Over-reliance on apps leads to industry barriers for smart homes

Over-reliance on apps leads to industry barriers for smart homes
"Survey data from Zhongguancun Online shows that 55% of Chinese consumers are enthusiastic about new technologies and are very interested in transforming their homes into smart homes," said Philip Poulidis, global vice president and general manager of Marvell's wireless and Internet of Things business unit, recently.
Marvell is a world-renowned chip company, which recently launched an enhanced version of the Marvell EZ-Connect series of wireless microcontroller SoC products in Beijing. The products mainly include expanded software and more complementary products and services provided by partners.
Marvell's emphasis on the Chinese market has also been supported by its "Chinese partners", including Xiaomi Technology, JD Smart Group, Tencent WeChat, Alibaba, 360, LeTV, etc. "In the field of IoT (Internet of Things), we have more partners in China than in any other country," Philip Poulidis told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter.
Juniper Research, a market research organization, predicts that China's smart home market will reach 100 billion yuan by 2018. However, at this stage, the model of the smart home market is still immature.
As we all know, smartphones have paved the way for the development of smart homes. As early as 2011, Google's Android@Home proposed connecting every device in the home to the Android App. Since then, most smart homes have adopted the model of hardware products + Apps. However, this model is often criticized as "not smart".
"We hope to be able to use IoT technology independently of apps in the future," said Philip Poulidis.
Over-reliance on apps
If you buy a smart home, you need to download a corresponding app. The more smart homes you have at home, the more mobile apps you have. For consumers, this consumption experience is not "smart".
"When we discussed the smart home field a year and a half ago, the biggest problem we encountered was that I had 20 devices and needed 20 apps. Basically, I had to read a very thick instruction manual to connect a device. This would make you feel like a failure," said Huang Jiangji, vice president of Xiaomi Technology, when introducing Xiaomi smart home.
Xiaomi is a typical example of using smartphones as the "master controller" of smart homes. Huang Jiangji mentioned many times that MIUI has 120 million daily active users. Xiaomi smart homes use Xiaomi phones as the entry point, hoping to take advantage of the user scale. In the process of exploration, Xiaomi gradually found the logic to attract users - product installation and settings are simple; each product is no longer designed with a separate App, but integrated into the "Xiaomi Smart Home App".
The smart home app is built into MIUI and can be operated even when the screen is locked. "If a user wants to turn on a light, they have to unlock the lock screen, find an app, and click on it to open it. This is too troublesome. Users must press the physical switch." Huang Jiangji said, "Today, we allow users to pick up their phones and see all the smart devices without unlocking the screen. They can turn on the light, turn on and off the air conditioner, and arm the security system with just one click."
In the same vein, JD.com developed the "JD Microlink" App. JD.com Microlink provides a platform for hardware manufacturers that can access various smart scenarios. "Such an App platform will become an important window to connect users and smart hardware." Deng Zhengping, general manager of JD.com's smart microlink business department, said. It is reported that more than 500 products have been connected to JD.com Microlink, covering household appliances, kitchen appliances, wearable devices, etc.
However, each smart home product only corresponds to its own app. "Xiaomi phones can discover Xiaomi smart devices. Of course, if you don't use a Xiaomi phone, their phones won't be able to discover it," said Huang Jiangji.
On this basis, although the App can realize the function of the smart home master switch, can accumulate user data, and can achieve a certain degree of interaction, the App is just an application program and cannot autonomously identify application scenarios. In this case, the effect of smart home on improving the home environment is not obvious.
This pain point also gave Marvell a new opportunity. Philip Poulidis said that Marvell's research and development direction is to make smart homes truly intelligent without apps.
Home "interconnection"
In the eyes of Philip Poulidis, a true smart home should be able to "see clearly (gesture recognition) and hear clearly (voice recognition)". He calls this Internet of Things technology "cognitive IoT" (Cognitive Internet of Things).
"Cognitive IoT" has the capabilities of human-computer interaction and deep learning. It can detect changes in the surroundings, perform corresponding tasks based on human gestures, language, and changes in location, and retain historical data. "For example, a washing machine will run faster when it senses that no one is at home, because high speed makes more noise but is more efficient," Philip Poulidis said, giving an example. "If you are at home, the washing machine will run at a lower speed, so the noise is quieter."
Philip Poulidis introduced that Marvell has developed algorithms for interaction between multiple sensors, which can achieve "interconnection" between "smart homes".
In addition, Marvell has already achieved voice recognition at the technical level. "Voice recognition is very important in the field of cognitive IoT. It can recognize natural speech and simulate natural speech." Philip Poulidis said, "We are developing a voice processor that can truly capture human voice and filter out some surrounding noise. This is what Marvell can do at the chip level, which will also promote the development of the cognitive IoT industry."
The data collected by cognitive IoT can be uploaded to the cloud for storage and calculation. However, how to implement machine learning at the cloud level and apply artificial intelligence to the IoT field is still a difficult point in current research and development.
"It can be said that machine learning and artificial intelligence are the focus of current technological research. Fortunately, many companies such as Microsoft and IBM are investing in research and development, and they have made remarkable progress." Philip Poulidis said, "If all goes well, I think we will soon be able to combine the physical world and the social world, and the way we interact will also change greatly."

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.

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