Is it enough for Jio Router to establish its position through three generations of upgrades?

Ubiquitous smart technology has fueled the popularity of smart homes, and smart homes have in turn fueled more niche areas.

The first thing to become popular was the router.

Although routers have almost become standard equipment in modern people's lives and workplaces since the popularization of Wi-Fi devices, putting the word "smart" in front of routers seems to have allowed various manufacturers to see new markets. Among them, JiRoute is undoubtedly the most outstanding.

JiRoute, as the name suggests, is a brand that simply makes router products. Initially, the two major features of "strong signal + ability to bypass firewalls" made this new force in the router field gradually known to the public. Now, after three generations of changes, JiRoute has become the most active player in the smart router market. But for a brand, is it really enough to rely solely on routers?

As the "gateway" for all networked devices, the importance of routers is self-evident. This has also made the production and release of smart routers the "entrance" for many Internet companies and technology companies to enter the smart home and layout of the smart ecosystem. However, the meaning of this "entrance" is different for different brands.

For brands such as Xiaomi and 360, smart routers are just an important step for them. Xiaomi has its own mobile smart devices, smart TVs and home products including air purifiers, while 360 ​​has been active in the mobile phone and smart home industries recently. Routers are one part of their own ecological chain.

But for JiRoute, routers have become their only step. Although JiRoute has launched HiWiFi OS at the system level, it is ultimately just an OS for routers. It does not have the ability to attract enough developers like mobile phones or home systems. JiRoute's App cannot become the control end of smart homes, and HiWiFi OS cannot, as it said at the beginning of its release, copy the Xiaomi MIUI model that has already blossomed in almost all fields.

On the other hand, will the iteration of routers bring about a big fluctuation in the market? It may attract more attention.

After all, unlike us switching from iPhone 5 to iPhone 6, a router is neither a consumable nor a toy that can be held in hand and shown off like a mobile phone. Although Jilu Router always deliberately uses some "tricks" and does not directly provide one-step products, such as adding dual-band, built-in hard disk, USB interface and other features to each generation of products one by one, providing space for the update of subsequent products, so that the "Ji 1", "Ji 2" and "Ji 3" in the promotional posters have selling points that keep pace with the times, but how many consumers will change a router every year? Xiaomi will never update Xiaomi routers every year like Xiaomi mobile phones.

What's more, in terms of parameters and usage experience, terms such as Internet product thinking, signal adjustment, "villa-level coverage", and application expansion have appeared more than once in the current router industry. JiRoute is no longer the only choice for experiencing smart routers, and it may not always be the best choice in the future.

The intelligence of routers has promoted the development of JiRoute and also constrained its development. Router products are the network center of smart life but cannot become the core that influences user experience and the skeleton of the ecosystem. Even after three generations of development in a short period of time, JiRoute has become the smart router manufacturer with the most frequent product updates. But looking back, JiRoute 3 has no essential difference from JiRoute 1 except that it makes JiRoute more smart.

The gap in the industrial chain means that the content of JiRoute's promotional posters only belongs to routers from beginning to end. You can think that this is JiRoute's inner dedication, but looking at the entire smart industry, it is no longer a new topic to link smart hardware brands with smart homes and smart ecosystems.

Wang Chuyun, the founder of Jilu Router, said at the launch of Jilu Router 3 that Jilu Router will take its place in the context of smart home. Yes, Jilu Router has become a member of the industry alliance including Haier U+ and has entered a seemingly good platform, but can it maintain its position in this foreign platform? Or is this platform really reliable?

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.