The smart war in the living room
Chinese households are moving towards the era of whole-home intelligence, and the ecological battle among home appliance enterprises has quietly begun.
On November 11th, Liu Xing decided to buy a Midea brand "AI (Artificial Intelligence) air conditioner" for the children's bedroom in her new home. What attracted her most about this air conditioner was that "it can tell bedtime stories to children." This function can free up about half an hour of her time for "putting the baby to sleep."
At the same time, Cheng Bin took advantage of the "Double 11" promotion and placed an order for a Huawei brand TV with video call and remote home monitoring functions. In Cheng Bin's view, Huawei was not his first choice for buying a TV. What changed his mind was that the smartphones, smart bracelets, cameras used by his parents and the smart speaker used by himself were all Huawei brands. He believes that this can facilitate him to operate and check the real-time status of all networked devices of his "happy family" within the same system.
The choices of Liu Xing and Cheng Bin represent the new battlefield where competition in the home appliance industry is becoming increasingly fierce. On the one hand, traditional home appliance enterprises such as Midea Group (000333.SZ), Gree Electric Appliances (000651.SZ), Haier Smart Home (600690.SH), Hisense Home Appliances (000921.SZ), etc. are looking for new growth points by developing AI technology, expanding product lines, and going global. On the other hand, technology companies such as Huawei and Xiaomi are intensifying the competition in the home appliance market with their established smart ecosystem advantages.
Expectations for Intelligence
In the past week, reporters from Economic Observer visited sales stores such as Midea Smart Home, Dong Mingzhu's Healthy Home, Huawei Smart Life Hall, Xiaomi Home, Haier Smart Home, and Suning.com.
According to the reporters' understanding, the aforementioned mainstream home appliance brands all have their own independent smart systems, and many of them are named "Xiao Mou", such as Xiao Ai (Xiaomi), Xiao Mei (Midea), Xiao Yi (Huawei), etc. In the past year, home appliances have made obvious progress with the support of AI technology.
"Simply put, they were relatively stupid before, but now they are becoming smarter and smarter," a staff member of Midea Smart Home told reporters from Economic Observer. Currently, most of the products with AI voice function belong to the high - end series of this brand.
Taking the air - conditioning products in Dong Mingzhu's Healthy Home and Midea Smart Home in the same area of Guangzhou as an example, the vertical air conditioners with AI functions are all priced above 10,000 yuan. However, the Little Swan brand under the "Midea system" can provide similar products at about 5,000 yuan, and the price of similar products of Haier Smart Home is around 8,000 yuan.
In addition, when the reporters consulted as consumers in Midea Smart Home, Haier Smart Home, and Huawei Life Hall, most sales staff were very vague when introducing "whole - home intelligence" and "AI functions". Especially when it came to specific functions, they often "didn't know clearly" and needed to call professional explainers temporarily.
A sales staff member of Midea air conditioners told the reporters that although intelligence and "AI +" have been a clear trend for home appliance products, there are still few consultations from offline consumers. Especially limited by the limited budget, most of the promoters of whole - home intelligence are high - end customers. He also said that the intelligence level of home appliance products is still very attractive to the general consumers. In particular, the AI voice function is very friendly to children and the elderly. Judging from past experience, the general consumers' acceptance of new technologies will still be relatively high.
On that day, Ms. Wang, a consumer who was selecting home appliance products, told reporters from Economic Observer that she currently lives in a 90 - square - meter house in Guangzhou, and most of her home appliance products were purchased when necessary in the past two years. Taking the home appliances purchased by Ms. Wang's family as an example, foreign manufacturers mainly include Siemens (refrigerators, washing machines, dryers, dishwashers), Samsung (TVs), Panasonic (pet smart feeders), IKEA (lamps); domestic manufacturers mainly include Gree (air conditioners), Midea (air conditioners and a variety of small home appliances), Hisense (Kelon air conditioners under its brand), Xiaomi (electronic scales), Baidu (smart speakers), and Huawei (smart bracelets).
Ms. Wang said that in the past two years, she could feel that her consumption habits were changing. For example, in the selection of home appliance products, she changed from "blindly believing" in foreign manufacturers to being "conquered" by domestic brands, and her expectations for the intelligence of new products were also getting higher and higher.
Ms. Wang believes that although it seems like her consumption has "downgraded", in fact, her quality of life has not changed much. "It's not that I'm reluctant to spend money, but some of my ideas have changed, and I'm more practical," she said.
"I want to buy a sweeping robot recently and am waiting for the 'provincial subsidy' in Guangdong to come down. I want to add the lights and curtains at home to the smart system to facilitate mobile phone and voice control," Ms. Wang said. She is currently mainly troubled by the "incompatibility" between the systems of major manufacturers, and the solutions are relatively complicated.
New Interconnection Trend
Recently, when reporters from Economic Observer visited Midea's whole - home intelligence laboratory, they noticed that in addition to the well - known home appliance products moving from "single - product intelligence" to "whole - home intelligence", the interaction between cars and homes has also begun.
The staff of Midea's whole - home intelligence laboratory said that the core of Midea's whole - home intelligence is the intelligent agent "Xiao Mei AI", which constructs the basic architecture of home active intelligence, integrates intelligent systems such as indoor air environment, lighting, and security. Through the intelligent closed - loop of perception, decision - making, and execution, home appliance products are evolving from "passive response" to "active service".
For example, in the past, users would say "Xiao Mei, turn on the air conditioner", but now it will actively ask: "It's getting colder today. Do you need to raise the temperature by 2°C?"
"True intelligence is to make users forget about 'operation'," the above - mentioned staff member said. Reporters from Economic Observer saw on the display device at the entrance of the whole - home intelligence laboratory that data such as indoor temperature, humidity, water consumption this month, electricity consumption, and the amount of dishwasher consumables can be displayed in real - time. Almost all home appliance products in the living room and bedroom can also be connected to the network.
For example, the "lights" interface shows that 153 lights are on, the "curtains" interface shows that 1 curtain is open, and the "air conditioner" interface shows that 7 air conditioners are running. Each interface also provides options to turn on and off.
In addition, in terms of the "car - home" interconnection, Midea's whole - home intelligence has reached different levels of cooperation with BYD, Huawei, and Tesla.
"We can directly ask (Xiao Mei) how many kilometers my car can still run, or start the one - key car preparation function to adjust the in - car environment to a comfortable state," the staff of Midea's whole - home intelligence laboratory said. Users can also tell Xiao Mei in the car "I'm going home". When the vehicle is within a certain range from home, the whole - home intelligence system will start the home - coming mode, and "there is no need to turn on the air conditioner or lights after entering".
On November 11th, reporters from Economic Observer also learned in a Huawei Smart Life Hall in Foshan, Guangdong that they can currently provide a whole - home intelligence solution similar to the above, and all products using the Hongmeng system can be connected to this solution.
"The budget for an entry - level full - set solution is about 100,000 yuan or more," the staff of the Huawei Smart Life Hall said. Currently, the vast majority of consulting customers are still in the "single - product intelligence" stage, and the demand for whole - home intelligence mainly comes from engineering customers.
The home appliance trend survey report released by the third - party consulting agency Aowei Cloud Network in the middle of this year said that users have a very high interest in the way of purchasing home appliances in sets. Among them, about 44% of the respondents are relatively interested, and about 47.4% are very interested. From 2023 to 2025, the growth rate of the Chinese smart home market will remain in double - digits for three consecutive years, about 18%, about 24%, and about 26% respectively. Smart security, smart lighting, and smart audio - visual are the three fastest - growing categories.
The above report believes that under the trend of the integration of home appliances and home furnishings, the home appliance scenarios are evolving towards the smart home interconnection ecosystem. At the same time, the operation of future whole - home smart homes will tend to be imperceptible.
Releasing Technological Potential
The above report shows that in the home appliance field, Gree, Midea, Haier, Hisense, Skyworth, and TCL are still the mainstream leading enterprises, but the boundaries of the home appliance industry are becoming increasingly blurred. Embracing the pan - home furnishing ecosystem is following the trend.
Data from the China National Household Appliance Research Institute also shows that in 2024, among the main home appliance categories, the retail sales of traditional large home appliances such as TVs, air conditioners, and refrigerators accounted for more than 60%, and the trend of the integration of AI and smart homes is strengthening.
On November 11th, reporters from Economic Observer noticed in a Huawei Life Hall in the core business district of Foshan, Guangdong that the store recently moved the home appliance area displaying TVs, smart locks, and smart speakers to an area with a large flow of people. Since then, the mobile phone area, car area, and home appliance area of the store each occupy one - third of the space.
Mr. Su is a staff member in charge of the "turn - key" whole - home intelligence project under Guangzhou Juxuan Decoration Engineering Co., Ltd. On November 12th, Mr. Su told reporters from Economic Observer that judging from the cases he has contacted, currently, the "Midea system" is involved in the most whole - home intelligence projects, followed by the "Mi Home". It mainly depends on the difference in the number of home appliance brands used by customers' families.
Mr. Su also mentioned that domestic home appliance enterprises have made great improvements in technology and brand in recent years. There is actually not much difference in basic functions, and it mainly depends on the customers' budgets. Therefore, the "price war" is also very fierce. "Offline customers use Midea products more, online customers use Mi Home products more, and engineering projects mainly use Gree products," he said.
On November 10th, the person in charge of the international market of a TV manufacturer told reporters from Economic Observer that in the past two years, whether it is domestic sales or exports, products with medium - and low - end prices "sell better", but the changes brought about by AI technology are huge.
"Chinese home appliance enterprises will no longer rely solely on hardware manufacturing to obtain profits, but will create higher added value by providing intelligent services," said the "2025 China Home Appliance Retail and Innovation White Paper" released by Aowei Cloud Network. The release of this technological potential will reshape the global home appliance industry competition pattern and also enable Chinese home appliance enterprises to occupy a more favorable position in the global market.
This article is from the WeChat public account "Economic Observer", author: Zhang Rui. Republished by 36Kr with permission.