Discussion keeps the world turning.
This is Roundtable.
The future of smart homes is here.
AI and smart home technology adapts to your needs.
But if it's so great, why are smart homes still not everywhere?
Let's dive in. And Motivational Monday is here to turn meh into magic.
Tune in for stories and songs that will light a fire under your week.
Coming to you live from Beijing, this is Roundtable.
I'm He Young. For today's program, I'm joined by Steve Hatherly and Yu Shun in the studio.
First on today's show.
Imagine walking into your house and before you even lift a finger, the lights adjust to your habits.
The temperature is just right and your fridge tells you what's about to expire.
Sounds like sci -fi, right?
Well, thanks to AI and smart home technology, the next big thing in home innovation is not just about controlling your lights with your smartphone anymore.
It's about living in a space that anticipates your every need.
On Roundtable, we've been checking in for, well, pretty much every year on the status of smart homes in China.
But even as AI -powered homes become more connected, why are adoption rates still relatively low?
let's dig into what's really going on in the smart home space.
So, what is new about smart homes these days?
Yeah, first of all, I think with all of the development of technology, what we are seeing or we're using right now, and as He Yang just saying, is not getting that sci -fi anymore, right?
They're becoming reality.
And, you know, the concept of smart homes is evolving into a kind of more advanced whole home smart model with the integration of AI, of course, where the entire home is interconnected and all systems work together in harmony, you know, with the support of maybe artificial intelligence, everything from like large appliances like TVs and ACs to even smaller elements like curtains and your lighting system, the whole home system may no longer rely on maybe your manual control or commands but instead you know they can learn your habits to automatically adjust various household facilities i was watching
a video earlier today if you go online you can find a lot of videos people showing off their smart homes right and i don't know what system he was using but this guy in the video he walked into his living room.
And he said, open the curtains and set the lights to 80%.
So then the curtain suddenly opened, a voice came from a box that said setting lights to 80 % and then the lights came on to 80 % power is pretty cool.
And you can find lots of examples of smart home technology on the internet.
Right. And that sounds like, although still pretty futuristic in my book, but I'm a tech ledite.
But that sounds more like yesterday.
And that sounds more like automation being used in the so -called smart home space.
And this year, you know, ever since chat GPT was dropped into the wild more, almost two years ago now, I suppose, AI, oh, and also, of course, DeepSeek being all the rage here in China and across the world, actually, since the earlier of this year, now they're talking about AI integration into the smart home space.
What kind of features can we maybe anticipate?
As you said, He Yang, what Steve was like illustrating are more like kind of automation home appliances kind of thing.
And with the integration of AI, I would say it's going to be more personalized and customized.
And also the AI will get more understanding on your personal habits.
And then it will do everything for you automatically, not even you command anything.
So if you would like to, let's say, watch a movie in the living room, when you tell your home assistant, now I'm going to watch a movie.
and then the assistant like just doesn't just play your movie yeah that's so old school to just play the movie yeah and then it will like analyze your room layout and your device position and then adjust your lighting to match the movie's atmosphere maybe if you're watching a like love movie or becoming more dimming lights and then if you're watching a kind of a fast and furious kind of thing you will they will give you some very exciting lighting and setups almost even better than a movie theater yeah experience right yeah so that's how that's how it's changing and then when you introduce algorithms
advanced algorithms then a smart home system can understand both the detailed commands you can still talk to these systems but also vague requests or more casual requests for example if you're asked to make a specific dish in the kitchen that a smart kitchen can go beyond the recipe then it can link the command to the necessary kitchen appliances control the oven temperature the time that it takes to cook and even in just the lighting for the movie is important how about a little mood lighting for your cooking too why not because Your smart kitchen can do that for you, seamlessly kind of integrating
the entire experience in the kitchen, which is really, really cool.
And we're talking about IoT, the Internet of Things, where one device talks to the other device, talks to the other device, and they all work together as a team.
So I suppose the key word here could be anticipation, that the technology can analyze what you want.
So before you actually giving the command, the technology could anticipate what you want and therefore act as, you know, the kind of a, well, this is all kind of in theory, isn't it?
to act like the assistant that knows you so well, that knows your need even before you voice it.
And then what I find to be really, I suppose, helpful is if it were true that, I kind of mentioned it in the lead, that your fridge can tell you that, oh, that cucumber is going to expire soon.
Throw out that tomato before it goes bad, because I tend to forget these things.
And if your fridge can actually tell you that on the one hand that's really really cool on the other hand that's really really scary if it knows that my tomato or cucumber is going to expire then what else does it know about me that I don't even maybe know about myself then they know like what you're eating every day what you're wearing way every day and it can push me all kinds of ads which I don't want or who knows what you know that all that info is going to be used for you're asking about advancements another big advancement a significant one is the user interaction so with chatting to an ai
system a smart home system it allows users now to interact naturally almost like you're talking to another person for example if a user expresses that they feel cold and asked to adjust the temperature in the bedroom, the system can interpret this request and carry out several actions at once like raising the temperature but also perhaps turning on a humidifier.
It can even soften the tones if it thinks you're in a bad mood or knows you're in a bad mood.
It's designed, I think, to understand the context of your situation, the contextual needs and it allows for a more intuitive, a more seamless and really a more personalized experience.
Right. I mean, that's all fine and dandy, well said.
But is there really that much of a stark contrast of the before and after with this wide implementation of at least, I mean, let's say large language models, which we're quite familiar with these days?
So what do you see as, you know, the before and after in the smart home space?
I would say it depends.
If like originally we're all using all of these traditional home appliances and then you suddenly get into that smart home app and integrating with AI, I think, of course, the change is going to be astonishing.
But if you already had a lot of automation plus smart home appliances, and when you're having the integration of AI, you will see, okay, it's getting more convenient, but it's not going to be that contrast of changes.
So let's say when you're having like, say, smart lock and when you are like installed on the inside of your door, and then it will seamlessly integrate with your smartphones for you to open and close your door and also remotely.
And it can send you notifications about who comes and goes on also at the same time.
That's a little scary.
But that's more like a monitor, you know, on your log and telling you who's at your door.
You can set it so that unlocking the door automatically turns on the lights when you are coming back home.
And also your air conditioner.
And also with AI, the system can even recognize different users and adjust the environment according to your individual preferences.
For example, you scan your fingerprint and your wife scan her fingerprint, and they will recognize who is getting back home and give you a different set of settings of your home.
A lot of the technology before was based on automation and really fixed programs.
So devices needed manual control, and they lacked adaptive capabilities.
And I can have or I can use a personal example here.
i used to have a smart lighting system in my house and it was amazing it was really cool you buy different light bulbs and then there's a hub and then you download the app onto your phone and then you can change the the color or the hue of the color in the light bulb to individualize each bulb and then you can create your own kind of landscape in there and then they had different things like lighting cables that you could that were malleable you could push them in different directions and then put them in different spots around your house to create lamps.
It was really amazing.
But that technology at that time, which was about maybe 10 years ago now, everything had to be done by me.
So I had to set everything myself.
Now, I didn't mind doing that necessarily, but that's what the technology allowed at the time.
Now, though, with AI -driven technology, you've got sensors, you've got the large model learning that enables these devices to adapt.
They know you in a sense.
They know what you like.
And then it just makes it more seamless and it's more of an automatic control as opposed to you having to open an app and do everything yourself.
And let's take a look at the general market space here in China right now.
I think it's really interesting to look at the major players.
You've got at least two camps of companies.
On the one hand, you've got, I'll use Haya as an example.
If you're Chinese, you've heard of the brand.
Also, you've probably recognized the two brothers, both in shorts and on their logo.
Oh, cool. I don't think I've seen this one yet.
And then I hear some millennials, Chinese millennials say that, you know, like it gives them like haunting stories of, you know, just seeing those two little brothers on the AC and on that logo.
Anyhow, that's higher.
And then they are a traditional manufacturer and they've migrated to smart home appliance as well.
And they have this sleep monitoring device now adjusts room temperature and humidity based on sleep patterns, showcasing the shift towards a more adaptive and personalized smart home appliances, experiences.
So that's a good example of traditional manufacturer.
And you've got Xiaomi, on the other hand, and other internet companies, which have really done a fantastic job, not only first to establish their brand as we're a tech company, a tech giant, but also we're dabbling into the traditional manufacturing field as well.
And then they are also making waves in the smart home space.
So I'd like you guys to investigate and tell us, you know, how are these players doing?
In the last couple of years, have they really made progress?
And who's winning if there is dominance at all?
Oh, yeah. At least I would say both of these categories are trying to figure out what is customer want in the stage of, you know, everything is becoming more intelligent and smart.
So traditional appliance companies like Hire and Mehdi or Mii Idea focus on like upgrading their products to be smarter and more integrated with other home systems.
For example, Mehdi's smart home solutions offer packages for various home environments and needs.
And actually some of their home appliances can be connected with other platforms.
So that when you're having one hub, let's say from Xiaomi or from Baidu or from Tianmau, you can control them through that speaker.
But all of your home appliances are from different manufacturers.
And also some of their, as I said, internet companies like Baidu, Alibaba, they are trying to establish a kind of hub kind of thing.
So so that they can they're not actually manufacturing these home appliances, but they are creating platforms for you to actually control all of these devices.
And then that's like consumer electronics companies like Xiaomi and Huawei.
They're trying to leverage their existing technology ecosystems to create whole home smart systems.
For example, Xiaomi is not a traditional home appliance company, but actually they are becoming more and more stable and reputable in creating a smart solution for users.
Xiaomi created the smart home market around 2013, and by the third quarter of 2020, it had secured the top position in China's smart home industry in terms of shipment volume with a market share of around 16%.
Yeah, so you've got your consumer electronics companies, and they're leveraging their existing technology ecosystems to create a smart home system.
The Internet companies, they're aiming to establish themselves as a central hub for smartphones by creating highly interconnected devices for the IoT, right?
So one device can talk to another device.
And then you've got your traditional appliance companies.
And what they're doing is they're just upgrading their products to be smarter and more integrated with other home systems.
And the industry itself, the market size, is huge.
It's 716 billion yuan.
That's about $98 billion.
That was in 2023. And they project that with growth, it will get up to $537 billion by the time we reach 2030.
And that is merely four and a half years away, roughly, right?
Yeah, that's really interesting.
While you see these appliance giants, they have the advantage of manufacturing expertise, and they do have brand trust.
Internet companies are better positioned in terms of software, AI, and cross -platform interoperability.
Traditional manufacturers must accelerate their digital transformation, and this is what we're seeing right now.
Although some of the companies are struggling a little bit, focusing on AI, cloud platforms, and user experience innovation, to compete with those tech -centric agile internet companies.
This is something, an area would be great to see if there were more partnerships because acquisition might not be so easy all the time.
But yes, we're seeing definitely this is a dynamic market space for sure.
And what do you guys see as the existing challenges for this space to develop?
Because I kind of have alluded to that.
you guys, and both of you are more tech forward than I am.
And I don't think I have anything that is particularly smart home related.
And that's one of the big challenges.
And this is from 36KR, the penetration rate, right, is still quite low for smart homes reaching only about 15 % by 2023.
So there are a lot of hurdles to overcome.
And the value chain, it's really quite complex compared to your traditional home appliance manufacturing, because you've got the appliance production, of course, but you've got the software, you've got the hardware, you've got the interconnectivity of all the devices.
There's a lot more going on.
You've got control chips and smart sensors and cloud computing and AI and there's a lot of seamless integration that needs to take place across various devices so that is definitely one of the challenges to get more of this in people's homes.
Yeah and what I was thinking is that whenever a home appliances plus one word that is called smart it will be more expensive so I think that could be one of the hurdles that, you know, like ordinary or like consumers like us, when we're considering buying home appliances, okay, now I'm so satisfied with the home appliances that I'm using right now that is so traditional.
But if you're making me pay more to use something that I probably not going to need in a long term, maybe they'll still like stick to the traditional ones.
Well, you bring up a really good point.
They did a survey from rednet .cn and it was a really high number of people who responded that they had encountered, quote, unnecessary or redundant features in their smart home products.
I said a high number 87 .5%.
So what that means is that, you know, you can have a smart appliance, but it might do some things that you don't necessarily need it to do And if you don't need it to do that, well, then you're thinking, do I really need to buy this in the first place?
And also, another point is that when we're talking about smart home and we should talk about how smart it could be.
Actually, I was thinking it's better for a lot of these smart home users to maintain a certain level of manual control.
First of all, machine learning may not always be entirely accurate.
The current automation that enables different devices to interact with each other is already quite advanced, I would say.
Like 10 years ago, you have that advanced lighting system, right?
Automatically adjusting lights and curtains based on environmental temperature, I think they're already quite advanced.
Also, as long as smart home technology hasn't reached the level of, I would say, AGI, artificial general intelligence, like Ironman's Jarvis, that kind of level, I'd rather give the commands myself to control my home.
Yeah, yeah. I think, and this is just my personal opinion, not everybody wants this.
Yeah. You know? I bought my dad.
No, I mean. I bought my dad.
This wasn't even a smart home thing.
I bought my dad and my mom a surround speaker system.
I was thinking they would really love that.
You know what I mean?
Yeah. Watching movies.
Did you say it's like a stereo kind of thing?
Yeah, like surround sound thing.
Yeah. Okay. But this isn't AI or anything.
This is just an example.
And so I set it up, and then the next time I went home, it wasn't even plugged in.
And I said, what are you doing, Dad?
And he said, oh, I don't need that.
I said, why not? It sounds better.
He said, the speaker has a TV.
Or the TV has a speaker.
Right. So my point is, not everyone wants these types of things.
How to use them effectively can be confusing for some people, and they just perhaps don't even want to bother.
Very, very good point.
And you guys, you mentioned the dancing lights.
Didn't you mention the dancing lights, but you had to control manually?
I don't need that stuff.
Even if it were to be controlled by AI, even if AI felt, oh, Huyang's not feeling great today.
Let's pump her up with some disco lights.
I don't need that. Yeah, and especially if it comes with quite a hifty price tag.
And also, what if something went wrong?
Who's going to come and fix it?
Well, see, we can use a smart toilet as an example here.
I was watching another video about this guy.
He got a new smart toilet, and this thing, when you walk up to the toilet, the lid goes up.
There's also a button that you hit one time.
one part will go up twice, another part and three times it'll go back down.
Then inside there's a light.
So at night when you walk in, it recognizes you're there and the light turns on.
It doesn't speak to you.
That would be a little weird.
It's got a fan inside.
There's just so many moving parts.
So when something inevitably goes wrong, you gotta fix it.
And then you gotta get somebody to come.
So the more buttons something has, if you will, the more opportunity for it to break.
Yeah. And also you probably need a technician with an advanced degree or something to fix it.
It's not what a traditional plumber can easily fix, I suppose.
And also privacy concerns, especially when you throw AI into the mix, which if I'm being completely honest, I don't think AI is really all that deeply involved in smart home designs, at least not for the average Joe yet, because it's probably just very, very expensive.
But anyhow, with AI being thrown in the mix in the future, it's going to collect so much more data.
And remember when voice assistants such as Alexa and Siri first hit the block maybe a decade ago, there was that huge discussion about, oh, it's always listening to you.
Yeah. Otherwise, how can it give you a response?
And now I've seen reports even complaining that voice assistants, such as the two that I mentioned just now, have been falling behind because of all this fast development in AI revolution.
There was an old English joke that said when Siri became a big thing and it was a father speaking to his son and the father said, son, I think Siri is listening to our conversations.
I laughed, my son laughed, Siri laughed.
Wow, that's a bit creepy.
So guys, what do you see as the future or what do you see the future hold for smart home, this whole big thing?
As you said, you know, learning costs and usage costs is absolutely something that we need to think about.
Also, breaking brand barriers by, you know, enabling different brand devices to connect through a unified standard.
Maybe it's something also all of these manufacturers, they can think of at least.
Of course, they are trying to build up an ecosystem by themselves, but still, for users, it's a problem.
For it to truly take off, technology must blend seamlessly with our lives, not just in terms of function, but in value as well.
