Foreigners are snapping up Chinese "miracle products", and some merchants are earning hundreds of millions of yuan annually from a single item.

A courtyard-style residence might be the dream of many, but in Europe and the United States, maintaining a courtyard can be quite costly.

Firstly, lawn mowing is a necessity. Take the United States as an example. On average, a family mows their lawn 24 times a year. If they hire someone for each mowing, it costs about $90 each time, which adds up to $2,160 (approximately 15,380 Chinese yuan) annually.

Secondly, snow removal is also a rather troublesome task. In some parts of the United States and Canada, regular snow removal after winter and snowfall is a strict requirement by the neighborhood or even the government. If a homeowner fails to remove snow within the specified time, they may face fines or even legal liability. Hiring someone to clear the snow once costs at least a few hundred dollars.

Thirdly, there's pool cleaning in summer. Generally, the pool walls need to be cleaned about twice a month. In Europe and the United States, the average cost of manual pool cleaning is relatively high and not cost - effective. According to statistics from the American company Lawnstarter, pool owners spend an average of $1,432 (approximately 10,200 Chinese yuan) per year on pool maintenance.

Driven by the global wave of smart applications, domestic robot brands are no longer satisfied with indoor cleaning. Instead, they are setting their sights on the vast outdoor scene - the courtyards of European and American families.

With the maturity of cross - border e - commerce platforms and the advantages of the supply chain, a group of courtyard robots with core functions of "pool cleaning, weeding, and snow removal" are rapidly emerging, becoming the new "must - have equipment" for middle - class families in Europe and the United States. They not only solve the pain points of high labor costs and high labor intensity but also redefine the way of courtyard maintenance with "high cost - effectiveness + high intelligence."

Chinese smart courtyard cleaning appliances, represented by the "three treasures of the courtyard" of lawn mowing, snow removal, and pool cleaning, are penetrating into the household consumption scenarios of Europeans and Americans.

The Headache of Snow Removal and Lawn Mowing for Europeans and Americans

A Shenzhen Company Solves It All with One Machine, with Annual Sales of 200 Million Yuan for a Single Product

"When you search for robotic snow removal equipment on European and American online consumer platforms, you can basically only find ours," Cao Limeng, the co - founder of Hanyang Technology, told Tianxia Wangshang. This Shenzhen - based company is currently one of the few companies in the global market mass - producing fully automatic snow - removing robots. Its greater goal is to create a one - stop courtyard robot system of "universal main unit + modular attachments."

The product logic of Hanyang Technology stems from an insight into the needs of European and American courtyard life - lawn mowing and snow removal not only enhance the convenience of life but are also mandatory requirements of community regulations and local laws. "If you don't clear the snow within the specified time, you may be sued," Cao Limeng said.

In response to this application scenario, in 2022, Hanyang Technology developed the modular all - in - one consumer - grade courtyard robot Yarbo. With the architecture of "1 main unit + N functional modules," it extended the application scenarios from the originally planned snow removal to more than 20 courtyard maintenance needs such as lawn mowing and leaf blowing.

This automated equipment and modular solution perfectly meet the rigid needs of the European and American markets, where labor costs are high and efficiency is relatively low.

In the past, traditional courtyard equipment were mostly "heavy machinery" with single functions and large storage space requirements. "Such products are too troublesome. We don't want users to shift their energy and funds for courtyard maintenance to machine maintenance," Cao Limeng thought. Hanyang Technology chose a more forward - looking path - a universal main unit + replaceable modules.

According to her, users only need to buy one main unit and can achieve multiple functions such as snow removal, lawn mowing, leaf blowing, and salt spreading by replacing modules. This design not only reduces the user's holding cost and storage space but also aligns with the original intention of "maintaining the yard, not the machine."

In terms of product performance, Hanyang Technology's snow - removing robot supports fully automatic operation without manual intervention and can handle snow removal in extremely cold environments. The lawn - mowing module adopts a "grass - recycling" design, where the cut grass directly returns to the soil without the need for collection and disposal.

In 2023, Hanyang started the product delivery phase for consumers. Its first - launched product, the courtyard robot Yarbo, had an average price of about $5,000 (approximately 35,600 Chinese yuan) per unit for the main unit + module combination. After the full - payment pre - sale was launched in the first year, it received more than 6,000 user orders. This means that with just one product, its annual sales exceeded 200 million yuan.

Moreover, the growth momentum of this multi - functional courtyard robot remains strong. Cao Limeng said that this year, it is expected to increase by 3 - 4 times, and the customer group mainly consists of middle - class families aged 35 to 60.

"However, for the development curve of any To C hardware category, the high - speed explosion generally occurs in the 8th to 9th year." Although Hanyang Technology has become a consumer brand with hundreds of millions in sales overseas, overall, courtyard robots are still in the market education stage and far from reaching the critical point of explosion.

But she believes that taking the modular application path will be a very good commercialization route for domestic robots. In essence, it represents that the enterprise has proposed a "systematic solution" for the courtyard scenario - it is no longer satisfied with breakthroughs in single - point functions but is trying to build an expandable and iterative smart courtyard ecosystem.

Saving Tens of Thousands of Yuan Annually on Pool Cleaning:

Domestic Robots Are Launching a "Cost - Effectiveness" Revolution in Europe

The super - niche scenario of pool cleaning has caught the keen attention of capital.

In February this year, Shenzhen Siaotuo Technology Co., Ltd., an underwater cleaning robot company, recently completed a Series A+ financing of approximately 70 million yuan. The investors include local industries and the listed company Jierong Co., Ltd.

This Shenzhen - based technology company, founded in 2021, has become one of the top 5 brands in the Chinese pool cleaning robot field in less than three years. Its success in going global is largely due to its precise targeting of the pain points of pool cleaning and the effective integration of platform resources.

Pool cleaning is a high - frequency and high - cost maintenance scenario in European and American families. According to market data provided by Siaotuo, there are more than 28 million private pools globally, and nearly half of them still rely on manual cleaning. The cost of a single cleaning is generally over $100, and machine cleaning is still in the primary stage of "wired operation, rigid path, and low intelligence."

Facing this market gap, Siaotuo uses "technological cost - effectiveness" as the breakthrough point to enter the niche application scenario.

Allen, the person in charge of Siaotuo's brand going global, told Tianxia Wangshang: "Firstly, in terms of quality, our flagship product CrabPro is equipped with technologies such as a brushless motor, wall - climbing function, and removable battery, which can meet pool cleaning needs in various scenarios. Secondly, in terms of price, with the subsidies from the AliExpress brand going - global program, the actual transaction price can be controlled below $300. In contrast, the selling price of similar international products is basically over $1,100, and most of them still require wired operation, which is quite complicated. This has also helped us successfully enter the European market. Now, more than 70% of our orders in Europe come from the AliExpress platform."

"Of course, we don't engage in price wars by piling up batteries or reducing costs. Instead, we reconstruct technology from first - principles," Allen said, giving an example. The team increased the service life of the planetary gear from 500 hours to 2,000 hours through two - year research and development, civilianized the USBL acoustic positioning system originally used for exploration, and reduced the cost. The removable battery design also extends the overall service life of the device, so users don't need to replace the entire equipment due to battery aging.

In his opinion, self - developed technology not only supports the brand's extreme pricing but also enables it to surpass traditional products in performance.

In terms of logistics and fulfillment, AliExpress's "Overseas Fulfillment" model also provides support. Pool robots are high - value and large - sized products, which are extremely sensitive to logistics timeliness and cost. By pre - stocking in overseas warehouses in Europe, Siaotuo has not only shortened the delivery time to a few days but also reduced the fulfillment cost, enabling it to continuously maintain its high - cost - effectiveness advantage.

Market data also confirms the potential of this track. According to a report from The Business Research Company, the global pool robot market size reached $980 million in 2024 and is expected to exceed $1.94 billion by 2029, with a compound annual growth rate of up to 14.7%. Allen said that the company's next plan is to expand into the Australian market through AliExpress, leveraging the seasonal complementarity between the Southern Hemisphere and the European and American markets to achieve stable global sales growth.

The success of domestic pool robots represents a new paradigm for Chinese large - scale smart home hardware going global - no longer relying on pure low - price competition but achieving "performance improvement + price disruption" in specific scenarios through technology reconstruction and platform collaboration. As pool robots in the European and American markets are transforming from "optional consumer goods" to "must - haves for middle - class families," Chinese brands have taken the lead in this process with the response speed of the supply chain and the dividends of e - commerce channels.

The "Big Three" Courtyard Robots Go Global

What Other High - Growth Possibilities Are There?

Although Siaotuo and Hanyang Technology enter different niche scenarios, they jointly outline a typical path for Chinese smart hardware to go global: guided by scenario pain points, supported by self - developed technology, using cross - border e - commerce as a springboard, and driven by the dual engines of "cost - effectiveness + intelligence" to penetrate the market.

From the market background perspective, the demand for courtyard automation in Europe and the United States is on the verge of explosion. On the one hand, the aging population and high labor costs in Europe and the United States make "machine replacement of humans" an inevitable trend. On the other hand, the maturity of smart hardware and the improvement of e - commerce channels provide the shortest path for Chinese brands to reach consumers directly. Platforms such as AliExpress and Amazon not only provide traffic and logistics support but also help Chinese enterprises complete the value transformation from selling products to building brands through projects like the "Brand Going - Global Program."

From the product form perspective, courtyard robots are upgrading from "feature phones" to "smart phones." Siaotuo's CrabPro supports underwater mapping and communication, and Hanyang Technology's main unit has multi - scenario adaptation capabilities. These functions have gone beyond basic cleaning and are evolving towards "smart home management nodes."

Kenny, an engineer with many years of experience in the application - type robot track, told Tianxia Wangshang that in the judgment of many industry insiders, Chinese robots going global will continue to enter niche scenarios. Among them, pool cleaning, lawn mowing, and snow removal, as the "big three of the courtyard," have taken initial shape and may extend to more scenarios such as entertainment, cleaning, irrigation, lighting, and security in the future. Modular design may become the mainstream.

However, there is already a price war in some tracks of robots going global, "such as in the fields of floor - sweeping robots and children's toy robots." In Kenny's view, the combination of technological moats and scenarios is still the key, and attention also needs to be paid to the control of the development rhythm.

Firstly, market education still takes time. The explosion period of consumer - grade courtyard robots may be 8 - 9 years later. This means that at present, brands need to continuously invest in product iteration, user service, and brand building instead of pursuing short - term sales.

Secondly, global multi - market layout is becoming a trend. Siaotuo plans to balance production capacity through off - season sales in Australia, and Hanyang Technology also revealed that it will expand into more high - penetration areas in Europe and the United States. Chinese brands are shifting from "testing the waters in a single market" to "global rhythm operation."

"If you can stay in the market long enough and sell enough products, consumers will see you every day." In this emerging courtyard robot track, Chinese enterprises have taken the lead with their product strength and platform strength.

The next step is how to build long - term advantages in technology accumulation, brand awareness, and local - based services - and this will determine who can truly take root in the backyards of European and American families.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Tianxia Wangshang" (ID: txws_txws), written by Ye Chen and reprinted by 36Kr with authorization.