How many three - year anniversaries are still needed to reach humanity's ideal "habitat"?

Home improvement has never been a sexy industry. It doesn't attract as much public attention as the new energy vehicle industry, nor does it have the high - ceiling narrative space like AI. For capital, it lacks sufficient appeal; for entrepreneurs, it's a business with extremely low entry barriers and poor standardization.

As a result, in the past two years, there have been a series of trust crises in the home improvement field: Zhufan'er had a major setback, Haohaozhuzhang shut down, and Dongyirisheng was put up for auction... The public's need for a better living experience has instead become a public gamble on trust, rationality, and technological bottom lines, ultimately leading to a strict test of enterprises' basic operational capabilities and long - termism spirit.

Amid this turmoil, one name stands out as particularly "out of place": Habitat.

This smart home brand, founded in 2022 by Shen Yanan, the former president of Li Auto, has always advocated "building homes in the same way as building cars". At first, it sounded like a romantic fantasy of a tech person about lifestyle. However, in 2025, when the industry's trust is collapsing, it has reached its third anniversary.

This naturally makes people wonder: What has Habitat left behind and what has it persisted in during the three years when the industry has been "turning around"?

Not Just Home Improvement, but a Justification for Residential Productization

Three years ago, when Shen Yanan first proposed the idea of "building houses like building cars", many people's first reaction was that it was "not very realistic". After all, the concept of "home improvement" sounds too old - fashioned and fragmented. It lacks the halo of technology, has no in - depth industrial chain, and is more like a complex but low - end service industry: relying on contractors, empirical methods, and users learning from their own mistakes.

For a long time, it has not been regarded as a proper "product", but more like a "process" that users have to go through.

Obviously, Shen Yanan is not satisfied with regarding "living" as a passive experience. He participated in the establishment of Li Auto from scratch and witnessed the new energy wave. His understanding of "products" is not only about having technological content but also about having boundaries, systematicness, and a user perspective. As he repeatedly emphasized in interviews, the reason why home improvement is so unappealing is largely due to the lack of controllability, transparency, and consistency in experience.

He said, "I renovated my first house in 2007, and when I renovated my second house in 2021, I found that after 15 years, there had been no evolution in this industry."

This judgment is not an emotional complaint but a calm reflection from an industrial perspective. Compared with the systematic reconstructions that have taken place in the automotive, mobile phone, and home appliance industries in the past decade, the home improvement industry is still almost at the stage of "relying on manpower" and "budget control". Traditionally, home improvement is considered a "customized service process" without a unified product definition or quantifiable delivery standards. The design drawings, construction techniques, supply - chain collaboration, and delivery quality all rely on experience and negotiation, often resulting in "unhappy users and scolded merchants".

Therefore, the original intention of founding Habitat was clearly not to be just another "home improvement company". Shen Yanan aimed to enter a consumer market with a misaligned industrial logic, which is "residential improvement".

From the very beginning, Habitat was not a traditional "home improvement company". It is more like a product - oriented company that "manufactures residential terminal equipment" - with R & D, quality control, a digital twin system, and a vehicle - grade process management system.

What it does is to "productize" home improvement. This logic may not conform to the traditional perception of the home improvement industry, but it is easy to understand if we follow the thinking path of industrial products and regard "home" as a product and a systematic integration from space to scenario.

Specifically, it uses an integrated and standardized system logic to reconstruct the synergy between the hardware and software of living spaces. It is not about solving the problem of "how to do the decoration", but answering the question of "what a home should be like".

The flagship product L32, officially launched in 2025, is perhaps more intuitive. Habitat compares the concept of home to a "spatial intelligent terminal", integrates the four major environmental systems of air, water, electricity, and light, and uses AI Agent to combine intelligent reasoning with living behaviors to create an "evolving home".

In short, what Habitat offers is not a simple "functional integration" but a systematic reconstruction after restoring the living experience in terms of technology and structure. With the idea of "building cars", it achieves consistent and controllable product delivery and minimizes uncertainties.

This is also the biggest difference between Habitat and the traditional home improvement industry: the former is a systematic project, while the latter is a manual adjustment. One ensures consistency through processes, while the other tries to make as few mistakes as possible based on the experience of "old masters".

In this sense, Habitat is not selling a decoration plan but has truly created a "home operating system" for the first time.

This approach, in a sense, re - endows the ancient concept of "home" with a modern industrial form that is quantifiable, replicable, and evolvable. And this product thinking is exactly what the home improvement field has been lacking for decades.

Therefore, looking back at Shen Yanan's statement of "building homes like building cars", it may have sounded romantic and even out of place at first. But after three years, it has at least proven one thing: a residence can be built as a product. And when the product logic truly penetrates this traditional industry, perhaps it will no longer be just home improvement but an industry that has been misunderstood for a long time and is worthy of being re - defined.

Habitat's Changes and Constants after Three Years

After three years, Habitat has indeed changed.

It has grown from an experimental cross - border startup project to a smart home brand covering eight cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, and Hangzhou, with its own manufacturing capabilities and sales network. It has evolved from an initial technical model and lifestyle concept to the actual delivery of its first - generation product L32 and has gradually entered the intelligent evolution cycle of the 2.0 era. Most importantly, it has completed the first - round closed - loop verification from idealism to business reality.

All this did not happen overnight. It doesn't rely on Internet - style traffic marketing but on a steady advancement similar to the thinking of industrial products: product logic first, system standards as the foundation, and user experience as the internal verification. Habitat didn't do explosive promotions or flood the market with advertisements, but it has gained an unexpectedly high level of industry recognition and attention. In 2025, when the home improvement industry was in turmoil, it was like real gold, shining brighter in the heat.

Perhaps the biggest change comes from the founder Shen Yanan himself. In the early days of founding, he mainly talked about "methodology": how to use technology to promote consistent product delivery, how to break aesthetic discrimination through design equality, and how to reconstruct the home improvement industrial chain through system integration. But at the three - year anniversary, what he talks about the most is "trust" and "cognitive cost".

As a new concept with no historical prototype to refer to, the concept of "smart home terminal" requires users to re - define "home" from a cognitive perspective: it is not a traditional "fully - furnished decoration" nor a "smart home combination with AI", but a systematic solution where space is the product. From the technological feasibility to users' willingness to understand, accept, and place orders, there is a huge gap in conversion. New product categories have no existing tracks to follow and no competitors to rely on. It takes a lot of time to "guide market recognition".

"At first, we thought the hardest part was to build the house, but later we found that the hardest part was to make users believe that it was worth doing," Shen Yanan admitted. He realized that the real challenge for a new product category is often not the technological threshold but whether users are willing to re - understand you.

Another key change is the addition of Yan Jia, the partner and COO. If Shen Yanan represents the technical system logic, Yan Jia brings industry experience and organizational maturity.

She has worked on the front - line of companies like Boloni and Aikongjian for many years and witnessed the home improvement industry evolving from "customized design" to "whole - house decoration 1.0" and then to the current "whole - house decoration 2.0" stage that emphasizes delivery efficiency and scenario integration. In her opinion, the traditional home improvement industry has reached an efficiency bottleneck, and Habitat's approach just hits the critical point of the industry's transition to "product - oriented whole - house decoration".

"If the first stage was about competing in construction teams and the second stage was about competing in package - style product selection, then the third stage must be about competing in productization, intelligence, brand, and communication," Yan Jia told 36Kr.

However, amidst all these changes, some things have remained unchanged.

The most core is Habitat's "first - principle" that has never changed from the very beginning: to bring users a "happy home", a space that carries good relationships, is naturally elegant, and is healthy and comfortable.

This original intention has not deviated due to real - world challenges. It may sound idealistic, but it runs through the design logic of L32. From the open - layout kitchen to the reserved home theater and the emotion - regulating algorithm of the lighting system, every detail silently answers the question: What kind of living experience do contemporary Chinese families really need?

Even in the design of the air system, Habitat doesn't just pursue maximum parameters but chooses to combine adaptive adjustment with AI algorithms to create the most "perceptibly different" comfort. In the water system, details such as child - proof scalding, filter monitoring, hot - cold adjustment, and ultraviolet sterilization are not just simple "technology stacking" but stem from an understanding of the real - life scenarios of family use.

Shen Yanan publicly stated internally, "Of course, we are pursuing efficiency and growth, but our starting point is always: Is this home worth living in?" In 2025, when the market was volatile and user trust was declining, these words carried even more weight.

It is this design motivation of "not for delivery but for life itself" that forms the most unique value foundation of the Habitat brand. On platforms like Xiaohongshu and Zhihu, users have started to share their experiences spontaneously. From the comfort of the air system to the improvement of sleep quality through lighting adjustment and the reaction of children after using the water purification system, all these share the keywords of "peace of mind", "worth it", and "comfortable to live in".

These UGCs may not be as eye - catching as official data, but they form the most subtle and irreplaceable brand perception in users' real lives.

How Many More Three - Year Cycles until the 'Ideal Habitat'?

Today, Habitat still faces significant challenges. Against the backdrop of shrinking consumer sentiment, home improvement is still not a "high - frequency decision". In an industry ecosystem with trust overdraft, users are naturally wary of "home improvement companies". And as a new species positioned as a "smart home", in a market lacking a reference system, it also has to face higher education costs and greater difficulties in transaction conversion.

For example, after the official release of L32, users' perceptions were clearly divided - Is it a high - end decoration package? A smart home solution? Or a super - furnished product? These vague definitions precisely illustrate the double - edged sword of a new product category: being unique also means having to explain everything on your own.

However, it is precisely because of this "from 0 to 1" positioning that Habitat has grasped the opportunity for the next decade.

As the concept of smart living gradually evolves from "function stacking" to "system integration", consumers are also shifting from passively receiving information to actively screening values. On social platforms, some users describe L32 as "both beautiful and intelligent", and some leave comments under Habitat's official account saying, "Thank you for making me believe again that life can be beautiful." Although this feedback has not yet reached a large - scale outbreak, it reveals the potential market's eagerness for new standards and experiences.

If the past three years were a leap from concept to reality, then the next three years will be a process from single - point innovation to ecological construction. An ideal "Habitat" is never about the success of a single product but about re - defining the concept of "living" itself.

While more and more consumers "learn to compromise" in home improvement, Habitat tries to be the one who "still wants to adhere to some standards". Its products may not be suitable for everyone, but the problem it wants to solve is one that every Chinese family will encounter: a space where one can truly live in peace.

And this question itself is worth spending a few more three - year cycles to answer.