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Under the wave of intelligence driven by technologies such as 5G, AI, and cloud computing, home products that are closely related to people's lives are becoming increasingly intelligent, and the smart home market is showing a thriving development trend.

According to data from iMedia Consulting, the size of China's smart home market continued to expand from 2016 to 2020. In 2020, the size of China's smart home market increased by 11.4% year-on-year to 170.5 billion yuan. In the future, the scale of China's smart home market is expected to further expand, and is expected to exceed 200 billion yuan by 2022.

With the arrangement and combination of various technologies in smart home products, device scenarios are constantly refined, and the track of the smart home industry is becoming increasingly complex. How can the smart home field support the realization of value in the future? Still a thought-provoking issue.

The entry logic and value logic of smart homes

Since the birth of smart home, it has experienced more than ten years of development in China. Whether it is a giant in the Internet, hardware, home appliances field, or a unicorn in the vertical field, they have chosen to use their own advantages to cut into different links and different segments, hoping to cut a piece of cake from the smart home market.

The history of smart home development so far is also a history of competition for the entrance to smart homes. After all, how to cut the biggest cake in the smart home industry is a key consideration for all players? From the development experience of the Internet in the past, seizing the entrance has become the first standard answer ", but the entrance of smart home always seems to be" unpredictable ".

Smart speakers, smart routers, smart TVs, and smart refrigerators have all been hailed as the gateway to smart home living. Trying again and again, major manufacturers found that there were entrances everywhere and stories could be told, but in the end, they became at a loss. Today, the entrance to smart homes seems like a deserted street, so how can smart homes find the real entrance?

From the perspective of Internet Jianghu, the so-called entrance is not the entrance to the Internet or the Internet of Things, but the entrance to people. Based on this standard, it seems that the position of mobile phones as portals has not changed from the Internet era to the Internet of Things era.

It can be found that the strategies released by mobile phone manufacturers that are deeply involved in the smart home field today have certain similarities, which can be roughly summarized as "1+n+x". Among them, "1" represents each manufacturer's mobile phone products, "n" represents the advantages of each manufacturer's smart home products or future strategic smart home products, and "x" represents a wider range of smart home ecosystem products, with only "n" being the difference.

For example, Xiaomi's "1+4+X" strategy, where "4" refers to four advantageous products: smart TVs, smart speakers, smart routers, and laptops; There is also Huawei's "1+8+N", where "8" represents Huawei's important products such as PCs, tablets, smart screens, speakers, glasses, watches, car consoles, headphones, etc. As for Vivo and OPPO, they are more like pure mobile phone companies that started late in the smart home field and have a weak foundation.

The so-called "entrance" seems to have returned to the hands of mobile phone manufacturers after a round of rotation.

To put it abstractly, the word 'mobile phone' is equivalent to a signpost. If the signpost used to point to communication, now it points to the entrance to people. No matter how the signpost of "mobile phone" changes in the future, the entrance is here, and it will not change. From this perspective, the position of mobile phones as entry points still exists, but this does not mean that the competition for entry points has lost its meaning. In the future, entry points may still change and take on another form.

So what is the underlying logic behind the crazy competition among players other than mobile phone manufacturers in the smart home market? How should the value of the future smart home industry be calculated?

Today's smart home is actually equivalent to the Internet of Things in the future. Smart home is the table, and the Internet of Things is the inside. The giants are actually betting on the next "network" after the Internet. So what is the value of the Internet of Things?

Computer networking pioneer Robert Metcalfe once believed that the value of a network should increase by the square of its users. The value of a network is equal to the square of the number of nodes in the network, and the value of the network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users.

It is also the "network". Since Metcalfe's law can explain the value of the Internet, it has certain reference significance for the Internet of Things.

First of all, we must understand that users always exist in the real world. Under the framework of Metcalfe's Law, users in the Internet era seem to become nodes. In essence, it is just a "projection" of users in the virtual world.

For example, in the PC Internet era, the user's projection on the Internet is the PC, which represents the user node; In the era of mobile Internet, the projection of users on the Internet is smart machines, which represent user nodes. So the representation of user nodes in the era of the Internet of Things is very clear.

If the Internet value expressed by Metcalfe's law is determined by the variable of a single user, it is because users have only a single or few projections in the virtual world, which can be fully referred to by PC or smart machine. In the era of the Internet of Things, it also means the arrival of the era of multiple projections of users, and also means the exponential growth of the value of the Internet of Things under the framework of Metcalfe's law.

The essence of Metcalfe's Law is network externality, and at this point, the concept of network externality will also change. The value will no longer increase with the number of other users, but will increase exponentially with the emergence of new IoT products.

This will also bring about a change: the Internet has no influence.

In the past, the Internet could be completely referred to by PC or smart machine, at this time, the Internet could be transformed into a product. In the era of the Internet of Things, the Internet will be truly buried, become infrastructure, and melt into the invisible. Just like air, people are constantly breathing, but they are usually unaware of its existence.

What is the logic behind the struggle for the right to lower level standards?

In fact, today's smart homes still only have the embryonic form of the Internet of Things.

The broad prospects have created a fiercely competitive industry environment and accelerated the expansion of the smart home market. Currently, the industry as a whole has transitioned from single product intelligence to whole house intelligence, and has reached a critical stage of scene intelligence.

In the early stage of single product intelligence, smart home products are relatively single, consumers have fewer choices, and the impact of the intelligence generated by a single product is extremely limited. The arrival of the industry's explosive period has led to the prosperity of multiple categories of smart home products. Nowadays, the smart home market can basically meet consumers' coverage of whole house smart products, but whole house intelligence is not the end point.

If we compare smart homes as a whole to humans, although smart homes now have various "limbs" such as "hands", "feet", and "brain", the "limbs" are fragmented and scattered, seriously limiting the value of smart home products. The arrival of the scene intelligence stage means the overall integration and collaboration of "hands", "feet", "brain" and other "limbs". This is the starting point of the Internet of Things, and also the direction that giants and unicorns are striving for.

For example, Huawei focuses on mobile phones and expands multiple peripheral intelligent hardware products. It seems that the number of business lines is increasing, but it is not without patterns to follow. More importantly, there are emerging or long tail hardware products that mainly need to leverage their communication technology advantages for technical output. In terms of development path, Huawei actually shares similarities with Apple.

Haier Smart Home, also in the home appliance field, has created its own smart home experience cloud platform and incubated several ecological sub platforms such as the Internet of Clothing, the Internet of Food, and the Air Network. From system to hardware, from technology to scene, it achieves vertical coverage of the industry chain and can provide a complete set of clothing, food, housing, and entertainment scene solutions.

There are also some unicorns focused on the smart home field, establishing advantages through innovation and foresight.

For example, Euromonitor has been building an intelligent device ecosystem platform for scenarios since its early days. It has now established seven major systems, including an intelligent control center, intelligent lighting system, HVAC environment system, intelligent security system, energy management system, intelligent audio and video system, and door and window shading system. The platform focuses on three major application scenarios: smart home, smart office, and smart hotel, with high levels of interconnectivity among devices in each scenario.

In fact, there are still a few vertical unicorns that directly start from the scene intelligence stage. Generally, they entered the market early and have developed certain advantages and accumulations so far. For example, Oribo has reached a critical stage of IPO.

After the entrance war stalled, on the surface, major manufacturers began to focus on the interconnection and collaboration of the smart home ecosystem. On the inside, the strategic focus of smart homes shifted from the entrance war to the standard war, and began to compete for the underlying standard rights of the smart home ecosystem.

In the era of mobile Internet, smart phones dominate. As the standard setter of smart phones, Apple has achieved a dominant position in the smart phone market. In the era of the Internet of Things, smartphones are still important, but their value weight in the entire IoT ecosystem may gradually be dispersed to other intelligent products, which will be a process of quantitative and qualitative changes in the technological field.

Therefore, the standard authority in the era of the Internet of Things may not be determined by the standards of a single smart product, but by the industry leaders in key categories of smart homes. That is to say, it is difficult for the next 'Apple' to emerge in the era of the Internet of Things. Because every enterprise has its own expertise in the field of smart home, no one can guarantee that the entire "smart home industry ecosystem tree" will be lit up, and a closed ecosystem is difficult to be self-sufficient.

Of course, there are also mobile phone manufacturers such as Xiaomi that invest to improve the smart home ecosystem, but this approach does not have strong control over the investing companies. The future development path of the invested companies is to break through the circle and move towards the industry ecosystem.

Whether it is mobile phone manufacturers, traditional home appliance companies, or professional smart home forces, they all have their own advantages and are standing on different starting lines in the competition for standard rights. So, what is the logic behind the competition for the underlying standard rights in the Internet of Things?

From the perspective of the Internet Jianghu, the future is not bound to be the era of single product as the king, but at least the single product should be the king in the subdivided categories of smart home, realizing the right of single product standards, taking this as a step, further forming a voice in the entire smart home ecosystem, and gaining the ability to participate in the formulation of standards in the future.

This is a process from point to line, from line to surface, and from surface to body. Firstly, it is necessary to be able to find and seize the commanding heights of a certain category of future smart home products. Secondly, further evolution into the transfer of standard rights essentially tests manufacturers' understanding of smart home products and the transfer of underlying capabilities.

A typical example is the DJI car.

When it comes to DJI, people think of a unicorn company in the field of drones, which occupies 80% of the global consumer drone market. In the field of drones, DJI has formed a market effect of "brand as category" and naturally has the right to set standards in the drone industry. So how did DJI transition from drones to the Internet of Vehicles ecosystem?

According to the Tianyancha Professional Edition APP data, DJI Automotive was established in July 2018, focusing on the research and development, production, sales and other services of intelligent driving systems and their core components. However, in April of this year, DJI officially announced its subsidiary DJI Car, which is obviously a long planned strategy. After all, this also means that DJI has officially entered the car networking ecosystem.

Drones belong to the smart home sub category, but nowadays the user base is relatively niche. After achieving the first place in this field, DJI naturally needs a larger market to carry itself. And DJI in car means that DJI has crossed from a single drone category to a larger battlefield, officially entering the Internet of Vehicles ecosystem.

Drones may seem unrelated to autonomous driving, but the underlying logic requirements of both are similar, requiring technical expertise in environmental perception, data processing, path decision-making, and planning. The product reputation and technological barriers created by DJI in the field of drones, as well as its attractiveness to talent, will become a driving force for cross-border connected vehicles.

Of course, it is still a mystery whether DJI in car can successfully seize the standard right in the car networking ecosystem in the future, but at least the first step has been taken.

Write at the end:

In fact, even if it becomes a leading smart home enterprise and has the qualification to share the cake of the Internet of Things, it will still have to pay enough "fines" in the future.

Compared with the original Internet, the Internet of Things has more access devices. Different types of devices form a more complex ecosystem, which also means that it provides a variety of attack windows for others, and security risks also bring exponential outbreaks.

However, when deploying consumer grade IoT, enterprises will consider security as a low priority and invest extra effort in mitigating security risks, which is undoubtedly a behavior of paying a "fine" first. Therefore, the overall concept of security protection for the Internet of Things is still lacking.

In the future, data security will become increasingly important, and with the establishment of a standard system, security as the underlying standard must also emerge. That is to say, while the leading smart home companies are making profits, they also need to take the lead in paying "fines", especially for a large number of early smart products that need to be integrated with the entire security system to avoid becoming vulnerabilities in the Internet of Things.

Finally, we can consider a question: Will security vendors cut off halfway and steal the cake of the Internet of Things?