Haier Smart Home at AWE: The Critical Point of AI Eye 2.0 and "Unmanned Housework"

AI Enters the Home: The Critical Point of Smart Homes

The concept of smart homes did not emerge suddenly.

Over the past decade or so, the home appliance industry has been exploring in this direction. From the earliest connected home appliances to the later emerging whole - house intelligent systems, and then to the scenario - based home appliances demonstrated by more and more enterprises in recent years, the home space has been gradually reorganized by digital technology.

The initial change came from the connection ability. Home appliances can be connected to the platform through the network, allowing users to remotely check the status and control the devices. Subsequently, the devices began to form linkages. For example, the air - conditioner can be automatically turned on when you get home, and the range hood can be automatically started when cooking. Later, voice assistants were added to the home system, making the interaction between people and devices more natural.

However, in essence, these capabilities still remain at the levels of "control" and "linkage". What really changes the development rhythm of smart homes is the addition of AI capabilities.

With the entry of large - model technology into the consumer electronics field, home appliances have begun to have stronger environmental understanding capabilities. Devices can not only recognize environmental changes but also understand user behavior and participate in decision - making to a certain extent. The home space is gradually evolving from a simple combination of devices to a system that can understand life.

This change has made smart homes gradually move from "scenario - based linkages" to a more complex system form. However, the crucial leap from smart home appliances to a truly smart home is not that simple.

Shang Li, a tenured professor at the School of Computing and Intelligent Innovation of Fudan University, believes that in the past few decades, the way technology has changed family life mainly relied on the upgrade of individual devices. Products such as refrigerators, washing machines, and air - conditioners have become more efficient, energy - saving, and intelligent. With the development of AI, robotics, and spatial perception technology, the home is gradually evolving from a "collection of devices" into an intelligent system that can operate continuously.

He told 36Kr, "In such a system, the space can understand the living status of family members, devices can collaborate to complete tasks, and AI continuously learns and optimizes the family lifestyle in the background. The future smart home is not just smarter home appliances but more like an intelligent partner that can accompany family life for a long time."

This is also one of the most notable changes at this year's AWE.

After AI begins to penetrate into the home space, smart homes are shifting from simple parameter upgrades to competition in system capabilities. In addition to being a combination of home appliances, the home space is also a system that can understand the environment and participate in life decision - making.

At the AWE site, Haier's smart home system is developed around this logic. The most core changes of Haier this year are concentrated in three capabilities: the release of AI Eye 2.0, the comprehensive layout of three types of home robots, and the full - scale upgrade of the smart home brain.

These three elements form a very intuitive system framework: the eye, the hand, and the brain. The AI Eye is responsible for perceiving the home environment, the smart home brain is responsible for understanding needs and making decisions, and the robots undertake the task of execution.

It can be seen that home appliance enterprises represented by Haier are starting to further answer a question: After AI truly enters the home, can smart homes move from "doing housework on behalf of people" to a more advanced goal - unmanned housework?

This year's AWE may be the turning point when this change begins to become clear.

From Home Appliances to Systems: How AI Life "Actively Evolves"

"Any intelligent system needs three core capabilities: perceiving the environment, understanding and making decisions, and executing actions. After these three form a closed - loop, the system can operate continuously and gradually learn the user's living habits." In Shang Li's view, the components of a smart home are very clear.

Based on this assertion and combined with the experience in the exhibition hall, the changes of Haier at this year's AWE are very intuitive.

In the past, home appliance exhibition halls were often divided by product categories: refrigerator area, washing machine area, and air - conditioner area. Each area demonstrated the capabilities of its respective products. This year, the structure of Haier's exhibition hall has changed significantly. All the displays are centered around product suites, presenting a complete living space.

Different areas such as the kitchen, washing and care space, air environment, cooking scenarios, and home robots are connected under the same logic. Devices form a synergy through a unified system. This way of display itself sends a signal: Smart homes have moved from the upgrade of individual products to the evolution of system capabilities.

Behind this change is the comprehensive evolution of Haier's smart home. It can be roughly understood as the evolution of three - layer capabilities: perception, decision - making, and execution.

AI Eye 2.0: Let Home Appliances Truly "Understand the Physical World"

In the past smart home appliance system, many devices actually did not know the environment they were in.

They could be remotely controlled and run according to the set programs, but their understanding of real - life scenarios was still very limited. This is also the reason why the user experience of many so - called "smart home appliances" is not stable. Devices can only execute commands but have difficulty understanding environmental changes.

The AI Eye aims to solve this problem. In 2025, Haier launched AI Eye 1.0, enabling home appliances to have visual capabilities for the first time.

AI Eye 2.0 has further improved in terms of recognition range, recognition accuracy, and response speed. From the perspective of industry evaluation, the technical capabilities of AI Eye 2.0 have also been verified by multiple authoritative parties. The Seeker suite equipped with this technology not only obtained the L4 - level smart home appliance standard certification certificate issued by the China National Household Appliance Quality Supervision and Testing Center (Beijing), but also won the gold award in the 2026 AWE Aipulan Award selection, becoming the only suite product in the industry to win the "Full - Scenario AI Intelligent Agent Gold Award". At the same time, its product's scientific and technological strength has also passed the professional verification of the Chinese Society of Scientific Exploration.

For Seeker suite products such as refrigerators and washing machines equipped with this technology, the recognition range of the AI Eye in the refrigerator has expanded from the original 230 types of ingredients to almost all ingredients, and it can automatically recommend storage areas and match the preservation environment.

In specific applications, this ability is embedded in different home scenarios. For example, in the food preservation scenario, the Seeker refrigerator equipped with the AI Eye can recognize the type of ingredients, recommend suitable storage areas, and automatically adjust the preservation environment according to the characteristics of the ingredients.

For example, the Casarte Conductor series refrigerator further expands the recognition range. It will automatically establish a file when ingredients are stored, perform millisecond - level dynamic tracking, and realize ingredient management and reminders through visual recognition and voice interaction.

In the washing and care scenario, the Haier Integrated Washing and Care Home · Smart Edition Seeker series uses the AI Eye to recognize the state of clothes, remind of situations such as mixed colors, excessive foam, or forgotten clothes, and optimize the washing and care plan in combination with voice interaction.

In addition, AI Eye 2.0 also brings more proactive execution capabilities. Devices can not only recognize the environment but also automatically make adjustments according to environmental changes.

In the common kitchen cooking scenario, the range hood and stove combination equipped with the AI Eye can capture the dynamic of ingredients in the pot in real - time, achieving functions such as recognizing the fire by looking at the pot and adjusting the height according to the smoke. When the AI Eye detects that the pot is about to overflow, it automatically turns down the heat. After the boiling stops, it automatically turns up the heat, ensuring that the food boils without overflowing, improving the safety and freedom of cooking. The range hood can also actively recognize the amount of oil fume and automatically adjust the height, air volume, and air pressure, achieving intelligent fume purification. While having excellent performance, thanks to the fully - embedded and hidden design, it also realizes the perfect combination of kitchen aesthetics and hardcore strength.

The Seeker air - conditioner on display at the site is also equipped with this technology. Combined with the UWB breathing - level radar positioning technology and a detection distance of 8 meters, it can make the wind softer when a person approaches, blow the wind towards or away from the person, and automatically save energy when no one is around, eliminating the worry of catching a cold or wasting electricity by forgetting to turn off the air - conditioner.

From a technical logic perspective, this means that home appliances are starting to move from simple seeing - passive reaction to seeing - active participation in adjustment. This change also makes the perception ability truly become the basic ability of smart homes.

Household Robots: The Intelligent Evolution of Appliances with Execution Capabilities

The popularity of embodied intelligence needs no further mention. The leap from home appliances to household robots may come faster than we think.

In the traditional so - called smart home, smart home appliances are more of an auxiliary role, and all housework is still dominated by people. The core of embodied intelligence is to truly liberate "humans".

This year, Haier Smart Home also released three types of home robots: household robots, embodied cleaning robots, and companion robots. Among them, the Haiwa household robot, equipped with the VLA large model, can accurately judge the material and posture of objects, put different ingredients into corresponding areas through visual recognition, and synchronously match the best preservation mode, completing high - difficulty housework such as taking and placing ingredients and storing meals.

The Haiwa embodied cleaning robot subverts the traditional floor cleaner, realizing storage and dry - wet cleaning in 3D space, an upgrade from a "tool" to a "substitute for humans". Relying on AI visual capabilities, it can recognize nearly a thousand types of household items and autonomously complete storage and cleaning. For dry and wet garbage, it can switch between the vacuuming mode and the mopping mode like a human. When encountering corners, it can reach out for in - depth cleaning, achieving "unmanned cleaning housework".

The Haiwa companion robot is specially designed for the elderly by Haier. It has functions such as accurate fall detection and timely medicine - taking reminders, links with the family doctor large model to give health advice, and automatically contacts family members in case of an emergency. It can also control home appliances by voice and serve as a whole - house mobile control center.

Smart Home Brain: The Decision - Making System of the Home

The dividing point between active and passive services lies in decision - making. Who decides what to do next.

In Haier's smart home system, this role is undertaken by the smart home brain.

This year's newly upgraded Haier smart home brain runs on the smart home operating system UhomeOS. Through this system, devices such as refrigerators, washing machines, air - conditioners, and kitchen appliances in the home can be connected to a unified platform and understand user needs through a vertical large model trained for home scenarios.

In order to enable both humans and AI to understand the structure of the home space, Haier has also constructed a 3D digital space of the home, mapping the real home in the digital world through the smart home APP. Users can view and control home devices through the 3D home view, and the system can also better understand the home environment based on spatial data.

At the same time, Haier has also introduced a 3D digital twin interactive interface in the smart home APP. Users can view and control home devices through the 3D home view, upgrading from the previous list - style control to an interactive mode closer to the real - space structure.

On this basis, the smart home brain is responsible for understanding the space and planning tasks, while robots and home appliances undertake the execution role.

For example, in the scenario demonstrated at AWE, kitchen cooking can trigger the linkage of the range hood, stove, and air system simultaneously; in the washing and care scenario, the system can recognize the type of clothes and recommend a washing and care plan; in the air environment scenario, air - conditioners, fresh - air systems, and air detection devices can form an overall adjustment.

In combination with the home local - end computing power model Haimily, Haier is actually constructing a "multi - machine and multi - brain collaboration" home intelligent system: the smart home brain is responsible for understanding life and planning tasks, robots and home appliances undertake the execution capabilities, and the network connects the entire system.

As more and more devices are connected to the same system, the home space is gradually presenting a new form. Home appliances are no longer a simple series of single products but form a complete "intelligent agent".

The Boundary of Smart Homes Begins to Connect to a Larger Living Ecosystem

From both industry and academic perspectives, the boundary of smart homes is expanding.

Looking only at the technical level, in a narrow sense, smart homes are still just an upgrade of the internal capabilities of the home. However, in the view of experts like Shang Li, smart homes are transitioning from spatial intelligence to companion intelligence. "In the past, smart homes focused on devices. In the future, the system will pay more attention to activities and tasks in the home space. The system needs to understand people's behavior in the space and provide services through the collaboration of multiple devices."

If we imagine further into the future, "After the further integration of AI, robotics, and spatial perception technology, the home may become a truly intelligent space. The space can understand people's needs, actively adjust the environment, and complete life tasks through various devices and robots."

This seems to coincide with Haier's strategic judgment. In fact, Haier is not satisfied with the boundary of a single home space. Instead, it combines its own business to try to create a more imaginative open ecosystem.

After AI truly begins to participate in family life, the home itself is becoming a new digital node. It not only connects home appliances but also gradually connects to a larger living space. The "person - vehicle - home - community - city" system proposed by Haier is a typical expression of this extension.

Imagine that after the home camera is connected to the community system, users can view their children's activities in the community through the home system. As of now, Haier has achieved cooperation with the Xiaodu smart glasses, realizing interconnection. Users can even remotely control home devices in external spaces.

In such a scenario, the home system is gradually becoming the core entrance connecting different living spaces. It is no longer just a linkage system between smart home appliances but more like a living ecosystem that can continuously expand.

This change also makes the role and even the technical path of smart homes start to shift.

Shang Li believes that the future development focus of smart homes will shift from "device intelligence" to "