In early June of this year, Apple launched HomeKit, a smart home management application, for the first time at the Global Developers Conference, and released the first list of partners. China's home appliance giant Haier is famous.
Li Li, the head of Haier U-home, said in a written interview with the reporter of China Business News yesterday that the cooperation between Haier and Apple will start with air purification products such as air conditioners.
When Apple and Haier U-home teamed up, another smart home alliance "IGRS" in the country will be aligned with Google, which is fascinating. Wang Bin, deputy secretary-general of the IGRS Information Industry Association, told this reporter yesterday that IGRS does not rule out cooperation with Android.
As the smart home and smart home appliances industry heat up again, competition and integration accelerate, and new battles emerge.
Apple's "addition and subtraction"
Apple has always been a maverick, hardware and software "take all", but in the new blue ocean of smart home, it has adopted an open cooperation model.
In Apple's HomeKit partner list, in addition to Haier, there are lighting manufacturers such as Philips, CREE, and Marvell, Honeywell and other top global manufacturers. Apple hopes to control the smart home through smart voice Siri, such as opening the garage, doors and lights when you get home.
Sun Yingxi, dean of the South China Household Electrical Appliances Research Institute, believes that Apple is doing "subtraction", no longer has its own big package, and through a limited and orderly opening, "form a top smart home club." Not every manufacturer can enter it casually, and the threshold is higher.
"First Financial Daily" reporter interviewed "2014 Guangzhou International Lighting Exhibition" last week, I learned that Philips' smart LED decorative light system Hue can control color and brightness through iPhone or iPad. Three small LED bulbs and a small controller cost about $1,700. Jin Xiaohui, senior lighting application specialist for Philips Lighting China, said that Hue's smart lighting system is already available in Apple stores in the United States.
Chen Haishan, director of the senior promotion department of Career China Market, estimates that Cree and Apple may also cooperate with smart lighting products.
Wang Bin believes that from the perspective of product lines, Apple is actually doing "addition." Apple's own product line is not long, in the smart home tide, through cooperation, to expand the product line. Unlike Apple's iOS system, Android has a lot of freedom. In China's ecosystem, it is "playing big", and Apple's open smart home platform is "a last resort."
Mutual cooperation with Haier
In Chen Haishan's view, smart home is an opportunity to rewrite the industry landscape. In addition to Apple, Google, Samsung, LG, Haier, Changhong and other Korean and Chinese companies are also actively building their own smart home platform. "Samsung's winning face is bigger. It has color TVs, mobile phones, white goods, product lines, and a complete set of smart home solutions. Bluetooth lights are also available at the lighting show."
Perhaps because of this, Apple did not choose Samsung, LG, and did not want to cultivate competitors, Haier is a more reliable partner.
Of course, Haier can also just borrow money from Apple. In March of this year, Haier launched the smart life operating system U+, which combined dozens of domestic and hundreds of partners, including Baidu, LeTV, BesTV, PPTV, iQiyi, Huashu and so on.
Liu Baojian, CEO of Zhuhai Sanyitang Technology Co., Ltd., is also one of Haier U+'s partners, mainly doing fitness APP. He believes that Haier's cooperation with Apple will definitely bring benefits to U+ partners. "If Apple opens up the collected user health monitoring data, we will benefit."
“Haier’s smart home system is moving from closed to open, but it will work hard on the construction of the ecological chain.†Liu Baojian said, how to attract more high-quality resources to the U+ platform, “joining with Apple will undoubtedly increase Haier’s chips†.
However, the cooperation between Haier and Apple will begin with Haier's own products.
Li Li said that Haier has positioned itself as a provider of smart home solutions. "The cooperation between Haier and Apple HomeKit is mainly reflected in the terminal products and software. That is, Haier's terminal products can be presented to users through HomeKit. Haier's smart life service software (such as APP) can be used in Apple's smart home applications. reflect."
She revealed that Apple's products with Haier will first be cut from air-conditioning or healthy air products. “The haze in the north of China (PM2.5) is quite serious, and as an ordinary user, it is not clear how the smog in your home is, and how to get rid of the smog. Our new products will help users solve these problems. problem."
Will Google work with IGRS?
Sun Yingxi expects that Apple's intervention will trigger a new wave of smart homes. However, Apple cannot "take all", it is only aimed at the high-end market of smart home. "Besides Apple, smart homes will certainly have several camps. When Apple and Haier U+ cooperate, will Google team up with IGRS?"
Wang Bin also analyzed that Apple HomeKit controls smart home products using Bluetooth technology. In addition to Bluetooth, ZigBee, WiFi and other connection technologies are also good. Haier U-home has a lot of partners, but other major home appliance companies in China have not joined.
"IGRS is an international organization with members from China, the United States, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Israel, etc. In addition to cooperation with traditional home appliance companies such as Midea, Hisense, Changhong, TCL, Konka, Skyworth, we also cooperate with Internet companies. In the future, IGRS does not rule out cooperation with Android." Wang Bin said.
In this regard, Li Li admits that there are many technical standards in the field of smart homes, and there are many influential standards organizations. Ejiajia (Itophome, Haier) and IGRS are just two of them.
She said: "In the field of smart home, there is not yet a coalition organization that can propose a complete technical standard system accepted by the market. There are also situations in which multiple technology systems coexist. This aspect is of course a factor restricting market development, from another The aspect also fully demonstrates that smart home is still in the stage of multi-technology competition in the early stage of development. Enterprises such as Apple and Google will certainly have an impact on the development of various technology systems due to their technology choices, but will not change the status quo of multiple technical systems. Will only accelerate multi-technology competition and integration."
At the beginning of this year, Google's acquisition of the thermostat company Nest, coupled with the domestic home power plant competing to release the smart strategy, has triggered a boom in smart homes and smart home appliances in the domestic capital market. However, the performance of a quarterly report has ignited some enthusiasm. Today, Apple launched HomeKit, which set off a new wave of enthusiasm.
Li Li predicted: "If all enterprises can take smart home as their main strategic development direction, continue to invest and explore the development model, smart home will occupy the entire home equipment and service market in the next two to three years. %~20%, this will be a period of real rapid development of smart homes."
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