers to how much new ground you uncover as you engage with a product. The more you explore, the fresher the experience becomes. This depth over time can make a product increasingly appealing.
I believe that if both the "floating index" and "time freshness" are high enough, a digital product might become indispensable. Honestly, as I wrote about various smart speaker technologies, products, and experiences, it felt like last year when I wrote about VR—lots of hype, lots of "buy, buy, buy."
Sure, nearly all major Chinese internet giants and AI companies are vying to showcase their prowess in this area. These tangible, "visible," "touchable," and "audible" hardware products are far more convincing than "PowerPoint AI."
But does having advanced AI technology alone ensure a successful product launch?
A speaker's intelligence and "time freshness" are constrained by how many smart appliances it can integrate. The entry of tech giants quickly heated up the speaker market.
January 2017: Baidu teamed up with Fish to release a video intercom robot equipped with DuerOS.
June 2017: Tencent unveiled the pro-see H2 in collaboration with Digital Home.
July 2017: Alibaba launched the Tmall Genie X1, equipped with the AliGenie human-computer interaction system.
Major corporations and speaker manufacturers are fixated on the speaker market, driven by the desire to dominate smart home entrances and leverage big data.
However, even Rokid, which started three years ago, hasn't fared well on the consumer end of smart speakers. This isn't due to the speakers themselves.
On one hand, Chinese consumers have lingering memories of traditional speakers; on the other, the home environment in China contrasts sharply with smart speakers. There aren't enough scene-specific elements, so seamless integration remains challenging.
Unlike sound quality and recognition accuracy, the "time freshness" of a smart speaker depends on how many smart devices you can connect at home. Only when there are enough smart devices can the core function of "voice control" shine.
Deciding whether to buy a smart speaker has shifted from "how good are the speakers?" to "how many smart devices do consumers own?" and "can these devices connect?" It's no longer just about the AI technology showcased by smart speaker manufacturers.
Most people don't have enough scalable marginal products at home. Even "geeky homes" face the issue of fragmented ecosystems:
"I bought a Tmall Genie but couldn’t connect to Jingdong’s smart AC; I got a Xenon speaker but couldn’t link to Ali’s smart humidifier; I bought my H2 but couldn’t sync with Xiaomi’s smart lights."
For the past three years, the fragmentation in smart home systems could be managed via a single app on a smartphone. However, manufacturers can't expect users to purchase multiple smart speakers.
Conversely, it's unrealistic to expect users to limit themselves to appliances from a single platform when smart speakers cost around $1,000.
Thus, China's smart speakers remain limited to basic functions like playing music, telling jokes, and providing weather updates—superficial features with little substance.
The fire in the West doesn't necessarily burn as bright in the East.
In November 2014, Amazon's Echo smart speaker hit the market. Today's smart speakers, including BAT's efforts, trace back to this product.
In 2014, Echo was more focused on being a speaker, making it hard to see as an entry point for family scenes, let alone slots. By 2017, Echo pivoted into a voice-based platform, reportedly offering over 10,000 skills.
Perhaps Jeff Bezos saw something. Two years after Echo launched, Google Home with Google Assistant debuted.
In less than three years, Echo's sales approached 10 million. According to eMarketer, 70.6% of U.S. smart speaker users are Amazon customers, compared to Google's 23.8%.
Amazon's surprise success ignited the Chinese consumer electronics market searching for new growth points.
But broadly speaking, the Chinese speaker market isn't just hot because of Echo. At Apple's 2017 WWDC, Apple unveiled the HomePod, focusing more on sound quality than AI and voice assistants.
"Apple's definition of the product is clever because conversational speakers don't resonate with average consumers. But if it's an Apple speaker product, emphasizing traditional 'audio quality,' it could attract more attention."
This reflects natural logic—from buying a speaker to owning one, eventually using it to converse. This is the logic behind Amazon's and overseas markets' approach to smart speakers.
But this differs from China's current focus on AI-driven products. Chinese consumers rarely buy speakers annually, and there's less interest in smart speakers. Moreover, AI remains an obscure technology, and Chinese speech tech has issues.
In other words, the Western world marvels at how speakers lack "slots." It's a natural progression—smart speakers evolved from traditional speakers.
In China, packaging a speaker with AI to force adoption is misplaced.
Overseas research firm Counterpoint predicts 2 million smart speakers entering China this year, trailing behind the U.S.'s 14 million. Using Aurora Big Data, we analyzed mainstream smart speaker data in China to reflect current user shares:
[Image description: Chart showing smart speaker usage distribution]
Since all smart speakers require a mobile app for setup, we can gauge shipment levels through installed app capacities. As seen, domestic smart speaker rankings correlate directly with release times, and app release timing impacts rankings. However, two years later, the installed capacity of "smart speakers" remains around 90,000.
While this doesn't fully represent sales, it suggests that smart speakers haven't gained significant traction compared to smartwatches over the past two years.
Smart speakers aren't yet mainstream in the consumer market.
How long will it take?
"The giants are paving the way, making more people aware of these products," "current capabilities are limited, but we'll refine them," "features will improve with product upgrades," and "we must wait patiently for this market to explode..."
This sums up responses from speaker companies regarding China's lukewarm smart speaker market.
Both business owners and market researchers believe China's market needs time for the smart speaker boom.
PingWest's product stats show that despite BAT platforms deploying AI and smart speakers, only around 10 products have reached consumers.
Consumers don't pay for technology. This year, AI's growth aims for consumer hardware. More hardware leads to more consumers, driving product sales, which fund technology, creating a virtuous cycle.
Before the market takes off and consumers adopt smart speakers, educating them early falls on giants and manufacturers.
Of course, "going down" requires financial backing—raising valuations or cutting costs to refine product experiences and expand speaker applications in home scenes until market adoption.
High valuations, low sales, and uncertain profitability raise questions about sustaining capital inflows. Will companies, products, and entrepreneurs in this space ever gain clarity? Too many variables exist, leaving the outcome unclear.
Years ago, last-bubble products...
Talking about "going down" and smart home connections reminded me of tech bubble products.
Illustration from: kejilie
Two or three years ago, smart hardware boomed but faded again. Essentially, adding WiFi to traditional hardware under a "Smart" label proved a pseudo-need. People didn't want to control homes via phones, and general acceptance was low. Many firms became bubbles.
Last year, VR became a bubble due to insufficient technology, narrow applications, poor experiences, high prices, inflated company valuations, and excessive capital, forming a massive bubble;
This year, AI talent trends toward becoming a bubble—high costs, inflated company valuations, unmet civilian needs, limited widespread value creation, potentially leading C-side companies to form bubbles;
I focus on elements matching bubbles:
In the short term, many emerge—on the speaker issue, due to BAT platform openings, numerous tech startups appeared, but core tech still relies on individuals; many shell products resulted from BAT competition, and some entrepreneurs covering tech shells fell.
Inputs and outputs aren't proportional—making good products is a tech output process; speaker-makers are essentially AI companies. Tech must reach consumers to feel value. Without broad adoption, tech investments become bubbles.
Fundamentally, smart speakers are hardware + voice (AI tech). Currently, AI improvements for voice interaction are limited, and C-end users haven't widely adopted it. No extensive scenario applications have formed.
From tech maturity to product application, if products aren't widely adopted and lack "time freshness," they risk becoming short-lived outlets...
Actually, I have a smart speaker.
As someone in this industry, my family owns a smart speaker.
A few months ago, I bought one from a smart speaker founder before it launched. Regarding improving voice tech efficiency—I've developed habits of listening to music and news with this product. Every morning, I say, "Play news!" and "Play upbeat music."
So far, it's the best product I consider. Its design and voice tech experience give a high "slotslot" index; I developed some voice commands. But in building a smart home, progress isn't smooth—it requires replacing all home appliances or being selective. Over time, it stagnated, losing "freshness," becoming more like a "regular speaker."
This reminds me of my first Apple Watch. I set everything up but ended up with a daily-charging "regular watch."
The smart speaker's end may mirror lying on a gray smartwatch, a pity to use.
Solar Water Heater
Solar Water Heater is a kind of household or commercial equipment that uses solar energy to heat water, which belongs to the category of light and heat utilization in solar power generation equipment. The following is a detailed introduction to the categories of Solar Water Heater:
I. Basic definition
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Foshan Keylewatt Technology Co., LTD , https://www.klwenergy.com