Gao Ziguang, head of Xiaomi Smart Home Platform
[FAW-Volkswagen Magotan exclusive title 2017 T-EDGE Technology Life Festival International Leaders Summit]
Now when it comes to Xiaomi, people don’t necessarily think of mobile phones. Xiaomi has many eco-chain companies and made many smart home products. At the Titanium Media 2017 T-EDGE Technology Life Festival, we invited Gao Ziguang, vice president of Xiaomi ecological chain and head of Xiaomi smart home platform.
As an Internet veteran, he has been in this industry for nearly 15 years, catching up with the rising wave of mobile Internet, and later devoted himself to the cause of IOT(Internet Of Things).
In his speech, he talked about the biggest difference between the Internet and the Internet of Things — — The Internet industry only needs to make products, while the Internet of Things industry needs to make hardware products and build an entire ecological platform in addition to software products.
In this process, Xiaomi invested in more than 100 eco-chain enterprises, but so far only released more than 40 products. "Because there are still a large number of enterprises developing this system, Xiaomi is not looking for OEM production," Gao Ziguang said. "We are developing from beginning to end, just like the laser projection TV released a few days ago. The development time is 3 years and 6 months."
Let me talk about my understanding of the Internet of Things first.
I have been engaged in the Internet industry since 2004, when it was the era of PC Internet, and after about ten years of rapid development, I entered the era of mobile Internet in 2011. We believe that the largest scale in the PC Internet era is 100 million simultaneous online.
Tencent QQ reached this order of magnitude. I was also in Tencent at that time, and I also witnessed that Tencent QQ was online from a small number of users to a peak of 200 million users. We will soon enter the next era around 2011, that is, the arrival of smart phones. The arrival around 2011 is the era of smart phones. We believe that in the era of mobile Internet, it will reach the order of 1 billion, and each person will have a connected terminal. There are nearly 1 billion active users in China, all of whom are active on Tencent’s platform.
So what is the next era of mobile Internet? We think it may be the Internet of Things. Every device you used at home before: refrigerator, air conditioner and washing machine may be connected to the internet. Then its order of magnitude will be raised to tens of billions. You can imagine how much equipment your home has.
What is the significance of Internet of Things connection? Our understanding in recent years is digitalization — — In the past, many operations, including turning on the light, were physical buttons, which included the brightness and color of the light. Only digitalization will bring the possibility of new innovation and some experiences that were impossible before. Once home appliances are digitized, they will be programmed, and there will be endless possibilities.
For example, if a beautiful woman you care about sends a Weibo, your light will turn red, your light will turn red, and your computer will turn on. Then its combination may be endless.
Today’s artificial intelligence is no longer a pure internet business. Every device in your home is also a part of artificial intelligence. When you go home, your wife goes home, and you go home happily, how bright the lights in your home are, whether the curtains should be opened or closed, and whether your TV should be turned on or off may actually be decided by artificial intelligence. All the physical equipment I’m talking about must be digitized. You are happy today, and your music is such a tune when you go home, and the color temperature of your light is adjusted to such a color temperature.
In the past few years, Xiaomi has been trying to do such a thing. In 2013 and 14, he started to do it. In 2015, he released the brand of Mijia, which is the path of Xiaomi. Xiaomi is a mobile phone company, but we are not completely a mobile phone company. The software and hardware serve the Internet. IOT is our ecological circle. Since 2014, our room has released many products, almost all of which are intelligent, with cameras, kettles, sweeping robots, bicycles, scooters and even a pair of shoes. Every one is a smart device. All of them are networked.
What is the user’s acceptance so far? You see 40 kinds of equipment so far. About a month ago, the most expensive equipment in Xiaomi’s history, laser projection TV 9999, was released. It is still very uneasy to release this product, and whether young rice noodles can afford this equipment. Within 24 hours of laser projection TV, 20 million RMB crowdfunding was robbed.
We have entered a new era, that is, the era of consumption upgrading. We young people are knowledgeable and willing to improve our quality of life. How do we make so many products? It is more complicated than the pure internet.
I have been doing pure internet for more than ten years. I am doing QQ today, and I am doing pure QQ. I am doing pure music today. Then, after doing the Internet of Things, we must first have a complete Internet of Things system, starting with hardware, going to the cloud, going to APP, and various devices. There is no user to use a perfect technical platform.
The first one is to build a platform of our own Internet of Things system. After we do this, we don’t want users to use our platform. Second, it is necessary to develop a large number of intelligent hardware. People say that Xiaomi is not focused, and even the rice cooker is cooking. It is difficult for us to do it well by ourselves, so we explored a new business model. We have invested in nearly 100 eco-chain enterprises, each of which is an expert in this field. This is a rice cooker, this is a sweeping robot and that is a camera.
Our supply chain, our values, our requirements for quality and cost performance are that Xiaomi always adheres to the core values.
The Internet of Things is still an early embryonic industry today. After three years of development, these 100 companies have released 40 products. How did you just release 40 products? Because there are still a large number of enterprises in research and development, this system made by Xiaomi is not looking for OEM production. We are developing from beginning to end, just like the laser projection TV released a few days ago, and the research and development time is 3 years and 6 months.
In fact, the Internet of Things has brought us new opportunities, and the products we developed have been accepted by users. Take the rice cooker as an example. No matter how many years an entrepreneur has worked in the rice cooker industry before, it is difficult for you to make a breakthrough. What kind of flowers can you make? How can your channel be beautiful? Almost impossible. This is why almost no new enterprises have been born in the home appliance industry in the past 20 years. Because its innovation is almost difficult. The manufacturing industry in China is separated from R&D and manufacturing, and the manufacturing level can be very good as long as you don’t take the initiative to cut corners.
What should we do?
The Internet of Things has given us a window. Besides the pot itself, we also have the Internet of Things. We are connecting the rice cooker to the Internet — — The air pressure in Beijing is different from that in Tibet. The air pressure you need to cook rice is different. This is the most basic intelligence. The air pressure required by different rice is also different, which is the most basic intelligence.
If you can connect to the internet, what can you do in the future? Recipes. Just cook with your mobile phone, and it is no longer a pure craft. Intelligence makes it have infinite possibilities. With the arrival of the era of consumption upgrading, it is possible to innovate in industries where brands and home appliances are difficult to innovate.
The internationalization of Xiaomi is also gradually unfolding. In fact, our internationalization is still very early, because Xiaomi is only in its seventh year this year, and it takes a long time to deploy. In addition to the Indian market, Xiaomi has not done international work.
So far, Vietnam has no official channel to enter, but there are many Xiaomi equipments. So all these equipments were smuggled in the past, which means that a large number of people smuggled from China to the whole world, some were dealers and some were brought by friends. Xiaomi didn’t do it officially. The market density in Vietnam was too high, but we didn’t go in, even in South America and North America, because North America didn’t do it at all. These should be brought by a large number of Chinese.
We have 60 million IOT devices. When I was doing QQ, I was always over 100 million when I was doing Tencent business. However, the Internet of Things is very difficult, because each device means a piece of hardware, which is a long process from definition, research and development, mold opening, production and sales to users, and then to interconnection. There are more than 88 million users who use this device every day. We think Xiaomi should be said to be the largest Internet of Things platform in the field of intelligent hardware.
We were very uneasy when we first did this thing, because we didn’t know whether the Internet of Things could work or not. When we did this thing three years ago, we had a lot of heated discussions, and it took us three years to achieve 60 million sets, which has given us great confidence. We are the earliest batch of IOT platform. Why didn’t we publicize it? Because we believe that in the current era, intelligence is still smart for the sake of intelligence, and we have not found just what we need.
Our press conference will emphasize the promotion of intelligence, because we think intelligence is for you. I used to think that intelligence is remote control, which is icing on the cake. If you can’t find what you just need, intelligence is just a gift. In most cases, intelligence is still based on delivery. We have so many partners. After several years of cooperation and verification of our platform, I will open it to non-ecological chain enterprises.
After that, everyone can realize Xiaomi’s PM2.5 sensor. After detecting the high temperature, turn on another air conditioner and light, so there is no need for secondary development. If this step is achieved, simple automation will be realized. When the temperature is high, the air conditioner will be turned on, and when the PM2.5 is high, the purifier will be automatically turned on, which is very useful in many scenarios.
The next development of the Internet of Things, we have a huge amount of data. To achieve further accurate e-commerce matching, if the humidity in your home is too low, you need a humidifier to do accurate matching, and then the whole industrial chain can be deeply researched and developed to make products with relatively high quality and fair value. This is a new thing we are doing — — Boutique life e-commerce This project was only launched in April this year, and now it is developing rapidly, and the user matching is very smooth.
Therefore, we also hope that more users can access smart products through smart homes, and we also hope that more partners can cooperate with us to realize the linkage between more devices and let users know what smart life is.
Speaking of the entrance, Xiaomi is a mobile phone company. If you use a Xiaomi mobile phone, you can control home appliances without opening the chain screen, but the entrance must not be a single one. After the development of voice technology, the light will be turned off as long as you shout. This does not mean that there must be a stereo in every room. There is a microphone in the lamp, and the entrance is decentralized. (This article is the first titanium media)
