Behind the high price, how does Baidu Raven H make smart speakers better?

When it comes to smart speakers, Baidu may be able to do better because it is making its products more useful.

Of course, some people say that Baidu is making smart speakers more expensive. This is not an unfounded statement. When the price of domestic smart speakers generally drops to 599 yuan, 299 yuan or even 99 yuan, Baidu's first smart speaker Raven H is sold at a high price of 1,699 yuan.

However, there is always a logic and reason for the high price. If it is not intentional, does the price disparity mean that the smart speaker industry, which has been caught in the vortex of low-price competition, is undergoing new changes?

Recently, the new rising star in the smart speaker industry, raven H, was tried out in the first smart guest room of InterContinental Hotel located in Tongying Center Sanlitun, which was jointly built by Raven and its strategic partner InterContinental Hotels.

Smart speakers become works of art

When you see raven H for the first time, its building block-like appearance design and avant-garde contrasting color matching are enough to attract your attention instantly.

Because the body material is made of high-performance polyamide HPPA Kalix 9950, raven H has a high-gloss surface while also having high strength and impact resistance.

In terms of the body structure, a 19*19 touch-sensitive LED dot matrix screen and a built-in speaker movement wrapped in seven spliced ​​building blocks together make up the unique shape of the raven H.

So, looking at the appearance of raven H, it is better to say that it is an exquisite work of art rather than a speaker. The unique appearance design is matched with the delicate touch material. It is no exaggeration to describe it as "exquisite".

It is particularly worth mentioning that out of special consideration for user privacy, raven H also has an independent mute button at the bottom. The power cord adopts a retro telephone cord design. The bottom shape of the entire device is very similar to a jade ring with a dragon head pattern. Coupled with the eye-catching and colorful color matching of Swedish Teenage Engineering, it can be said that this small speaker has achieved an organic fusion of Chinese and Western cultural elements.

Integrated control, not only for hotels, but also for homes

When it comes to the operation of raven H, the Touch that can act as a remote control is undoubtedly a highlight. After being separated from the host, it can make operation easier.

By holding down Touch, you can voice control raven H. If you feel that talking to it is not direct enough, you can also double-click to pause/play, or slide to change songs.

As smart homes become increasingly popular, Raven will naturally not neglect to let its products serve as the control brain of the smart home system.

If other smart speakers can only connect to the Internet, play songs, and occasionally say something to show off their cleverness, then raven H can perform multiple intelligent linkage operations such as turning on lights, watching TV, and drawing curtains. Combined with an innovative split control panel, the speaker has more possibilities to integrate into daily family life.

For example, after finishing a day's work and returning home exhausted, the first thing you want to do is to rest. Just say "I want to rest" to raven H, and H will cut off the electrical appliances in your home, the electric curtains will slowly drop, and the lights will automatically turn off, creating a comfortable home environment for you.

In addition, Raven has also customized a voice operating system exclusively for guest rooms for the hotel based on raven H, which can call room service, concierge service, meal delivery service and other intelligent butler service functions through voice interaction.

Now you can probably guess why the InterContinental Hotel was chosen as the location for this product experience, because Baidu and InterContinental Hotels Group have reached a strategic cooperation, and in the future it will be promoted to more than 40 InterContinental hotels and resorts across the country with a total of 100 suites.

For family members who love watching TV, raven H can also be combined with iQiyi's TV Fruit to become a powerful tool for online movie searches thanks to its unique and excellent voice interaction system. Just say what you want to watch.

Back to the product itself, the basis for raven H to achieve excellent voice recognition is inseparable from the response speed of 1.4 seconds and the ability to maintain a wake-up rate of up to 95% even if the distance between the human and the machine is as far as five meters. Coupled with the perfect human voice tone, you will naturally feel a sense of intimacy that "communicating with machines can be so natural."

At the same time, based on Baidu's strong accumulation of wisdom in artificial intelligence (AI), raven H can make accurate, efficient, reasonable and positive responses to almost any questions you raise. After a period of experience, we even feel that if a partition is built between the user and raven H so that they cannot see each other, without knowing it, you may feel that you are talking to a person face to face.

Finally, as a speaker, in terms of sound quality, raven H has done its job well.

The clear vocals and powerful bass all indicate that this is an ideal device for enjoying music. For example, when Zheng Jun's "Back to Lhasa" sounded, emotionally speaking, raven H's excellent vocal performance allowed you to feel the shocking power of the music again with your subjective hearing, while also allowing you to hear the unique charm of Zheng Jun's voice full of vicissitudes of life.

In general, as a smart speaker that combines beauty and intelligence, raven H has done an excellent job as a speaker with first-class sound quality. At the same time, it has also carried out intelligence to the end, especially completely getting rid of the mobile phone and completing all tasks independently.

From the perspective of the entire industry, users have now formed a fixed routine for smart speakers with single functions, mediocre sound quality, and revolving around voice recognition and the so-called AI functions that seem to exist but not yet exist: voice wake-up - conversation - song ordering - repeating the above actions for several days - putting them aside or connecting them to Bluetooth to use as external speakers for mobile phones.

Fortunately, after the novelty of most smart speakers has worn off, the belated birth of raven H has still effectively paved a new development path for the industry. It has greatly broadened the usage scenarios and made intelligence no longer a gimmick. It is not cheap and does not hype the cost-effectiveness, but overall, it is good value for money.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.