In cooperation with Lark, Anker failed to step out of its comfort zone.

Author | Zhang Ziyi

Editor | Yuan Silai

An old product from overseas has become a new disruptor in the domestic AI hardware market.

The AI Recording Bean jointly launched by Anker Innovations and Feishu might be the most talked - about piece of hardware recently. This product, in the ultra - light "magnetic button" form, aims to enable seamless and portable wearing. Feishu provides software AI adaptation and services for this product, which can support functions such as voiceprint recognition, real - time transcription, and translation based on Feishu's AI capabilities.

However, Anker's AI Recording Bean is not a product specifically invented for Feishu. The overseas version of this product is called soundcore Work AI Voice Recorder (Model D3200), which comes from Soundcore, an audio brand under Anker. The product was launched last November and is equipped with the ChatGpt large - model. Its AI translation and voice assistant functions are mainly integrated into its self - developed soundcore app. This product is planned to be launched in Europe and North America from September to November this year.

This is a new exploration direction for Anker, and obviously, it is not limited to the domestic market. Last year, Anker announced a cooperation with Microsoft. With the help of Microsoft's AI capabilities, the two parties plan to jointly develop the next - generation smart headphones with generative voice AI dialogue capabilities. The person in charge of Anker Innovations' "Recording Bean" product line told Yingke that the domestic cooperation with Feishu is based on considerations of the domestic ecosystem, technology, and user experience. In the future, Anker will continue to explore global product solutions integrating mainstream overseas AI capabilities and ecosystems.

For Anker, finding opportunities in hardware products with a mature supply chain has never been a problem. Moreover, the recording scenario has been verified by manufacturers like Plaud. Anker's cooperation with a mature office software like Feishu, which has scenarios and users, is undoubtedly the fastest way to enter the market.

In this wave of AI hardware development, as a leading hardware company, Anker has not yet produced a continuous hit product. Anker is not short of the ability to create hit products. What troubles them is that even if they had hit products in other product lines in the past, the momentum could not be sustained. They need a more reliable cooperation to break the shadow of "the success ends in the second generation" hanging over Anker.

01 A Powerful Alliance

The business of AI recording hardware requires speed.

The recording hardware market itself is a traditional one, with many established players in the industry. iFlytek and Sony have both tried to transform and enter this market, and new entrants are also quite aggressive. Xu Gao, the founder of Plaud, revealed in an interview with Forbes that its annualized revenue is expected to reach $250 million in 2025, and the profit margin of its products is comparable to the 25% profit Apple earns from each iPhone sold.

After the overseas market gradually reached its peak, Plaud returned to the Chinese mainland to develop last September.

It quickly realized the cruelty of the domestic hardware market. Even before Plaud officially returned to the mainland, DingTalk launched its recording card machine, DingTalk, in August. Since then, large companies and startups have introduced rings, headphones, and necklaces with recording functions, almost covering all currently imaginable hardware forms, and the industry has quickly become crowded.

In terms of hardware form, Anker did not choose the card form but the "bean - shaped" form, not just for differential competition.

In Anker's view, there is actually no such thing as one being superior between the card and the "bean - shaped" forms. It's just a matter of different target users' preference differences under different usage scenarios.

Card - type AI recording products are indeed convenient to be attached to the back of a mobile phone for use, while the advantage of the "bean - shaped" product is that it can expand the office usage scenarios. The product can be easily attached to the back of a computer or mobile phone through the provided "magnetic ring" accessory when users want to use it on a laptop or in other work scenarios.

During the development process of the "Recording Bean" product, Anker had parts where it could reuse its previous hardware development experience and capabilities, and of course, there were also difficulties to overcome.

Anker's AI Recording Bean, when used with the charging case, can achieve a total battery life of over 32 hours. It has a storage space of 8GB, which can store about 250 hours of audio, and it has fast - charging capabilities - 10 minutes of charging can support 2 hours of recording.

In fact, achieving the ability of "10 minutes of charging for 2 hours of recording" is Anker's strength. Anker has years of experience in charging and audio products, which enables the Recording Bean to achieve efficient charging and heat dissipation in an extremely compact form.

The challenging part is that Anker's AI Recording Bean is equipped with 2 omnidirectional microphones, with an effective sound - collection radius of 5 meters. Combined with an intelligent noise - reduction algorithm, it can restore human voices in a noisy environment. Therefore, there are certain differences in microphone design and algorithms compared with headphones. Headphones generally pick up sound directionally towards the user's mouth, while the 2 - mic "Recording Bean" product picks up sound omnidirectionally.

In addition, Anker has self - developed and optimized algorithms based on a dual - MEMS microphone array. Through multi - channel algorithm processing, it improves the signal - to - noise ratio and noise - reduction processing to achieve clearer voice pickup. In the subsequent voice recognition and transcription process, it relies on Feishu's ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) capabilities to complete high - accuracy voice - to - text conversion and intelligent meeting minutes generation.

The cooperation between Anker and Feishu can be regarded as a trial in the AI recording hardware market. It can not only develop products with Feishu's mature software capabilities but also verify its own R & D and mass - production capabilities for this type of hardware products.

More importantly, developing this type of product is indeed familiar territory for Anker. Not only has its audio brand, Soundcore, been developing for many years and accumulated complete project development experience, but also the supply chain for recording hardware products and audio products in China is very mature. There is no need to build from scratch, the R & D cost is low, and what the product needs more is marketing promotion, which is Anker's absolute strength.

02 The Dilemma of Hardware "Hit Products"

In the consumer electronics field, Anker Innovations is good at creating "hit products" and is a "product manager" with forward - looking strategic vision.

It can always find good entry points and promising market segments, and then, with its strong product marketing and promotion capabilities, quickly create hit products.

Moreover, Anker has entered completely unfamiliar hardware fields where technology may not be reusable time and time again.

Last April, the eufy Make UV printer E1 set a new global record on the Kickstarter crowdfunding platform, raising up to $46.76 million with 17,822 backers.

The E1 acutely captured the huge market of Makers created after 3D printers and laser engraving machines became consumer - grade products, and there was a greater demand for desktop - level Maker tools. On the basis of reducing the volume by 90% compared with traditional industrial UV printers, Anker achieved the same or even better UV printing performance than industrial - grade equipment. It also used generative AI capabilities to lower the usage threshold and further expand the consumer group.

Before Anker Innovations launched the UV printer, it internally launched the 3D printer AnkerMake M5.

In 2022, the AnkerMake M5 finally raised $8.88 million (about 60 million RMB) on Kickstarter, with more than 11,000 backers participating, setting a crowdfunding record for 3D printers on the Kickstarter platform that year.

The core selling points of the AnkerMake M5 that year were 5 - times high - speed printing and AI camera monitoring. It was launched two months earlier than the X1 launched by TuoZhu. Both emphasized high - speed printing, but the latter's crowdfunding record was lower than that of the M5.

Anker opened up the market for high - speed 3D printers with its keen business sense, but due to structural limitations (the old gantry structure) and subsequent mass - production problems, it was outperformed by TuoZhu and gradually disappeared from the 3D printing industry.

A similar story happened to the eufy Make E1. After a successful crowdfunding campaign, the E1 also encountered mass - production problems.

The crowdfunding for the E1 ended on June 28 last year, and it was originally planned to be shipped in July - August. By September, Anker officially stated that due to a potential risk of minor leakage in the metering tank of the internal ink - supply system under specific pressure, which might cause internal contamination or short - circuit of the printer, Anker had to suspend the original mass - production plan, redesign the mold, and modify the production line process. The shipping time was postponed to the end of the year.

At present, it seems that the mass - production problem of the E1 has been solved. According to a research report by Guojin Securities, on January 15, the official website of the eufyMake brand announced that 4,950 units were shipped that day, the largest scale since the start of the shipment period, and a total of 7,885 units had been shipped (about 44% of the crowdfunding quantity). This product category is expected to contribute incremental performance in 2026. However, after going through these setbacks, the sustainability of this product line is also uncertain.

Anker Innovations has tirelessly carried out many business lines in the past and achieved good results in the early stage, such as in the fields of sweeping robots, 3D printers, and lawn mowers... Every time, after Anker created a new product category with its market sense and first - class marketing ability, the momentum could not be sustained.

Behind this, some products suffered from the lack of follow - up strength in the second - generation products, and some were affected by mass - production issues or personnel changes. But in essence, all of these products require a large amount of R & D investment and extreme engineering capabilities. Their supply chains are more or less immature and require in - depth intervention and transformation by the enterprise, and the trial - and - error cost is high. This is not Anker's "comfort zone" for product development.

To this day, Anker's best products still come from the "fast - moving consumer electronics" category. Whether it is headphones, security cameras, chargers, mobile power banks, or the AI Recording Bean developed in cooperation with Feishu, there are no absolute barriers at the hardware manufacturing level. As long as Anker gives full play to its consistent marketing and channel advantages, it will achieve satisfactory results.

Anker once had a "shallow - sea strategy" period, which meant doing well in medium - and small - scale product categories such as charging, energy storage, home security, and projection. After setbacks, Anker cut some product lines and refocused its business.

However, Anker has not been able to continuously launch products with depth and substance. Its ultimate goal is obviously not just to become a company that makes money from headphones and recording beans, but to truly influence the trend direction.