In view of the huge market stock of WiFi and the low cost of WiFi modules, WiFi modules are very popular in the process of Internet transformation of traditional home appliance manufacturers. However, when the $1 WiFi module appeared, how far is the smart age from us?
Since 2013, the WiFi module has begun to take off with the express train of the Internet of Things smart home. By embedding the WiFi module, traditional sockets, microwave ovens, washing machines and other hardware devices can achieve certain intelligence.
In view of the huge market stock of WiFi and the low cost of WiFi modules, WiFi modules are very popular in the process of Internet transformation of traditional home appliance manufacturers.
However, when the $1 WiFi module appeared, how far is the smart age from us?
Fighting price war
In the industry, it has been more than ten years old. Since 2013, Wang Yonghong, CEO and founder of Shanghai Qingke Information Technology Co., Ltd., has clearly felt that more and more companies are coming to talk about cooperation. From the market price at the time, the average price of the traditional WiFi solution far exceeded 40 yuan.
But the good times did not last long, and then the market pattern changed. In January 2015, Xiaomi launched a WiFi universal module for home appliances, which only cost 22 yuan, and even promised to provide smart home appliance manufacturers at a price of 10 yuan in the future. Just two months later, 360 launched a 1 yuan smart module WiFi module to bring the price to the bottom.
Behind the low price is the fierce competition in the market. Smaller manufacturers of emerging WiFi modules have mixed the market, and the other giants have turned from competitors to competitors and began to try to make their own modules. Hangzhou Gubei Electronic Technology (BroadLink) CEO Liu Zongxi and Lei Jun turned against each other. As a result of the Xiaomi R&D route, the two sides cooperated closely, even in the third public beta package of Xiaomi Routing, which contained a BroadLinkRM-home intelligent remote control, but After the Xiaomi router was officially released, Xiaomi said that he would develop a smart home WiFi module.
Under Moore's Law, hardware will always face a trend of price decline in the development process, but in Wang Yonghong's view, "In the process of industrial maturity, the cost reduction is limited, blindly lowering prices, even through It is a marketing act to sacrifice your own interests in exchange for the market."
Although the WiFi module is a very small component, according to Shen Jianhua, CTO of Shanghai Qingke R&D, the products require complicated procedures from R&D, production and post-test. Each program requires cost, for example, a WiFi module is on the market. The former certification fee is as high as 100,000.
"Some modules pay too much attention to the so-called cost. Excessive simplification of chip circuit design or peripheral design can cause spurious over-standard problems. The problem is that there is no way to connect the mobile phone during normal call, or the cellular network is suddenly disconnected, and even smart occurs. The hardware is not controlled, causing abnormal heart pacemakers,†said Jiang Yan, director of hardware research and development at Shanghai Qingke.
Transformation path
The 360-yuan smart WiFi module launched by the 360 ​​is significantly lower than the cost price, and the game behind it is obviously not intended to make money through the hardware itself. Through the 1 yuan strategy, attract more home appliance manufacturers to quickly access the 360 ​​smart home platform and build their own smart home ecosystem.
"Occupy more markets through low prices, especially large-scale home appliance manufacturers, once connected, in order to ensure the interconnection of the entire product line, it is more conducive to the application of later products to the full range of home appliance manufacturers." In the previous interview, Liu Zongxi had "First Financial Daily" reporter explained the logic behind the low price. In August this year, BroadLink also announced that the WiFi module of the DNAKit development platform is only priced at 9.999 yuan.
Liu Zongxi also knows that the price of less than 10 yuan can certainly not make money, and the services such as linkage test, cloud service construction and big data support provided by DNALink of BroadLink Internet of Things development platform can release the later profit and improve the user's stickiness. .
"The WiFi module is a hardware product. After the quantity goes up, the price will definitely fall. Last year, the price was already within 20 yuan, but in addition to the cost, creating more value, there will be room for continuous growth." Shen Jianhua to "First Financial The Daily News said. Under the pressure of competition, Shanghai Qingke tried to transform the "Mico" IoT operating system based on the WiFi module. Developers can design and access the Internet through the "Mico" system on various micro-control platforms. The intelligence of our own products.
"The chip factory only provides me with a chip driver. For example, if the mobile phone is equipped with Android, you don't need to use Qualcomm's chip or which chip. It is simple to understand that the Mico system is the PC era of Windows, the mobile era of Android and iOS." Shen Jianhua explained to reporters.
In Shen Jianhua's view, the so-called WiFi module company that provides cloud platform has not yet been born. The entire Internet of Things is divided into three stages: connection, platform and service. Now the whole market is still in the first stage, that is, how to stabilize and reliable various devices. Safely connected to the Internet, "This stage has not yet passed, the platform and service stage are still quite long. The so-called platform has existed for a few years, we all have a question mark." Shen Jianhua bluntly.
It is not the Qingke family that has the same layout. Before that, ARM introduced the mbedOS IoT operating system specifically for the Internet of Things. It hopes to further consolidate its dominance in the field of IoT chips through the standard interface of the microcontroller software, allowing major chip manufacturers. Become the "factory factory" of ARM. Haier, Midea and other terminal equipment manufacturers are also eager to try their own research and development modules.
From single products, systems to platforms, WiFi module manufacturers are looking for a differentiated development path. The entire industry chain from the upstream chip factory to the cloud service platform to the terminal equipment manufacturers, each has its own abacus, but only tied in the same interest ecosystem. "Although some small manufacturers began to embrace the formation of intelligent ecosystems, each ecosystem is an independent information island, and a unified intelligent device underlying system is the basis for the outbreak of smart devices." Shen Jianhua said.
Lcd Tonch Screen For Iphone,Lcd Display For Iphone,Lcd Touch Screen,Mobile Lcd For Iphone
Shenzhen Xiangying touch photoelectric co., ltd. , https://www.starstpmobile.com