Household cleaning has become a habit in our modern life. According to the data, housework is even becoming a popular "sport". According to the "2023 Cleaning Appliance User Consumption and Experience Research Report", 45% of the surveyed users clean their homes four times or more per week, and 26% of them clean once a day.

All of this stems from the hard floor materials in Chinese homes, which naturally require sweeping and mopping, and the need for mopping is even stronger. For a 70-80 square meter three-bedroom apartment, bending over and kneeling on the floor, mopping and wiping at the same time, this set of traditional movements will make the body unable to control itself, and the only thing left is to lie down quietly.

But if a family has pets that shed frequently, babbling children, and a housewife with long hair, then congratulations, you have reached the maximum cleaning level, because hair and various dry and wet garbage are output in minutes. Having to sweep and mop at any time makes people increasingly hope to use the power of technology.

This trend is also confirmed from the data side. In 2023, the retail sales of China's cleaning appliance market was 34.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.8%, of which the retail sales of sweeping robots was 13.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10%; the retail sales of floor scrubbers was 12.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 22%.

There is no doubt that the cleaning market has exploded, and the issue of how to solve product pain points has been brought to the forefront. Based on the pain points of deep cleaning + hands-free + space utilization, many brands have come up with corresponding solutions at AWE2024.

The C position of floor scrubber is unshakable

Similar to last year, at this year's AWE2024, floor scrubber products from various brands are still the king of traffic.

The product camp is full of two different voices: minimally invasive iteration and innovation. At its core, consumers' demands for floor scrubbers are, on the one hand, more refined cleaning, focusing on all aspects of the home, and achieving more subtle and specific cleaning. On the other hand, it is necessary to pay attention to not only the cleaning of the floor, but also the care of the machine itself, to avoid excessive human involvement as much as possible, and to maximize the self-cleaning of the machine.

Considering that most of the household floor cleaning is done by female users, and the post-90s and 00s people who are labeled as sophisticated and lazy advocate loft-style living environment, which makes going up and down the stairs a difficult scene. Therefore, lightweight products become the core demand of users.

The Yunjing S series floor scrubber innovatively adopts a low-center-of-gravity design with a "clean water tank placed at the bottom and the battery module moved downward". The advantage of this is that the weight of a single hand can be as light as 900g when washing the floor, which is less than the weight of two bottles of mineral water. At the same time, with a 63% torsion angle design, it can smoothly pass through table legs, leg kicks, and narrow aisles, truly achieving "point and hit" during the cleaning process.

Although the floor scrubber industry has developed rapidly in the past two years, there is still a pain point that cannot be circumvented that bothers consumers - strong cleaning but weak suction. Especially when faced with the ultimate cleaning problems of having pets at home, long hair, and a large carpet surface, the shortcoming of weak suction will be magnified.

To address this pain point, Tineco, the leader in the floor scrubber industry, has the most eye-catching product at AWE2024: Chorus. Its biggest advantage is that it has overcome the common problem of strong washing but weak suction, and has achieved breakthroughs and upgrades in floor scrubbing, vacuuming, whole-house dust removal, self-cleaning, filtration, and anti-entanglement performance.

According to observations, the number of floor scrubber + base station combination products is increasing, among which the more representative ones include the TINECO One Space Station, Haier dual-power floor scrubber X11 Station, and Dreame H40 Station.

On the technical level, in order to solve the problem of base station floor scrubbers clogging sewer pipes, Haier's cleaning robot floor scrubber, the Dust-Free X11 Station, is equipped with the industry's first solid-liquid separation and garbage drying technology. It can not only filter a variety of solid waste to prevent garbage from clogging sewer pipes, but also automatically dry the garbage to prevent the garbage in the filter from stinking and moldy, allowing users to truly free their hands.

The Dreame H40 Station is equipped with a self-developed integrated intelligent cleaning base station, which integrates five cleaning systems: automatic water supply and drainage system, sewage tank self-cleaning system, roller brush self-cleaning system, dual active oxygen sterilization system and intelligent control cleaning system. This one-stop solution solves all the tedious tasks that users had to manually maintain in the past, such as the water tank, sewage tank, roller brush and cleaning fluid. It can be taken, used and put away at any time.

In order to meet the demands of modern families for deep cleaning of the whole house, all-in-one products are also very popular. Among them, Lake launched the Sirius high-suction floor scrubber/vacuum cleaner, which integrates mop, rag, sweeper, floor washer, handheld cordless vacuum cleaner, mite remover and other products in one machine. One machine can clean the whole house, solving the choice dilemma of many consumers.

In addition to innovative products based on traditional ideas, there are also innovative products that break the traditional model. For example, Hizero Hertz has brought a suction-free sweeping and mopping machine. Unlike a floor scrubber with suction, it only relies on sweeping and mopping to clean the floor, which not only makes the floor cleaner and drier, but also avoids the common problems of equipment in the industry, such as high noise, dust, blockage, and short battery life.

As a new product category with a relatively short history, the floor scrubber matrix will present portability, light weight, self-cleaning, intelligence, long battery life, etc. at AWE2024, and there is still a lot of room for each manufacturer to play.

New direction for the cleaning industry: multi-state full automation

From the perspective of consumers, the real meaning of doing housework, whether sweeping or mopping, is to truly free your hands.

No matter how intelligent it is in a static environment, a floor scrubber still needs manpower to operate. Intelligent sweeping robots should be the more popular category in the lazy economy era.

The reason why the floor-cleaning robot has come from behind is that for a long time, the floor-cleaning robot has only created a beautiful vision of the future, but the actual products are generally clumsy and far from the intelligence expected by the public. Many consumers who have purchased the floor-cleaning robot will sigh that it serves me and I work for it.

However, at AWE2024, the IQ of sweeping robots finally came online. Instead of the previous years' arms race on suction power, the focus was placed on intelligence + cleaning power. Faced with the problems of incomplete cleaning of corners, a lot of scattered hair, and many obstacles in the home, each company also came up with its own technical means.

Among them, Ecovacs has brought the TruEdge dynamic constant edge technology and Zero Tangle double-comb anti-entanglement technology. When cleaning corners, the mop plate in a constant edge state can easily achieve full coverage, with a coverage rate of up to 98.6%. Combined with 11000Pa hurricane suction, daily hair is straightened out as soon as it touches the roller brush, and then sucked into the dust box, with a cleaning efficiency of up to 99.4%.

To address the three major pain points in daily cleaning, Dreame Technology has launched the flagship sweeping and mopping series X40 and S30. Its bionic "double" robotic arm technology, based on Dreame Technology's first bionic robotic arm with mop extension, has added the industry's first liftable side brush extension, making the Dreame sweeping and mopping robot the first in the industry to achieve dual-arm linkage of the side brush and mop, achieving 100% coverage of dead corners and gaps in the cleaning of house corners.

In addition to the bionic "double" robotic arm technology, the Dreame sweeping robot also brings a number of innovative technologies including water and gas purification six-fold sterilization and deodorization, mop + roller brush + side brush triple lifting, active hair-cutting roller brush & base station self-cleaning, ultra-thin Mini flat embedded base station, etc. In addition, brands such as Yunjing, 3i, and Haier have also thought about the core pain points of consumers.

Yunjing J4 is the first to use a cyclonic flow-guiding zero-entanglement roller brush, which can spirally suck in and powerfully remove hair on the ground, completely solving the hair cleaning problem for users with long hair and pet owners. At the same time, there are also major breakthroughs in mapping navigation and obstacle avoidance technology. The triple laser scanning system can achieve millimeter-level measurement, and the robot can achieve the ultimate fit cleaning while avoiding collisions with furniture.

High-end home appliance brand 3i uses a double-tooth anti-tangle technology called Zero Tangle in its new products. This technology uses a V-shaped spiral roller brush with a 21-degree flat bristle design to prevent hair from getting tangled. Combined with the new double-tooth staggered structure design, it can straighten the curled hair and prevent it from getting tangled. Combined with the streamlined cavity structure and strong suction, it can suck away the hair that has not been rolled away.

As a long-standing industry leader, Haier brought the all-round sweeping and mopping robot H13 series. In terms of pain points, it innovated the base station hair cutting technology, which can directly recycle broken hair without manual cleaning. At the same time, the industry's first robot mop, which can mop the edge less than 2mm, can effectively clean the dead corners between the walls and the legs of tables, chairs and stools.

From a more versatile perspective, Ecovacs has brought the DEEBOT X2 COMBO, which integrates multiple functions such as sweeping, mopping, vacuuming, and self-cleaning. It has also become Ecovacs' first one-stop home cleaning center.

However, as the performance of sweeping robots has become more and more powerful, the base stations have become more and more inward-looking. This is due to the idea of ​​​​various manufacturers to add functionality, but this also brings the problem of occupying too much space. Under the inertia of continuous "increase", some base stations can even be equivalent to a small washing machine.

In order to solve the problem of occupying too much space, Dreame launched a sweeping robot that looks like a rectangular box. The water tank and dust box of the base station of this sweeping robot are hidden, which reduces the overall height. Haier has taken space saving to the extreme. It launched an all-round bionic sweeping and mopping robot equipped with the industry's first flat and fully embedded technology. It is the world's first sweeping robot that can be flat and fully embedded and integrated into the home.

At AWE, we also saw the deep integration of sweeping robots into home scenes. The sweeping robots, washing machines and clothes drying racks formed a washing and sweeping linkage, and drying and sweeping linkage. After washing and drying clothes, the sweeping robots automatically start sweeping, cleaning up the fluff and other things that fell off the clothes, keeping the floor clean. This kind of integration, which is completely endorsed by scenes, replaces the previous simple functional superposition.

Today's sweeping robot market is over-added, and most of them have too many showy elements. However, as a sweeping robot that aims to free hands, it was hoped that it would subtract from people's lives when it was first created. Only by providing a perfect fit with the needs can it usher in spring.

AI is already showing its tip

From a macro perspective, AI and hardware have a symbiotic relationship. The Sora video tool has made the popularity of AI break through the inherent circle. At the beginning of the year, the word AI was everywhere at the two major exhibitions CES and MWC. Even CES2024 launched the theme of "All in AI".

However, there is no universal model for the combination of AI and cleaning equipment, or even the entire home appliance industry. At AWE2024, we saw some cleaning equipment brands thinking about AI.

In addition to the traditional functions of the active hair-cutting roller brush, automatic lifting side brush, automatic loading and unloading of the mop, and intelligent dynamic tight edge cleaning, the EZVIZ AI Smart Sweeping Mop RS20 PRO has been transformed into a smart home butler by adding AI elements.

Yunjing brings a smart voice assistant driven by the NarGPT multimodal large model with deeper thinking. The voice assistant can be activated by the wake-up word "Hello Navo" to interact accordingly. If the stain exceeds the robot's processing ability, such as tape attached to the ground, it can also provide users with reference cleaning methods based on the actual situation.

Through observation and the actual application scenarios of AI technology, all companies have now jumped out of the parameter competition and turned to the full-level household cleaning pain points under the lazy economy as the thinking direction, so we see that almost all related equipment are returning to the cleaning power itself, focusing on the user's subtle pain points including hair entanglement, poor cleaning of corners, etc. At the same time, they are continuing to work hard to reduce manual maintenance and explore the all-in-one product form of one machine with multiple uses, solving consumers' choice anxiety through innovation.

In addition, AI big models have gone from being just talk to being actually implemented, and various companies have taken the first step. In the next few years, smart cleaning equipment with AI elements will experience a blowout development and eventually evolve into the role of smart home butlers. As Steve Jobs said, "People don't know what they need until you show them." Only by understanding users better than they do, tapping into consumers' potential needs and making them explicit, can the value brought by technological innovation exceed users' expectations, and the same is true for cleaning appliances that are moving towards AI.

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.