Chapter 2 Who will take over the smart hardware market
ONE The smart wearable industry is transitioning to market segments, and flexible technology leads the trend
Looking back on 2015, the competition among major manufacturers in the smart wearable device market has become increasingly fierce. Apple’s Apple Watch smart watches, Xiaomi's light-sensitive bracelet, Huawei's HUAWEI WATCH and other smart wearable products have been released one after another. Many heavyweight products have also attracted great attention from the industry, media and consumers, "cross-border" and "segmentation" , "specialization", etc. have also become hot words in the smart wearable industry this year.
1. Cross-border: The "money" scene is vast and the competition is fierce
As the hottest industry in the smart hardware market, the "money scene" in the smart wearable device market is really exciting. Since Google released Google Glass in 2012, which detonated the market, in just a short time In three years, the smart wearable market has developed into a hotly discussed industry.
According to market research agency Markets and Markets, the global wearable device market size will reach US$31.27 billion by 2020, and the annual compound growth rate during 2015-2020 will reach 17.8%, while this scale was only 27 in 2012. One hundred million U.S. dollars.
Under this huge profit trend, in addition to independent smart wear manufacturers, many companies have started to play "cross-border", including Google, Apple, Microsoft, 360, Baidu, Tencent, Xiaomi, Samsung, etc. Internet technology giants, traditional home appliance manufacturers represented by Skyworth, Changhong, Haier, and Gree, and sportswear brands such as Nike, Adidas, and 360 have all joined the smart wearable industry war and have released or are about to release related products.
2. Segmentation: Accurate positioning is the trend, and solving pain points is the rule of survival.
"Segmentation" is another hot word in the field of smart wear this year, and it is also an inevitable trend in the development of the smart wear market in the future. If you use one word to summarize the demand for smart wear in 2014 The most profound impression of wearable devices, I believe the first thing that comes to most people’s minds is “homogenization”. In the smart wearable market in 2014, most similar products had similar functions and similar appearances, and companies fell into homogeneous competition.
However, since 2015, both hardware manufacturers and Internet companies have been developing into niche areas, including positioning products specially designed for the elderly and children, sports equipment designed specifically for young people, and wearable products launched to prevent chronic diseases. Products and professional medical products that have attracted much attention from the industry have become one of the development directions of enterprises in the field of smart wearables.
Especially children's positioning watches. Although this customer segment is smaller than the market for sports and health bracelets and smart watches, it is sought after by many parents. Traditional major manufacturers such as 360, Huawei, and Tencent have all joined the market competition in this segment, and have successively released 360 Children’s Guardian smart watches, Huawei Honor Little K children’s watches, and Tencent Children’s Butler smart watches. It is understood that in the past two years, In the past month, the shipment volume of children's positioning watch products has reached 3 million/month.
For companies that are engaged in market segmentation, identifying user needs is a prerequisite for determining whether they can occupy a place in the market segment. This prerequisite requires companies to have an in-depth understanding of users' "pain point" needs, so that they can We will not become one of the “funeral companions” of those impetuous mass enterprises under the wave of segmentation.
At the same time, thinning and lightness is an inevitable trend in the development of portable smart hardware in the future, and the realization of this trend depends on the research of related technologies, especially the application of flexible technology in batteries and displays, which will bring new benefits to smart wearable devices. bring about revolutionary breakthroughs.
3. Specialization: Flexible technology comes into being
Currently, almost all smart wearable products on the market are equipped with functions such as heart rate monitoring, sleep monitoring, step counting, calorie monitoring, etc. As long as consumers can think of it, manufacturers can modularize it To meet customer needs, however, due to the small size of wearable device products, they cannot be equipped with large-capacity batteries, which puts a lot of pressure on product life. In addition, many functions require long-term standby, which is even more frustrating. Product batteries are "overwhelmed", so flexible batteries are emerging.
In addition, the application of flexible technology in wearable displays has also attracted much attention in the industry. The display screen is the largest hardware product in smartphones. It is also one of the important factors restricting the development of smartphones. In the field of smart wearable devices, display devices also play an important role. Just imagine, no matter how soft the materials of smart wearable devices are, No matter how comfortable it is, if the display screen is just a rigid tablet, it seems that it cannot bring a better user experience.
Lightweight and good visual experience have always been what users pursue in display technology. The emergence of flexible displays not only adapts to the essential requirements of human beings in pursuit of visual freedom, but also solves the core contradiction of smart terminals in the mobile Internet era. need.
At present, there are not many applications of flexible batteries and flexible displays in smart wearable devices, and the technical bottlenecks in 2016 still exist. If smart wearable manufacturers want to get rid of the troubles caused by the current battery and display bottlenecks, the top priority is to Research on technology, improve production processes and efficiency, and then formulate "people-friendly" price strategies based on market demand. In this way, I believe that smart wearable manufacturers will also win reputation while "making money", thereby achieving the best coexistence of interests and reputation. state of existence.
TWO On the eve of the explosion of the drone market, three thresholds need to be exceeded
Research data says that the global drone market will grow three to four times in the next 10 years, and the drone market size is expected to exceed US$60 billion by 2024. Driven by such huge profits, a large number of drone companies have emerged in China. According to incomplete statistics, there are currently 300 to 400 civilian drone companies in China, 50% of which will be eliminated. The Red Sea of the human-machine market is coming.
However, the current development of China's drone market is in the early stages of the smartphone market explosion in 2009, especially the consumer drone and civilian small drone markets, which are even more optimistic by consumers. With the explosive growth of the UAV market, various safety issues have also appeared in the press. The safety problems of UAVs are mainly reflected in two aspects: 1. At present, many UAVs are unable to avoid obstacles independently. Safety accidents occur frequently; 2. Drone operations lack stability indoors without GPS signals and are prone to safety accidents.
Regarding the issue of autonomous obstacle avoidance, DJI and Zero launched the intelligent obstacle avoidance system "Guidance" and TOF obstacle avoidance system in June and July respectively this year. The former can be used with the "Jingwei" series of drone platforms developed, and the latter It will also be applied to Zero's next-generation products; in terms of indoor security, the visual positioning system launched by DJI and Jiyi is a relatively recognized technology in the industry, especially the application of optical flow, which has been recognized by the industry. It is unanimously recognized that even if there is no GPS signal indoors, the optical flow ultrasonic sensor can ensure that the drone achieves precise hovering and smooth flight.
In addition to the safety issues caused by the drone itself, improper user operation will also bring safety hazards. "Mobile APP control + security solution" is a major trend in the development of drones in 2015. By combining unmanned drones with The combination of drone products and mobile terminals can not only realize simple control of drones and reduce the risks caused by complex operations, but also provide users with differentiated and innovative control experiences. At present, companies represented by Parrot and Ehang have developed An operating platform for mobile terminals has been built.
Although domestic policies related to drones have not yet been implemented and supervision is not very clear, this issue has received attention from government departments and a series of policies and regulations have been issued. In April this year, the release of China's first "General Technical Standards for Civilian UAV Systems" strengthened the industry's confidence in the UAV market war, especially China's first UAV traffic regulations "Interim Regulations on the Operation of Light and Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles" 》 will also be released in the near future, allowing more people in the industry to feel that the opening up of drone policies and regulations is approaching.
In the field of drones, the most important reason why domestic companies can quickly occupy the global market is that we have the first-mover technological advantage. Especially DJI, which occupies 70% of the global market share of the civilian small drone market, is really gratifying. . At present, the most common multi-axis drones are mainly four-axis, six-axis and eight-axis. The technical difficulties are mainly concentrated in the four aspects of flight control system, navigation system, power system and data link transmission system.
1. As the "brain" of the drone flight control system, the MEMS gyroscope plays an extremely important role in the flight control system to achieve the balance control and auxiliary navigation system of the aircraft. It can not only reduce costs, but also reduce the number of drones. weight, reduce power consumption, improve flight time, and even integrate more sensors through MEMS technology to provide technical support for the realization of precise attitude control.
2. The navigation system is the "eye" of the drone. It mainly provides the position, speed and flight attitude of the reference coordinate system for the drone, and guides the drone to fly along the designated route. For drones with high precision, high reliability, In terms of high anti-interference performance requirements, simple non-autonomous (GPS, etc.) and autonomous (inertial guidance) navigation systems cannot meet the requirements. Therefore, a variety of navigation technology solutions that combine "multi-sensors + photoelectric navigation systems + GPS + inertia" This is the mainstream of future development.
3. In terms of power system, most UAV products on the market use piston engines as their power devices. This type of engine has low thrust, short life, and high fuel consumption. It is only suitable for low-speed, low-altitude, small drones. Man-machine, for low-altitude unmanned helicopters, high-altitude long-endurance large-scale unmanned aerial vehicles and consumer-grade micro-unmanned aerial vehicles, what is needed is a high thrust-to-weight ratio, long life and low fuel consumption. Turbine engines are used in These aspects have more obvious advantages than piston engines, and turbines will surely become the mainstream of future drone launch systems.
From a macro perspective, China's drone market sales continued to increase in 2015. With the explosion of the Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, intelligent robots and autonomous driving technology, the development prospects of the global drone market in 2016 will also continue to be positive, including more intelligent , the development of more powerful hardware, perhaps in the near future, drone products will become another "smartphone" in consumers' lives.
THERE What will be the fate of VR and AR practitioners in 2016?
Let’s first take stock of the major events in the AR/VR field in 2015.
html In January, Microsoft launched the holographic head-mounted device hololens; in March, html Sony released virtual reality glasses; in May, Google and Gopro reached a cooperation to jointly develop VR recording equipment ; html In June, Epson released the VR headset Moverio Pro BT-2000; html In September, Disney invested in virtual reality technology or introduced film and television shooting;...
These events are enough to prove how hot the current AR/VR market is!
According to the 2015 Q2 AR/VR report released by Manatt Digital Media, the market share of virtual reality and augmented reality is expected to reach US$150 billion by 2020, with augmented reality expected to account for the largest share at US$120 billion, including It includes hardware (the largest share), business, data and voice services, and film and television. Virtual reality only accounts for $30 billion, mainly from games and hardware.
’s report analyzed that the mass market should still have more applications of augmented reality, while virtual reality is more suitable for the niche game market. Of course, AR is also used in the game market. However, judging from the current trend of market capital, VR is highly respected by manufacturers at least at this stage. International manufacturers including Samsung, Sony, Nokia, and Facebook all have relevant investments in the VR field.
There are two well-known AR products on the market - Microsoft Hololens and Google's Google Glass, but neither of them is currently available to consumers. In contrast, the VR market is much hotter, with equipment from many manufacturers including Samsung, HTC, Oculus and other manufacturers exhibiting at the exhibition many times. Global sales of mobile VR devices exceeded 3 million in 2015. Despite the booming sales, VR devices still have problems that need to be solved urgently.
1. In terms of hardware, low display resolution, narrow viewing angle, and low refresh rate cause discomfort such as dizziness to the wearer; in terms of software, there are also urgent needs such as inconsistent device operating systems, less content and low quality, and few development tools. solved problem. However, hardware-level issues will be greatly improved in 2016. Sony's 4K resolution has been applied to mobile phones earlier. I believe it is only a matter of time before it can be used in VR devices, and supporting high-resolution, High refresh rate CPU Snapdragon 820, Samsung Orion 8890, and Helio X20 will also be launched in 2016, and the above problems will be solved by then.
2. The service of software content is one of the core factors for the sustainable use of VR equipment. The richness of the content directly determines the level of fun. Overall, VR content services are still relatively lacking, and two trends will emerge: in 2016, there will be more VR videos converted from flat videos, just like 2D to 3D; most VR content will still be based on stereoscopic viewing. Mainly, real VR games and VR film and television content will only be gradually enriched after 2017.
Currently, more than 150 domestic manufacturers are engaged in manufacturing VR equipment, but they are basically mobile VR glasses boxes based on mobile phones, without any VR experience. After users experience real VR products next year, there will no longer be room for these companies to survive in the market. Domestically, with industry standards gradually taking shape and the ecosystem of mainstream VR companies becoming more complete, it is expected that most VR companies will have difficulty raising the next round of funding in 2016.
2016 will be the first year for the public to understand VR. By then, manufacturers with hardware manufacturing advantages will have a stronger voice in unifying hardware standards. This will undoubtedly have an impact on manufacturers lacking domestic technology. At the same time, the outside world predicts that 2016 Annual Oculus sales exceed 5 million. Due to the impact of Oculus and the lack of VR content in China, sales of domestic VR equipment are difficult to meet everyone’s expectations for the VR industry. Lagging far behind in terms of sales, domestic manufacturers do not have any bargaining chips to unify equipment systems.
There shouldn’t be much doubt that 2016 is the first year of AR/VR development. While the prospects are bright, we should also clearly recognize the competitive situation in the market. Whether it is in terms of hardware manufacturing capabilities or software content services, domestic manufacturers are basically unable to compete. After the establishment of hardware and system standards, the living space of small domestic manufacturers will become very small, and the AR/VR field will officially transform from a blue ocean to a red ocean. The development trajectory of smartphones, AR/VR will take less time to complete.
FOUR Robots have entered the 2.0 era, and human-machine collaboration is a hot topic
As the post-smartphone era approaches, the successors of intelligent hardware are reflected in intelligent robots. With high-resolution image acquisition equipment and computer software algorithms, robots Vision is much more efficient and precise than manual work; robots can adapt to 24-hour uninterrupted, repetitive work; at the same time, machine vision has strong adaptability to dangerous working environments or light environments that are not suitable for manual work, which makes Robots were a big hit in 2015.
The high quality requirements and rapid iteration of the electronics industry have driven the market demand for robots. As the public attaches great importance to product quality and automation transformation deepens, the penetration rate of machine vision in industries such as automobiles and medicine is gradually increasing. Resonance with concepts such as virtual reality, human-computer interaction, robots, and security brings new opportunities and huge room for imagination. With its powerful information processing capabilities, robots can not only be used in industrial production, but can also be widely used in the field of artificial intelligence in the future, expanding the imagination space.
In fact, robots are not very popular at present. In view of factors such as their high cost, lack of intelligent interaction capabilities, and immature industrial chain, in 2015, robots are gradually starting from a high starting point, difficult industrial purposes and Military use is moving towards a wider range of market applications and entering the 2.0 era.Advanced versions of human transportation mobile robots that appear on the market, including telepresence robots, transportation robots, vacuum cleaning robots, and automobiles... will further evolve human-machine interaction. We can see this in various robots, and this One foreseeable consequence of the current situation is that the number of emerging companies based on mobile interactive robot technology will increase rapidly in 2016.
From a market perspective, with the emergence of high-quality and low-cost sensors, electronic products, and consumer electronics communication systems, most of the materials required for robot manufacturing can now be purchased on the market at commodity prices, and robot hardware has been commercialized. ,At the same time, the cost of robot hardware is also ,gradually decreasing.
Today's needs in the manufacturing and logistics industries have driven the development of robotic solutions, which are gradually forming a technological foundation. Looking back on 2015, the concept of human-machine collaboration has come to the fore, and new collaborative robot products have been unveiled one after another, becoming the focus of industry attention. Collaborative products currently on the market mainly include Universal Robots, ABB's two-arm YuMi robot, KUKA's iiwa robot, and FANUC's CR-35iA green robot. This type of robot generally has safety functions. Once it detects someone touching it, it will stop working immediately, and it will cleverly avoid being pushed by people. From the perspective of evolution path, robots are moving towards the 2.0 era and developing in the direction of human-computer interaction, human-machine communication, and human-machine integration.
Looking forward to 2016, robots will become more intelligent. Robots have two major attributes, one is machine attributes and the other is human attributes. The first generation of robots, or robots in the traditional sense, are more inclined to machine attributes, that is, as a dedicated machine equipment to replace simple human work. The first generation of robots have a common characteristic, they can often only be used in structures. Work in a work environment, that is, you can only do some programmed, repetitive and prescribed work under pre-programmed circumstances. From the perspective of functional realization, most robots lack environmental perception systems, visual functions, force sense functions, and tactile functions. Therefore, they cannot adapt to autonomous work in complex unstructured environments and spaces. In the Robot 2.0 era, this will Change gradually.
In addition, in terms of flexibility and dexterity, the operating capabilities of robots need to be further improved, especially in the assembly and production of consumer electronics such as smartphones, laptops and tablets. On the one hand, existing robot products cannot meet the technical requirements of the above-mentioned new fields in terms of accuracy and performance; on the other hand, as the life cycle of 3C consumer electronics manufacturing products becomes shorter and shorter, there is a need for robots to switch production line modes again. Flexible production and flexible manufacturing also put forward higher requirements.
(Chapter 2 of Huaqiang Electronics Magazine's "Who Will Take Over the Battery for Intelligent Hardware in the Post-Smartphone Era")
The article comes from: Huaqiang Intelligent Manufacturing Hi Space (WeChat public account: HQ-Innovator)
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