In the long debate of "tuyere" or "gimmick", smart home products have quietly flown into the "ordinary people's homes". Today's smart home products have not only stayed in the concept stage, all kinds of magic "imagination" has been landed into reality. The rapid rise of intelligent voice assistants has made them an important "entrance" to series smart home devices. The continuous development of intelligent security products has significantly improved the quality of life. In the next step, smart home products should solve the problem of interconnection, break barriers, and bring consumers a better smart life.

Whether in the domestic or global market, smart home in the past year have delivered a bright "report card".

In the global market, shipments of smart home products grew by 39% in 2018, and the global smart home market is expected to reach $155 billion by 2023, according to data from UK-based consultancy Future Origins. In China, the just released IDC China Smart Home Device Market Quarterly Tracking report also shows that in 2018, China's smart home market shipments reached 150 million units, an increase of 35.9% year-on-year. Smart home devices already help users with daily tasks, improve security and save on energy bills, and the category has become the fastest-growing segment of consumer electronics, said Future Origins analyst Philippa Oliveira.

Smart voice is the focus

At the just-ended CES (Consumer Electronics Show), smart voice assistants dominated the stands of Google and Amazon, with their connected cameras, thermometers, air conditioners, and doorbells taking pride of place. Amazon says its voice assistant is installed on more than 100 million devices; Google, on the other hand, reported that in 2018, the number of products including smartphones, smart watches and smart home devices with Google's voice Assistant built in rose from 400 million to 1 billion.

In China, voice assistants are also the focus of the giants' smart home layout. Baidu released DuerOS, a conversational AI operating system, in July 2017, which focuses on enabling machines to acquire human language capabilities through automatic learning. Alibaba's Tmall Genie, a smart speaker with functions including smart home control, voice shopping, mobile phone recharge, ordering takeout and playing music, shipped 6.15 million units in the first three quarters of 2018. On the Xiaomi side, the intelligent voice assistant "Xiaoai" is also connected to many smart home devices on the Xiaomi ecological chain, and the voice assistant is applied on more than 100 million devices.

The giants' huge investment in intelligent voice assistants has made smart speakers the fastest growing category in the smart home. According to a report by market research firm Canalys, 5.8 million smart speakers were shipped in China in the third quarter of 2018, making China the world's second largest smart speaker market after the United States from the first quarter of 2018.

The "prosperity" of intelligent voice assistant comes from the "evolution" of human-computer interaction. Mary Meeker, the "Queen of the Internet," once said, "voice is being reshaped as the new paradigm of human-computer interaction, from the physical handle button to the physical keyboard and mouse to the touch screen, and now voice is an important interaction mode."

Because of this, intelligent voice assistants, or smart speakers equipped with intelligent voice assistants, are regarded by manufacturers as the "entrance" to connect smart home devices. Jia Mo, smart home analyst at Canalys, said: "As manufacturers compete for a dominant position in the smart speaker market, they are really fighting for first-time buyers and consumers who are just starting to build their own smart home device systems." IDC also said in its own research report: it is expected that by 2019, more than 80% of smart home devices will be controlled through smart speakers, and the voice assistant will be installed in 28% of smart home market shipments in 2018, which is expected to reach 39% by 2019. In the future, it will be more applied in smart sockets, smart cameras and smart gateways and other products.

Smart security becomes "just Needed"

If the value of intelligent voice assistant as the "entrance" lies in the "series", then the value of intelligent security equipment represented by intelligent door locks and intelligent cameras as the "entrance" lies in the "just need". Data shows that the global smart security market size will reach $47 billion in 2020, and three out of five US consumers purchase smart home products and monitor their homes through smartphones.

Yang Ge Lock Industry, a company with more than 20 years of experience in making door locks in Zhongshan, Guangdong province, has switched to smart locks since last year. "Sales of smart locks have exceeded expectations and are now selling more than five times as many doors as traditional locks," said Yang Guangui, chairman of the board. Zhao Hongwu, director of Lock Information Center of China Daily Hardware Technology Development Center, also said that intelligent door locks are developing at a high speed, with a production capacity of nearly 15 million sets in 2018.

In the capital market, intelligent door lock enterprises are also favored. At the end of 2018, Baidu announced to lead the D round of financing of smart door lock enterprise "Yunding Technology"; Merit Technology, which focuses on smart locks and security, received 700 million yuan from Alibaba in January 2019. In this field, there are not only more than 10 startups, but also traditional security giants such as Haikang and Dahua that have quickly cut into the field. Data show that at present, there are more than 1300 manufacturers of intelligent door lock industry in our country, nearly 2800 brands.

IDC predicts in its research report that with the gradual increase in the demand for home scene automation, the market for home environment, security and control devices will usher in a period of rapid growth, and the growth rate is expected to reach 60% in 2019. "For users, products that achieve intelligence at a lower cost and can significantly improve the convenience of life because of high frequency of use are easier to stimulate their purchase demand. So from a vendor's point of view, the smart home market is an easier category to locate." Hong Shibin, chairman of Guangzhou Yuecheng Investment Holding Co., LTD., an investment institution, said that if the smart door lock can be effectively connected with other smart home devices, then the smart door lock will also become an important entrance to the smart home.

Connectivity needs to be broken

"We're seeing consumer enthusiasm for smart home products, but the question is how do you connect these devices better?" said Ben Arnold, senior director of innovation and trends at the Consumer Technology Association, at the opening of CES 2019.

Since 2014, including Internet enterprises, mobile phone manufacturers, home appliance manufacturers have entered the smart home industry, but there are huge differences between smart home brands and brands, products and products, and the inability to communicate with each other is also the biggest "pain point" hindering the development of the industry. Zhang Jianfeng, deputy secretary general of China Household Appliances Business Association, said: "The value of the Internet of things is that equipment and equipment can cooperate with each other, but in the smart home market, it is difficult to forge a joint industrial collaboration platform in a short period of time, which will directly affect the purchase choice of consumers." Guo Qinglong, chief analyst of light industry of Huachuang Securities, also said that at present, smart home enterprises are basically fighting for themselves, so interconnection has become a bottleneck in the development of smart home industry.

Lin Wei, chief marketing officer of smart home enterprise Yagang Technology, said: "First, each manufacturer for their own protection or a single big consideration, not open the interface, or conditionally open the interface, set up obstacles to the interconnection of smart home systems; Second, the lack of a unified industry standard, even if each system provides an interface, it is not directly compatible, and ultimately cannot form an industrial effect."

However, things are changing, and "connectivity" is starting to be seen as the key word in the battle for the next entry point to the smart home. Including Alibaba, Baidu, Huawei, Xiaomi, etc., have begun to build their own smart home platform, smart home equipment has begun to "test the water" to support multiple smart home platform systems. "Although the breakthrough is still local, a large number of smart home enterprises are using the power of the platform to break down the Internet barriers to achieve more device interconnection, scene construction and experience. The future will be a true era of win-win cooperation between the platform level and the construction of smart home connectivity," said the China Business Industry Research Institute, a market research institute, in its research report. IDC predicts that by 2019, 67% of smart home devices will be able to connect to the home interconnection platform, and 23% of smart home devices will be able to support two or more interconnection platforms. This not only broadens the product choice space for users, but also expands the scope of the smart home industry ecology.