Text/Du Yiou columnist
Doors and windows are practical entrances to the family. In recent years, with the penetration of intelligent technology, there are countless manufacturers who make intelligent products on doors. Smart door locks and smart cat's eyes have become an important part of smart home security protection scenes, but on the other hand, there seem to be few manufacturers who do intelligence on windows.
Smart window products add a new experience to the traditional window form. For example, in indoor situations, windows can be automatically opened and closed or hung by voice control or remote control, and in remote areas, various states of windows can be controlled by APP. The latest smart windows begin to attach transparent touch screens on the windows, which can display local weather, indoor and outdoor air quality and other related information without affecting the transparency, and can even be equipped with fresh air filtering system and light adjustment system.
Yiou Home recently experienced several smart window systems of Yuanzhi in an intelligent solution exhibition hall. Through the dialogue with Gao Jing, the co-founder of Yuanzhi, I learned that compared with the current crowded situation of the smart door lock track, although the smart window is a trillion-dollar blue ocean to be developed, it seems that it is difficult to have a hot situation at present.
For a long time, doors and windows are a traditional and scattered industry. With the development of China's real estate industry, the market capacity is huge.
"We started our business from the establishment of 20 15 Company (Chairman Jin Jinzhong, CEO Zhao Chang, co-founder Gao Jing, CTO Zhang Miaohui). At that time, we wanted to be a smart home product of the Internet of Things, and finally locked in the door and window industry to be the first product. First of all, because the volume is large enough, there are more than 600 billion doors and windows, and the window energy accounts for almost 300 billion. Secondly, this market is one. Gao Jing said to Yiou's family.
Pain point one, when the indoor air quality is not good, such as harmful gases such as carbon dioxide, formaldehyde and benzene, the simplest way is actually to open the window for ventilation adjustment, and the adsorption capacity of indoor equipment such as air purifiers is limited; Pain point 2: When there are weather conditions such as smog, sandstorm and rain outside, close the window in time or even in advance. Manual operation is required at present; Pain point three, for example, there is a newly renovated new house that has not yet moved in, or a long-term vacant holiday house. Without remote control, people can only open and close windows or hire outsiders to manage ventilation every day, which is not reassuring and safe. Therefore, it can be controlled remotely, and the smart window of independent switch has a force point.
Gao Jing revealed that the team has given two product definitions of smart window products.
The first type is the intelligent microclimate window, which can keep the indoor temperature, humidity and air quality within a healthy range through the adjustment of the intelligent opening and closing window, and can prevent the weather change independently;
The second is the intelligent display window, which can provide users with more information about life, teaching and work in different scenes by adding a display screen to the intelligent window. Every window in the future will be an intelligent terminal of the Internet of Things.
In addition to the annual incremental market, the stock market of windows is also considerable. Gao Jing said that this cycle is about once every ten years, so there is at least a trillion-dollar window stock market, and there is still huge room for exploring smart window solutions for incremental markets and stock markets.
However, the smart window may not reach users as fast as the smart lock at this stage, and toC penetration through toB seems to be an unavoidable route. First of all, its product form, transportation and installation are complicated, and users are scattered, so it is necessary to establish a standardized service system; Secondly, the diversification of buildings leads to no fixed size standard for windows, which needs to be customized in batches, which is also the main reason for the differentiation of the whole market.
Gao Jing said: "There are no completely standardized buildings in China. Each building may have different requirements for the size, color and outline of windows. At present, it is mainly based on B-side business, such as schools. We can cover classrooms in one or several campuses. Use smart windows; For example, residential real estate may be divided into four categories of ABCD, and smart window products can be customized. There will be a certain number of batches, including office projects. 2B projects account for 90% of our business, while in 2C, we mainly focus on single-family residential and villa projects, mainly considering customer unit price and cost input. "
On the other hand, Yiou Home also learned that the threshold for traditional door and window enterprises to transform into smart windows is very high. This is an interdisciplinary and interdisciplinary new product category. Most small and medium-sized enterprises in traditional doors and windows may face the problem of lack of relevant talents, while high-end technical talents are rarely willing to sink into the low-end manufacturing and assembly industry.
The traditional door and window factory is mostly the model of front shop and back factory. There is one or several factories behind the factory, and some stores are opened at the channel terminal. Big brands may have hundreds of branches all over the country, reaching the C end in stores such as Easyhome and Red Star Macalline or their own stores. There are also some manufacturers who are tooling companies and will directly sell their products to big customers such as developers. The threshold of traditional door and window industry is not very high. There are both listed companies and small workshops in the industry. Dozens of workers process windows and assemble aluminum or plastic steel, glass, rubber strip, hardware and other accessories.
"We talked with the heads and chief engineers of some traditional window factories. They saw the smart window market, but it was difficult to make mature products. This requires someone to understand electronic control, electronic and mechanical automation equipment, and someone to understand technologies in many fields such as software, cloud platform and mobile app. Looking for outstanding talents in these fields may go to high-tech enterprises such as Microsoft and Huawei, but it is unlikely that talents in these fields will work in traditional door and window factories. " Gao Jing said.
On the one hand, traditional window enterprises lack interdisciplinary professionals; On the other hand, both smart windows and traditional windows are manufacturing industries, and the model is relatively heavy. Smart doors and windows belong to the upgrading of the traditional door and window industry, and are also the Internet plus doors and windows. For electronics and internet technology companies, doors and windows are also a new discipline. For example, it is not difficult to study its five characteristics of air tightness, water tightness, wind pressure resistance, heat insulation and sound insulation.
Domestic entrepreneurship has become a common practice. Seeing a profitable way out, there will always be manufacturers flocking to the Nuggets. At present, it is unlikely that smart window products will be copied and plagiarized soon. Gao Jing said that the team spent nearly three years in product development and repeated testing, because once the window is installed for at least ten years, it will not be disassembled and replaced, and it will be exposed to the weather every day, with a large temperature difference between inside and outside, which is waterproof and moisture-proof. This is much bigger than the test of smart door lock products. At present, the company has applied for nearly 100 patents based on smart windows, and a layer of protection will be formed at the intellectual property level before the products are put on the market.
If you want to set foot in the smart window track, independent patented technology and core scheme innovation will be the key barriers and PK dimensions of enterprises. Although everything here has not been finalized, it is difficult to grow wildly in the short term.
Although the real estate industry has reached the silver age, the trend of smart real estate and healthy buildings based on this situation may bring a golden development period to the development of smart windows.
During the dialogue, Yiou Home learned that at present, the American WELL healthy building standard is being implemented by many domestic real estate developers. Healthy buildings will focus on "people", study the relationship between buildings and residents' health, reshape building standards and solve housing health problems. Good building standards are composed of air, water, nutrition, light, fitness, comfort and consciousness. The combination of healthy building and smart home will collide with infinite possibilities.
Under this trend, smart windows may become a new entrance or platform in the future home. For example, the intelligent microclimate window can link various indoor and outdoor temperature and humidity sensors, air quality detectors, air purifiers, humidifiers, air conditioners, fans, fresh air systems and so on. So as to realize the intelligent management and adjustment of indoor microclimate and air circulation and maintain a healthy and comfortable level. Gao Jing revealed that the smart door and window system with intelligent source code is also actively integrating with many mainstream smart home ecological platforms.
Another kind of intelligent display window has all kinds of functions of intelligent window, which will increase the interactivity of display screen. For example, the smart window that cooperates with universities and kindergartens is equipped with a transparent lcd display, which can display the curriculum of this classroom on the glass; In some intelligent and modern buildings, the property should be notified. The original way may be to stick a piece of paper at the door of the first floor or on the elevator and bulletin board, which can be pushed directly to the smart window in the future, even including what activities are there and what product discounts are there. These can create a first-class teaching environment for schools, and also add a healthy and intelligent highlight label for real estate projects.
Gao Jing said that the initial business model of the smart window market is now dominated by TOB, and there is still a lot of room for imagination for new marketing methods and profit models in the future, such as using it as a platform to provide some big customers or commercial complexes through cloud service operation, and doing some paid information delivery and digital marketing every year. The premise of these future plans is that smart windows have enough users and enough product sales.
"Smart home is definitely not a new concept. The theories of artificial intelligence and smart home may exist for decades, but there are many reasons for the real opportunity to land on a large scale in recent years, such as the progress of 4G, 5G and wireless communication technology, such as the improvement of chip performance, the decline of sensor price and the enhancement of reliability. These are the key factors. I think the final landing of smart home should consider the actual application scenario. The first is the maturity of innovative technology, the second is the affordable cost, and the third is the reliability and stability of technology and products; The fourth is the application scenario. " Gao Jing concluded.
According to national statistics, the market scale of China door and window industry has exceeded 660 billion yuan in 20 17. Another phenomenon is that according to the certification statistics, the number of enterprises above designated size in China's door and window industry has been decreasing continuously since 20 15, and it has dropped to 3764 in 20 18, and there will probably be some more in 20 18.
The real estate market, urbanization development and technological innovation are constantly providing new growth space for this industry, and the participation of smart window players may bring new variables to this market, stir up thousands of waves and push this traditional industry onto the road of transformation, upgrading and brand focus.