Home > Article > The 4K battle is about to come to an end, and the battle for smart home entrance is revived. Can AI TVs seize the C position?

The 4K battle is about to come to an end, and the battle for smart home entrance is revived. Can AI TVs seize the C position?

Every reporter: Zhang Honglei Every editor: Tang Hui

With the continuous development and improvement of network infrastructure and the widespread application of artificial intelligence technology, new categories of smart terminals continue to emerge and gradually become popular, changing the experience of traditional homes.

With the changes in the industry, color TVs are also ushering in a wave of ecological changes. After 4K ultra-high-definition TV competitions, major manufacturers have gradually regarded TV as one of the entrances to the competition for smart homes.

On July 2, during the 2019 (15th) China Digital TV Industry Development Conference, Dong Guiguan of the National Digital Audio and Multimedia Product Quality Supervision and Inspection Center said in an interview with the reporter of "Daily Economic News" that the integration and integration of AI TV Compatibility still needs to be further improved.

Senior industry observer Dong Min also told the "Daily Economic News" reporter that there is no doubt that AI TVs are the entrance to smart homes. However, in the current smart home matrix, there is a situation of competition between black and white power matrices. There are still certain obstacles in the interconnection and interoperability of smart home hardware. How to better realize platform connection and interoperability, from the single product stage When it comes to platform upgrades, further exploration is still needed.

2019 (Fifteenth) China Digital TV Industry Development Conference on-site image source: Photo courtesy of the organizer

AI TV seizes the entrance of smart home

At the 2019 (Fifteenth) China Digital TV Industry Development Conference, Lu Renbo, deputy secretary-general of the China Electronics Chamber of Commerce, released the "Report on China's Color TV Consumption from January to June 2019 and Market Forecast Trends in the Second Half of the Year". Lu Renbo told reporters including the "Daily Business News" that one of the trends in the color TV market in the second half of 2019 is that 4K ultra-high-definition TV consumption will account for 70% of the total. It is expected that consumption will exceed 80% by the end of the year. Enter the popularization stage.

The "TV-centric Home IoT Experience White Paper" released on the spot pointed out that the smart home industry is developing rapidly. In 2018, the global market size was about 96 billion US dollars, of which my country accounted for about 32%, and the market size was about 200 billion yuan. With the continuous improvement of network infrastructure, the scale of my country's smart home market is growing at an annual rate of 20%.

Dong Guiguan stated that Home IoT has gone through four stages of development. From 1999 to 2003, home appliances expanded their networking functions on the basis of their original functions. Users can perform one-to-one operations on networked home appliances through mobile phones and computer terminals, and at the same time use computer functions. Attached to home appliances, but not interconnected; 2004-2009, the rise of digital products, and the gradual interconnection between devices. Numerous alliances organize the development of different protocols to promote the standardization and industrialization of home IoT, and realize the interconnection and intercommunication between devices of different manufacturers; since 2010, the number of smart terminal devices in the home has increased, and home IoT has been through home smart devices , Internet of Things, broadband networks, etc. realize the interconnection of people and things, and things and things. In the 5G era, with the increase of network speed and the reduction of payment costs, the Internet of Things will be deeply integrated with the mobile Internet.

Under the change of the industry, Home IoT has also moved from single product control to interconnection, from passive response to active intelligence.

The reporter of "Daily Economic News" found that in recent years, the AI ​​smart home layout of major color TV brands such as Changhong, Skyworth, Haier, LG, Hisense, etc. has gradually matured, and Xiaomi, Huawei, Jingdong, etc. also have smart IoT platforms. . This also makes the industry start to think about whether it is possible to upgrade the artificial intelligence TV from the C position in the living room to the C position in the smart home.

Image source: Photograph

Try to break through through AI interconnection

According to the consensus of the industry, artificial intelligence TV is the protagonist of the living room and an important display terminal in the smart home. Its natural advantages make it the interaction center, control center, playback center and storage center of the smart home.

At present, the typical application scenario of TV in smart home is home equipment control. An industry personage gave an example at the meeting that when watching TV, the TV screen would appear "bad air" prompts. This is a case of opening a new era of home appliance interconnection through TV AIoT. As a core part of the home IoT, TVs endow smart terminals with ultra-high-definition display, fast response, and intelligent interaction.

However, how much traffic AI TV can capture in the smart home market in the future remains to be tested by the market.

Dong Guiguan of the National Digital Audio and Multimedia Product Quality Supervision and Testing Center said in an interview with the reporter of "Daily Economic News" that at present, various color TV manufacturers have completed the preliminary layout of smart homes and put forward their own plans and strategies, but overall , Showing the following characteristics: First, the compatibility is not good enough, subject to the diversified underlying solutions, the current platforms and even the home appliance products of various brands are not compatible enough to ensure a good experience for end consumers; second, AI integration needs to be further strengthened , The current level of intelligence still has a lot of room for development, and consumers’ intelligent experience needs to be improved; third, the domestic industrial layout needs to be further improved. The layout needs to be further improved.

Dong Min reminded that with the transformation of the industry, the color TV industry is constantly upgrading and revitalizing new markets despite its ultra-high-definition, large-screen, display innovation and other elements. However, the current situation that cannot be ignored is that the current color TV market is still in a sluggish inventory competition pattern, and user stickiness has not been effectively improved. Whether the color TV industry can truly realize the ecological change tide of the color TV industry by playing the role of the smart home entrance is a need for the industry to think deeply. The problem.

According to data provided by Aoweiyun.com to reporters of "Daily Economic News", during the 618 promotion period in 2019, the retail volume of China's color TV market was 2.52 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 3.5%; retail sales were 5.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 12.8%. The price of color TV sets has been the lowest in history again. The overall average price has greatly tilted to the price range below 2,000 yuan, and the price range below 2,000 yuan increased by 7.9%. 65 inches has become the second largest sales size in the market, accounting for 17.6% of the market, an increase of 7.6%. The high-end market grew slightly and showed mediocre performance.

On the other hand, Dong Min mentioned that there are still two major trends in the future of smart homes that deserve attention: one is whether smart home appliances can be integrated with the smart home environment in appearance, and the other is how individual products can be developed and extended through smart interconnection. Own function.