LeTV's Peng Gang: Good smart hardware products should be done in moderation

In the traditional toy development industry, the large-scale factory-style production method often requires toy developers to rack their brains to increase the creativity and playability of the toys themselves. However, with the emergence of connected devices and the trend of turning to the toy industry, the requirements for product plasticity in the field of toy development are slowly surpassing the developers' innovation in the products themselves.

On November 27, LeTV officially announced its long-awaited parent-child hardware product "Le Xiaobao". Through this smart terminal that integrates Internet content and services, software and hardware, it once again refreshed users' new concept of parent-child hardware products.

Le Xiaobao: A smart parent-child hardware product with "burden"

Le Xiaobao, which was discovered through the parent-child market segment, is essentially a projector. This smart projector, which advocates safety, eye protection and health, relies on LeTV's huge content ecosystem and LeTV's "twice the performance, half the price" ecosystem, and has been packaged as an effective adhesive that can solve the current awkward parent-child relationship.

Peng Gang said that Le Xiaobao is actually a smart parent-child hardware product with a "burden", and the so-called "burden" is the biggest difference between this new product and previous parent-child products, that is, it enables parents and children to have the most basic communication needs through traditional storytelling.

Looking at all kinds of parent-child products on the market, there are many "sincere works" by major domestic Internet companies. However, a large number of homogeneous products are often extensions of child safety issues, such as: smart bracelets, smart anti-lost patches, smart anti-lost children's shoes... Trying to control and "monitor" children's every move anytime and anywhere through positioning and anti-lost control smart products does not seem to be able to solve the current awkward parent-child relationship dilemma.

In fact, when it comes to parent-child relationships and even parent-child education, users need products and services that they can personally experience. Products that lack humanization and interactive functions often seem more like "wishful thinking" on the part of parents. Such products that lack the perspective of children will gradually reveal their flaws during use and will be eliminated by the harsh market test.

Peng Gang: Good hardware products should be done in moderation

At present, the biggest criticism of many smart products is that they have too many functions and are complicated to operate. Manufacturers continue to accumulate and add various functional applications during product development in order to attract more user attention. In this regard, Peng Gang said that real smart hardware products should be done in moderation.

In fact, too many functional applications will not only affect the user experience of the product itself, but also put the cart before the horse in the process of using the product. This experience effect will not be well received by users, and more often will directly affect the promotion of the product.

Although it has a real-time intercom chat function, Le Xiaobao is not an interactive tool based on parent-child relationships. LeEco revealed that the original intention of developing the product was to get children to completely put down their mobile communication devices and communicate with their parents through Le Xiaobao seriously and attentively.

Although LeEco has simplified all the designs of Le Xiaobao in terms of operation interface and application, the hardware configuration of this smart toy, which claims to be the best in comprehensive performance in the world, is not inferior at all. It is understood that Le Xiaobao uses an A7 dual-core processor with a main frequency of 1.2GHz, equipped with 512MB of memory and 8G of internal flash memory, as well as Android 4.4 operating system, supports WIEI wireless connection, and has a built-in 3800mAh battery. It can be said that the overall configuration is equivalent to a mid-range smartphone.

In addition to the operating configuration, Le Xiaobao also chose a simple style for the product appearance. It can be seen that this cylindrical appearance design is more concerned with the safety of children. There are no sharp corners, no complicated cartoons, no bright colors, everything is to prevent children from accidentally touching or eating it.

Same LeEco ecosystem, different LeXiaobao

Le Xiaobao can be said to be another perfect interpretation and presentation of LeEco's "platform + content + terminal + application" ecosystem after LeTV TV Super TV. The original intention and purpose of LeEco in developing this new smart hardware is to transform LeEco's rich parent-child content resources into a glue for the current parent-child relationship through Le Xiaobao.

The published price of Le Xiaobao is 499 yuan + 96 yuan, of which 499 yuan is the hardware price of the product and 96 yuan is the content service fee for one year.

As the industry's "price killer", Le Xiaobao's high quality and low price are mainly based on LeEco's huge and complete ecological industry chain. The advantage of this closed-loop ecological chain is that it enables products to not rely solely on hardware profits, but to obtain sustainable income through content and services. At the same time, it maximizes the benefits to users.

Similar to the development strategy of Super TV, LeTV's layout of hardware products is mainly based on its content resource advantages. Currently, LeTV Parent-Child has become China's largest children's video resource library, with more than 160,000 episodes of children's related videos, with a total duration of about 2.4 million minutes. The newly launched Le Xiaobao now provides more than 200 story templates, each of which is about 3 to 5 minutes long. LeTV said that the story materials will be updated regularly.

Overall, the launch of Le Xiaobao has overturned the product forms of other Internet giants in the field of smart parent-child hardware products. Unlike "monitoring" wearable devices, the "burden" Le Xiaobao is superior in practical value and operational feel. In other words, LeTV is more attentive and serious than other manufacturers in the design and development of parent-child products.

At present, users do need some smart products and services with more practical significance. Such products and services should not become a pile of dusty parts after talking about feelings and values, but should accompany users for a long time.

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.