Observation on AWE 2025: After the transformation by AI, will the home appliance industry witness a cross - border trend?

At the end of January 2025, Deepseek emerged suddenly, dominating social media and stealing the spotlight from the Spring Festival. It became a hot topic in the tech and internet circles and has since penetrated into all walks of life.

Among them, the home appliance industry has been particularly enthusiastic about Deepseek. People are curious whether the home appliance industry, which is transitioning from traditional to smart, will achieve a real "leap" with the empowerment of large models. With such expectations, in mid - March, the China Household Appliances and Consumer Electronics Expo (AWE), a barometer of the industry, kicked off as scheduled with the theme of "AI Technology, AI Life". Inside the venue of over 150,000 square meters, domestic and foreign home appliance giants gathered, competing to showcase their latest achievements and trying to declare that they still stand at the forefront in the AI era.

Image source: AWE official

However, behind the prosperity, there are still many questions to be answered - Is AI just a gimmick or a revolution? Is it worth connecting all home appliances to large models? What is the fundamental difference between smart home appliances and AI home appliances? By visiting AWE 2025, we can temporarily conclude that like a torch, the AI large model is exciting, but the road ahead is still shrouded in fog, and enterprises still need to keep trying to break through in different directions.

Re - evolution of Home Appliances

In 1950, American writer Ray Bradbury published the short science - fiction novel "August, 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains". In the story, when the clock struck 9:55, it was time for cleaning. At this time, mechanical mice made of rubber and metal would scurry out of the wall holes and crawl all over the house. They would bump heavily into chairs, move their whiskers on their faces, roll the fallen fluff on the carpet into balls, and suck up the dust hidden in the corners. Finally, they would return to their nests, like unfathomable invaders, closing their pink electronic eyes, and the house would become spotless.

Modern people pursue efficiency and convenience, and with the booming development of technology, smart home appliances are everywhere in the market. The fantasies of the last century have now become ordinary realities, and the level of sweeping robots has long exceeded the descriptions in science - fiction novels. Especially at the AWE exhibition site, you can see sweeping robots from brands such as Dreame, Ecovacs, and Roborock competing with their latest technologies. Compared with previous years, the highlights of these brands' products are shifting from abstract parameter comparisons to experience upgrades brought by large models.

Image source: Dreame

This is the keynote of AWE2025. All kinds of products are making "intelligence" more perceptible.

Take the electric shaver as an example. This product, which was born in the early 20th century, has been developed for more than a hundred years. In 2022, a third - party industry report analyzed that "the upgrade of electric shavers is slow... the entry threshold is relatively low, and the industrial chain is relatively mature... consumers' demand mainly comes from replacement needs." In such an environment, relevant enterprises focus more on operations, design, and marketing for their survival strategies. Even if there is technological upgrading, it is difficult to showcase externally.

How to make technology visible has become an indicator for brands to show their strength. The U1 electric shaver displayed at the Flyco booth is a product with "visible" technological upgrading. In addition to the split - type design, it uses a dual - motor direct - drive system to reconstruct the motive design, allowing the blade head to reach a high - frequency rotation speed of around 4000 revolutions. Flyco has also launched the "touch - to - start" induction technology - the start and stop of the machine change as the blade touches the skin. According to the staff, this can not only avoid accidental touches but also improve safety.

Also emphasizing the AI concept, if in AWE 2024, brands such as Samsung and Hisense focused on improving the performance of televisions, such as picture quality improvement and energy - saving, then the TV AI in AWE 2025 has more of a "content assistant" flavor.

For example, Hisense has connected Deepseek to its built - in operating system and equipped it with exclusive intelligent agents for different scenarios such as movie - watching, sports, animation, and fitness. When users are watching a movie and want to know about the actors or the plot, they can press the AI button, and the system can search for relevant content online based on the real - time picture. "We also have our own built - in database," a staff member revealed. "For example, for animations, we need to obtain authorization from the copyright holders before we can make commercial reproductions of the characters."

Image source: Taken at the Hisense exhibition hall

Traditionally, the TV only played the role of a "player", and the technology usually iterated around "clearer, more vivid, and better - sounding". However, the AI large model has broken this limitation, and the TV has been able to transform from a "player" to a "statistician". The value of enterprises comes not only from selling hardware but also from the accumulated content and behavior data.

Those who understand consumers more deeply and comprehensively will stand more firmly in the consumer market.

Different Explorations of AI

This is also clearly reflected in the kitchen appliance field.

For Chinese people, eating is very important. There are many Chinese characters used to describe cooking methods such as boiling, frying, steaming, stewing, etc. Even in the fast - paced modern era, cooking a good meal is not easy. You first have to shuttle between markets and supermarkets to purchase ingredients, carefully select them according to freshness, quality, and personal preferences, then wash the ingredients one by one, cut the vegetables, turn on the fire, and match the seasonings... It takes a lot of time and effort to cook a meal.

Food is not just a commodity but also a field that involves everything. In addition to agriculture, industry, transportation, and service industries, it also contains humanistic fields such as the environment, culture, and society. Now, the AI large model has also been involved.

Although people have different understandings of AI kitchen appliances and there is no unified standard in the industry, this does not prevent various brands from demonstrating the transformation of "cooking" by AI at AWE 2025 - integrating food culture and health management, simplifying complex processes, and making themselves "content providers".

On March 20th, Robam Appliance released the "God of Cookery Large Model" at the AWE site. Based on the speech of Zhou Haixin, the senior vice - president of Robam Appliance, 36Kr observed that the "God of Cookery Large Model" connected to Deepseek focuses on experience - providing humanistic support such as emotions and culture during the cooking process.

Robam Appliance's press conference at the AWE site. Image source: Robam Appliance

It can recognize complex instructions, recommend personalized recipes for users, provide cooking guidance, and generate a healthy diet plan for users by recognizing their health status through facial recognition and analyzing their physical examination reports. The research and development of the "God of Cookery Large Model" combines 2TB of public and private knowledge bases and the cooking vertical field data accumulated by Robam Appliance over 46 years.

"If we use games to understand, we also configure a local file for users," Zhou Haixin told 36Kr. "It will remember your conversations and dietary preferences. At first, it may recommend general recipes, but later, it will understand you better. If you like sweet scrambled eggs with tomatoes, it will recommend southern cuisine to you."

Also focusing on the AI large model, Wonderchef's actions are more radical. It wants to use a cooking intelligent agent with a large model to meet most of the family's dietary needs. To prove this, Wang Ning, the director of the brand operation center, showed dishes such as steak and eel made by the machine. Some tasters said, "It's hard to tell the difference between the machine - made and the human - made dishes."

Through communication, 36Kr found that Wonderchef's key to solving the problem lies in "simplifying the dietary chain" - simplifying cooking into four scenarios: "health detection - dietary recommendation - ingredient delivery - intelligent cooking", and then connecting each step through its self - developed "Zhu Rong Large Model" to achieve health management, recipe planning, ingredient purchase, and cooking on one machine. "We want to build a traceable food supply chain from the farm to the table, which not only ensures food safety but also meets the diverse needs of different people, and promotes the industry's update in the reverse direction," Wang Ning said.

It is worth noting that with the help of sensors such as cameras and 4D ultra - sensitive temperature control technology, Wonderchef has also achieved the effect of independent temperature control in different areas inside the machine to ensure that different ingredients can get the appropriate temperature.

Image source: Wonderchef

Regarding whether AI kitchen appliances need to upgrade their hardware every year like computers and mobile phones, the staff said: "Now (Wonderchef's) products cover most of the family cooking scenarios, and cooking itself won't change much. So in the future, we will mainly focus on updating software, models, and content."

In Hall N1 of AWE, FOTILE has initially launched kitchen appliance products with "embodied intelligence". Just as human babies learn to walk by falling, embodied intelligence follows a similar logic. It allows AI to gain experience through repeated interactions between its "body" and the environment, build a database, and then complete simple or complex tasks.

FOTILE's ACS 2.0 panoramic automatic cooking system connected to Deepseek is equipped with a 3D full - perception robotic arm that can sense the environment in real - time. Under the instructions of AI, it can actively cooperate with kitchen appliance products, challenge "cooking without a human chef", complete open - flame cooking, and even tidy up the stove.

FOTILE's booth. Image source: Lei Technology

For those who want to enjoy the process, with the help of various sensors and their "nerve center" AI Genie, users can understand the cooking process and status in real - time while using FOTILE's products and get instant voice cooking teaching from AI. "The cooking steps are quite complex. Sometimes, insufficient frying times or oil temperature can affect the dishes. Our products can analyze the video in real - time to solve these problems," the staff added. "Novice users still hope to gain a sense of achievement from cooking."

In fact, there are many discussions about whether it is necessary to connect home appliance products to AI large models. Many voices believe that some product categories are just following the trend. Their usage scenarios are simple and do not require complex processes, so connecting to AI large models is overkill. However, the AWE site shows that at least in the kitchen appliance field, the AI large model is bringing another possibility to cooking.

Is Data the Core Competitiveness of Home Appliance Enterprises?

When AI is no longer out of reach and enterprises have joined the AI competition, and in the application aspect, all players have similar technological capabilities, what should be done to stand out in the highly competitive market?

The answer may lie in "customer - gathering ability" - using AI to deeply connect with more consumers.

In the past, the number of physical stores directly determined the brand's attractiveness. The more stores there were, the more convenient it was for consumers to access products. In the Internet era, content platforms have gradually become more important traffic entrances. For example, Meta and TikTok attract users with a large amount of UGC content and finally cross - border into e - commerce, reshaping the retail industry landscape. In the AI era, content is no longer scarce. High - quality content and a better understanding of users have become new directions for enterprises, which rely on the collection and organization of data and the R & D and adjustment of AI.

In addition to ToC brands, there are also technology providers in the AI field at the AWE site. Agora, which focuses on RTC/RTE (real - time audio and video transmission technology), is one of them. The brand's venue displays a conversational AI development kit - helping developers quickly deploy AI real - time voice interaction products in scenarios such as virtual companionship, oral practice, intelligent customer service, and intelligent hardware. "Different from traditional AI, our products have high real - time performance, allow users to interrupt at any time, and can be talked to like a real person."

As an enterprise that has cooperated with large companies such as Xiaomi and Huawei and is also an entrance for audio and video data sources, when asked about the future development of AI home appliances, the staff said: "At present, there are still many difficulties in building an ideal AI home appliance ecosystem. For example, since home products come from different brands, a unified management platform needs to be abstracted to control them, which requires a powerful and prestigious organization in the industry to take the lead. At the same time, a consensus on the ownership of data sources needs to be reached."

For the home appliance industry, operation, joint construction of an ecological environment, and providing appropriate and appealing content and services may become increasingly important. In the future, people will choose home appliances not for the products themselves but for the complete after - sales service chain.

On the other hand, the chemical reaction brought by AI may also make the boundaries between industries gradually disappear - TV brands may transform into Netflix - like platforms, electric shaver brands may enter the men's skincare market; kitchen appliance brands may challenge local life giants... Since home appliances are most closely related to people's daily lives, AI allows home appliances to gather data from thousands of families, covering various possible consumption scenarios, so as to accurately match "people" with "products".

Of course, this is just a speculation. Maybe many years later, truly mature AI home appliances will look different. However, this is not important. Just like in the smartphone era more than a decade ago, new products are always questioned and misunderstood, but it is precisely these attempts that bring about industrial explosions. AWE 2025 is not the answer but an entrance.