Alibaba invests $50 million in remote control app, playing a big game

In addition to focusing on the e-commerce field, Alibaba has also long set its sights on the new smart home market. The earlier Tmall Box was an important step for Alibaba towards the smart living room. Relying on its deep integration with the online shopping platform and two generations of product changes, it has accumulated a certain number of users in the overall smart TV market.

Recently, according to foreign media TechCrunch, Alibaba, which just successfully completed its IPO on the New York Stock Exchange, has made a strategic investment in Peel, a smart remote control software developer, with a financing amount of US$50 million.

Unlike previous rounds of financing, Peel's latest round of financing is a strategic financing. Alibaba's participation in the investment will help Peel continue to expand its product line and focus on developing software applications and open platforms in the future.

Following Google's acquisition of Nest and Samsung's acquisition of SmartThings, Internet giant Alibaba has further penetrated into the research and development of new forms of smart products, "set its eyes" on a startup company in the smart home industry, and sounded the clarion call for entering the smart home industry.

What are the advantages of Peel?

Peel's original product concept was to imitate a universal hardware remote control and provide a similar remote control experience using a software app on a smartphone via infrared technology.

Currently, Peel's application includes Android and iOS versions. Although the application has not yet entered the Chinese market, the number of applications installed has reached 90 million. Every month, more than 5 billion smart remote control commands are issued through the Peel software. If Internet giants want to find a way to collect big data on the usage habits of users of smart home products, then Peel is obviously a good choice.

In addition, the company's Peel.in platform is a B2B product that provides software tools for TV networks and broadcasters to help them attract more audiences through digital and social media sources. Using Peel.in, TV networks can send special links through Twitter or Facebook. If these links are clicked on a device with the Peel app installed, the corresponding TV channel will be automatically opened on the user's TV. Alibaba is also no stranger to this business model.

In fact, Alibaba invested in Peel before its initial public offering (IPO). Alibaba is currently paying special attention to the two major industries of entertainment and smart home control, and Peel's involvement in these two major fields has become the main factor that impressed Alibaba.

Alibaba is playing a big game

Alibaba launched its smart TV and set-top box platforms in 2013, and its smart home platform IoT in 2014. Recently, Alibaba has once again focused on the software side of smart TVs, teaming up with Huawei and Skyworth to launch the first batch of Internet TV products, once again targeting the large-screen TVs that occupy an important position in smart home systems.

In addition, the Alibaba Cloud YunOS system for mobile smart terminals and the complete online payment platform headed by "Alipay" will also promote Alibaba's expansion into new industries.

There is no doubt that mobile smart terminals will become the connection points and controllers between smart home products and users in the future. Nowadays, Apple has added the HomeKit smart home platform interface to the latest iOS 8 operating system, and integrating Peel or other smart home software systems into Alibaba Cloud YunOS is also a feasible solution.

At this stage, smartphone manufacturers are all trying their best to "de-Google". From a certain perspective, YunOS, which provides another choice for mobile phone manufacturers, has also encountered a good time for popularization. This means that in the future, the various services integrated in YunOS, including those for smart home products, will reach a wider user group, and Peel's subversion of smart remote controls will also be more conveniently applied to smart home products such as smart TVs.

On the other hand, online payment services such as "Alipay" have begun to show results in smart TV products. TV games, video services and many other links will become ideal places for online payment services to play a role. The addition of platforms such as Peel.in is expected to further amplify the value of the business model centered around TVs, paving the way for the transfer of online consumption from PCs and mobile phones to TV screens and home environments.

From TV boxes and intelligent platforms to mobile terminal operating systems, online payment systems, and ultimately smart remote controls that implement smart homes at the product level, Alibaba has already built an ecological chain in the smart home industry with smart TVs as the clue.

Although smart TV products are a relatively mature part of the current smart home environment and are more easily accepted by consumers, smart homes obviously include many other things besides TV platforms, and we have not seen Alibaba make more attempts in these areas.

Can Alibaba become a dark horse in the smart home industry? Whether it is based on the smart TV that is used as a "stepping stone" or the current immaturity of the entire industry, it is too early to draw a conclusion. But we have seen that Alibaba is playing a big game, and the investment in Peel is just one step in this game. Smart home will inevitably be the "battlefield" where Internet industry giants will stir up trouble again in the future.

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.