Many people have long been puzzled by the purpose of smart speakers. Undeniably, smart speakers free our hands, allowing us to operate them simply through voice commands. They also connect to many smart home systems, making it incredibly convenient for consumers to comfortably control lights, TVs, air conditioners, and other appliances from the comfort of their sofas. However, there's a problem: what can be done with a smart speaker can also be done with a smartphone, suggesting significant functional overlap.
As we all know, the reason smart speakers are called "smart" is because their intelligent voice recognition system can accurately interact with users. Therefore, the most important component is the intelligent voice recognition system they incorporate. Currently, some of the better examples of intelligent voice systems include Xiaomi's Xiao Ai, Samsung's Bixby, Tmall's Tmall Genie, and Baidu's Xiaodu. These voice systems can guarantee effective feedback to users.
However, the situation for smart speakers is quite different compared to the current state of development of artificial intelligence technology. According to data disclosed by market research firm Canalys, the shipment volume of smart speakers in China reached 7 million units in the first half of 2018, while last year, GfK statistics showed that the number of domestic smart speaker sales from January to August 2017 was only 100,000 units, representing an increase of 7,000%.
Although the market is booming, this success is only due to the entry of major manufacturers who are constantly driving down the price of smart speakers. Jack Ma once said that Alibaba doesn't make money on Singles' Day and even loses 200 million yuan. Industry insiders estimate that the cost of the Tmall Genie X1 is about 299 yuan, while the promotional price on Singles' Day is 99 yuan. The 200 million yuan loss is basically all due to the Tmall Genie.
Xiaomi's strategy is similar; for a company that prioritizes cost-effectiveness, smart speakers are no exception. Just before the sale, Lei Jun personally reduced the price of the Xiaomi smart speaker from 399 yuan to 299 yuan, while its cost was essentially the same as the selling price—truly, they weren't making any profit on the hardware.
The entry of industry giants into the smart speaker market reflects their belief that smart speakers have the potential to become a major gateway to the Internet of Things (IoT). Furthermore, the continuous maturation of intelligent voice technology and improvements in interaction logic and accuracy are contributing to the widespread adoption of smart speakers.
Aside from intelligent voice control, the positioning of smart speakers is also ambiguous. Although major manufacturers believe that smart speakers are one of the important gateways to the next era, apart from Xiaomi's own smart speakers which have a complete smart home ecosystem, the functions of other smart speakers are quite limited. Rather than being an entry point, they are more like carriers of intelligent voice control. For example, Tmall Genie and Baidu's Xiaodu are similar; the former focuses more on shopping, while the latter can connect to the Baidu search engine, but it is essentially just a voice search tool.
For smart speakers to become true gateways to the Internet of Things (IoT), the first issue to address is interaction. While intelligent voice technology is developing rapidly, it still has shortcomings, and human-machine communication feels somewhat unnatural. Furthermore, when users issue commands to smart speakers, the speakers often fail to accurately recognize them, resulting in commands not being completed. For users with accents or dialects, such products are essentially unusable. Therefore, the primary challenge is making this product easy to use.
Unlike the current subsidies in China, the penetration rate of smart speakers overseas is already very high. According to a recent report by Adobe Analytics, the penetration rate of smart speakers abroad has reached 32%, a 4 percentage point increase from 28% at the beginning of the year. In the United States, most smart speakers used in homes are domestic products, such as Google Home and Apple HomePod. Analysts predict that the penetration rate of smart speakers may reach 48% by the end of the year.
Why is the adoption rate of smart speakers so high overseas, while the response in the domestic market is lukewarm? This can be seen from the following aspects. First, there is the difference in living environment. Overseas users are used to using smart home products, and owning a smart speaker can ensure a good experience. They can quickly integrate their home's home system through the smart speaker, giving consumers an intuitive feeling.
As the smartphone boom gradually fades, the industry is turning its attention to the next generation of smart hardware, with smart speakers undoubtedly being the hottest sector...
By 2020, smart speakers had undergone several significant transformations. In terms of form, they evolved from simple cylinders to small, delicate flat ovals, then to irregular shapes with screens, and even to the shape of singing and dancing AI robots. Functionally, they upgraded from initial auditory interactive entertainment to becoming gateways to home appliance connectivity and smart living. Prices also dropped from thousands of yuan to below a hundred yuan, clearly indicating a focus on increasing sales volume.
However, in this increasingly congested market, two completely different voices have emerged in the industry's discussion of smart speakers.
One group of leading smart speaker manufacturers, represented by BATJ (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent, and JD.com) and other internet companies, believes that "smart speakers are an entry point into the smart home market." Although they are still in the "money-burning" stage of cultivating the market, they firmly believe that smart speakers are as essential to the smart home as smartphones are to the Internet of Things (IoT) era, and that one day smart speakers will become the central "hub" of the Internet of Everything.
Another, more pessimistic view holds that the domestic smart speaker industry has grown wildly, plagued by negative news such as limited functionality, price wars, and technology plagiarism. Electronic products that fail to resonate with consumers will ultimately become "victims" of industry upgrading, and smart speakers may be abandoned by the times.
In response, International Electronics Business interviewed component suppliers in the relevant industry chain to discuss the development trend and the timing of a "qualitative change" in the smart speaker industry.
Three years of ups and downs, ecological construction has become a major challenge.
Looking back at the development of the smart speaker industry, we can easily identify two key milestones: one is the launch of Amazon Echo in November 2014, which became the "pioneer of smart speakers." Initially, Echo was simply a smart music player designed for the home, but it unexpectedly became a hot commodity in the North American consumer electronics market that year, capturing 25% of the global speaker market sales in just one year and opening up a new blue ocean in the global electronics market.
Another key moment came in June 2017 when Apple released the HomePod, triggering a frenzy of entry from domestic Chinese players. Baidu was the first to launch, releasing its natural language platform, DuerOS; Alibaba followed suit, with its Tmall Genie series gradually dominating the domestic market with its overwhelming sales advantage. Soon after, JD.com, Tencent, Xiaomi, and other domestic players were not to be outdone, releasing their own smart speaker products that year, vying to play the role of "price killers." Numerous internet startups of all sizes and venture capital firms cheering them on further fueled the vibrant smart speaker market.
These two periods represent the golden opportunity for the smart speaker market to explode. However, they were also marked by numerous doubts and scandals, preventing the widespread adoption of smart speakers from happening overnight and instead causing constant setbacks.
In fact, some domestic technology companies launched internet speakers even before Amazon Echo. In 2013, Miao Wei, general manager of Shanghai Huwen Information Technology Co., Ltd., led his team to join the Xiaozhi team and successfully developed the "Xiaozhi" speaker, bringing technologies such as microphone arrays and far-field interaction to users for the first time. Miao Wei was thus hailed as "China's first person to develop smart speakers." Furthermore, in August 2014, iFlytek and China Mobile jointly launched a Wi-Fi speaker product, which was widely praised as a gift for mobile phone purchases by operators.
So, will smart speakers be the super product of the Internet of Things era? At least for now, it doesn't seem so!
Looking back at the development of smart speakers, Amazon released its first smart home speaker, the Amazon Echo, on November 6, 2014. In March 2016, based on the Echo, Amazon launched two more devices with built-in Alexa: the Tap and the Dot. The Tap is essentially a budget version of the Echo, while the Dot is a product that integrates other speakers with smart features. Due to its very affordable price, the Amazon Echo captured 25% of the entire speaker market in 2015, a 1200% increase from 2014. Since its release in 2014, the Echo and its two other products have accumulated sales of nearly ten million units, generating between eight and one billion US dollars in revenue.
On May 19, 2016, at its annual I/O developer conference, Google announced Google Home, a voice-activated device with a built-in speaker. On October 5, 2016, Google Home, which can be controlled via voice assistant, was launched. It was also reasonably priced.
Apple was the last to announce its smart speaker, the HomePod, at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) on June 6, 2017. It was also released later, in December 2017, in the US, UK, and Australia. Its price was twice that of the Echo Tap.
Data from eMarket shows that in the first quarter of 2017, Amazon Echo held a 70.6% market share in the US voice assistant market, Google Home accounted for 23.8%, and other manufacturers (including Apple, Lenovo, LG, Harmon Kardon, and Mattel) shared the remaining 5.6%. However, the latest news indicates that Apple's HomePod, less than a month after its launch, captured 3% of the US smart speaker market.
Of course, it wasn't just foreign companies; in the domestic market alone, almost every company involved in speaker hardware, software (AI computing), and content (music, radio) launched its own AI speakers within 2017. Examples include Alibaba's Tmall Genie X1, the Dingdong Speaker A1 from the joint venture between iFlytek and JD.com, Himalaya FM's Xiaoya AI Speaker, Lenovo's Lenovo Smart Speaker, Xiaomi's Xiaomi AI Speaker, Rokid's Pebble Moonstone Smart Speaker, and many more.
Having read this far, you might think that smart speakers are already incredibly popular. Yes, that's true, but if you think about it carefully, what's actually popular is just the voice AI.
Anything powered by AI can achieve this effect; it doesn't have to be a speaker.
What is the primary purpose of a speaker? To play music and produce sound. This is also why many people choose it as another gateway to the internet; its basic function is to transmit information. However, we haven't considered that a speaker, as a playback device, isn't something everyone owns or likes. Many people who have bought AI speakers probably only use them to play music and interact with the AI assistant. Therefore, those who like speakers will prioritize sound quality over the intelligence of the AI assistant, and those who like intelligent AI voice control don't necessarily need a speaker; a phone or computer will suffice.
The ultimate form of human demand for AI will inevitably be intelligent robots. These will be more than just speakers; they will be a program, similar to Jarvis from Iron Man. They will be the true gateway, capable of controlling every connected device in the era of the Internet of Things, without even needing a physical entity. Of course, before true AI emerges, this vision is still very far off. Speakers, of course, will eventually focus more on the music industry. Currently, they can serve as a carrier of AI and an internet gateway, but many issues still need to be addressed.
Even with good sound quality, excellent sound pickup in various scenarios, and good voice recognition, it's still difficult to find a truly simple and straightforward AI for interaction. For example, every command requires a wake word. Even when no one is home, a wake word is still needed for it to respond; it can't determine whether you're speaking to it.
The same applies to various intelligent companion robots. They aren't yet super products, but they can serve as connection centers controlling many smart devices and as good companions. Current AI speakers, to some extent, free our hands and allow us to do things like a child. Yes, like a child—wake it up and clearly say, "I want to listen to this and that..." This is clearly not enough for a super product.
Of course, while AI speakers aren't exactly groundbreaking products, they're undeniably good ones. Those who enjoy trying new things can definitely give it a shot. I recommend them to those with patience; those with a fiery temper and a tendency to throw things should probably just look at them from afar—you know why.
Whether in movies or in people's imaginations, smart homes represent the future lifestyle people aspire to. Imagine coming home and simply saying a word to turn on the appliances you need, or opening the bedroom door with your voice. These smart home products we envision all share a common feature: they serve as an entry point to a smart home experience, entirely through voice interaction. Nowadays, simply using remote controls or mobile phones no longer meets the diverse needs of users. As we all know, many smart TV remotes now incorporate gesture control, voice control, and even artificial intelligence. With such technological support, TVs can more accurately recognize human speech and semantics.
Sound is an intangible medium, and today, smart devices that bring entertainment through external sounds are emerging in large numbers, with smart speakers being one of them. Smart speakers have become incredibly popular in recent years, thanks to their small size, strong entertainment capabilities, and other features, making them a favorite among many manufacturers. However, unlike smart home products such as televisions, smart speakers play a crucial role in the Internet of Things (IoT), serving as the gateway to smart homes. So why have so many manufacturers unanimously chosen smart speakers? Today, let's explore this together.
What exactly is a smart speaker?
Speaker devices are now commonplace; most households with computers also have one. Smart speakers offer basic playback functions similar to regular speakers, but the addition of "smart" features transforms them from simple music players into more versatile devices with greater user interaction, making them quite popular. With a Wi-Fi module, the speaker can download and play songs directly from the internet without needing a physical connection. In fact, the definition of a smart speaker has expanded far beyond simple hardware. In this era of the Internet of Things (IoT), smart speakers, through voice interaction, have become part of the home's IoT ecosystem. Both international tech giants like Amazon and Google, and Chinese home appliance manufacturers, have launched their own smart speaker devices.
Amazon previously launched the Echo smart speaker. The Dot smart speaker, equipped with Amazon's Alexa voice assistant, became a best-selling product on the Amazon platform due to its low price and novel usage. By the end of 2016, Amazon had sold 6 million Echo speaker devices. In the current smart speaker market, the emergence of Amazon Echo has also spurred the development of Google Home and many domestic manufacturers.
Are all manufacturers optimistic about smart speakers?
At this point, many might be curious: smart home entry points aren't limited to voice interaction, so why have so many manufacturers chosen smart speakers? While speakers are just ordinary devices, smart speakers represent a key for many tech giants to enter the smart home field through platforms, hoping to gain more support and participate in various aspects of users' lives. Therefore, even though the smart home market is still in its early stages of explosive growth, many manufacturers have already begun using smart speakers as their first step in establishing a foothold in the smart home ecosystem.
For smart homes, simply using a mobile app for control doesn't fully align with the ultimate concept of the Internet of Things (IoT). Voice interaction has become the ideal mode for users to "communicate" with devices. In today's era of artificial intelligence and big data, the practical effectiveness of voice interaction is increasingly evident. Many manufacturers have already launched smart home systems, such as Apple's HomeKit. Based on this, control over smart speakers becomes crucial for manufacturers. Therefore, Apple's desire to develop Siri into an AI assistant in its pursuit of smart home market share is quite understandable.
