Is smart lighting a trend or a trend?

"With the shrinking LED replacement market, smart lighting is the dream of the lighting industry." Guan Yong, general manager of Sunlight Lighting believes.

At the beginning of 2015, Xiaomi held 13 companies to promote the development of intelligent lighting, becoming the first group of fierce cross-border dreamers.

On March 18 this year, China Unicom pushed "communication family bucket" into smart lighting; on March 25, Lenovo held a smart home experience event to push LED smart bulbs. One is the giant in the field of communications, and the other is the leader of the electronics industry, competing for the game, so that the LED intelligent lighting market, which is gradually starting to shine, will enter the public's field of vision at a faster speed.

"The market size of the entire intelligent lighting is still quite large, and now it is just a slogan." Li Quan, general manager of Hanyuan Lighting, believes that intelligent lighting as a new growth point for the whole industry is a company that can fight for and innovate. In the Blue Ocean, the company also launched related smart lighting products in June.

According to industry survey agency data, the global smart lighting market in 2013 was about 1.287 billion US dollars, and in 2019 it could reach 8.71 billion US dollars. And in these seemingly huge markets, who is the one who gets a piece of it.

Is fiery just an appearance?

On the one hand, the smart lighting market is getting more and more popular because of the competition of giants; on the other hand, it is a “niche market” that ordinary consumers have not yet reached. Is it a gimmick or a trend? People in the industry are mixed.

At the end of 2014, Weizhi Electronics cooperated with Xiaomi's rival Meizu to develop intelligent lighting. Its CEO Zhang Yang believes that “Because of the necessity of home lighting, intelligence has become the fastest way for people to experience life, compared to other household items such as refrigerators or air conditioners. The faster penetration rate makes the intelligent lighting more acceptable. The real intelligent lighting must enter the family. The smart lighting is expected to form a 100 billion market in the future."

However, we still don't know how far the distance from such smart lighting in the future is.

Although smart lighting has been used in the commercial field, in the home field, even in five years, the popularity is still difficult. "We just want to participate." As the "alliance" of Xiaomi's smart home, Lin Jiliang, general manager of Mulinsen Lighting, seems to indicate that he is not optimistic about the prospects in this field.

“LED smart lighting presents a state of 'noisy', although it is all in the doldrums, but there are not many companies that really act. Price is not the biggest reason for the popularity of smart lighting, but because smart lighting can't go like ordinary lighting. Into thousands of households, so at best it is only a niche market. If you want to develop, you still have to rely on time." Although the operation of Laiwei Optoelectronics has sold smart bulbs to major e-commerce platforms at the end of 2014, the director of Laiwei Optoelectronics Chang Tanjian is still sober to see the reality.

“From professional lighting, although it is a big replacement market, it still takes a certain amount of time for consumers to truly understand the intelligent lighting in the home market. Since the platform and supporting facilities have yet to be developed, this market is still large, still needs a few The running-in time of the year." Li Zhuobin, head of marketing for Op Lighting products, said.

Then why does smart lighting make participants “love and hate”? On the one hand, the gradual heat of smart lighting has made the companies that are not professional enough to rush, the whole field is mixed in the immature state, and the quality of intelligent lighting products is uneven; On the one hand, for the current intelligent lighting, most of them must be operated through the mobile APP, and the limitations are more prominent.

"There are too many cross-category control systems. You can't imagine that I have a lot of APPs or remote controls. I have to remotely control different lights. The table is full of remote controls or my entire mobile phone desktop is a remote control. The intelligence becomes cumbersome. Meaning," Li Zhuobin said.

How to make intelligent lighting take root and become popular, not just the "pig on the wind", worthy of consideration from participants and upcoming participants. How to make smart lighting control easier, limit the number of mobile apps while controlling more bulbs?

Can intelligent lighting be expected?

At present, in addition to the concept of imagination and futuristic, intelligent lighting is still in the first stage of replacing traditional lighting, and the practical value of new hardware is mostly used for self-appreciation and satisfying temporary hunting. There are not many successful cross-border companies, and there are not a few companies that run out of financing, and even struggle to find the edge of survival. Where is the way out for smart lighting in 2015?

"Intelligent lighting requires a product with a relatively high viscosity. If it is just a painless cut, the level of demand will be relatively weak." Li Quan said.

Although the outbreak of smart lighting still takes time, the "Internet +" phenomenon caused by the integration of lighting technology and Internet technology has expanded the original business model in terms of business model and business field. The definition of a cross-border enterprise is not just as simple as an outsider.

"For the moment, smart lighting is mainly controlled by mobile phones. Mobile phones are terminal control platforms for lighting, and mobile phone manufacturers have certain inherent advantages over the border. Their existence is actually a good thing for smart lighting. At the same time, with the live industry, the survival of the fittest was also carried out." Zhang Yang has positioned the enterprises across the border.

And who will climb out of the Death Valley of the fittest?

Zhang Yang believes that smart home and intelligent hardware must be the development direction of smart lighting in the future, so that smart is not only relying on mobile APP, but also can use gateways, cloud computing, etc., to become more convenient and fast, this is the enterprise that must do thinking about intelligent lighting. The problem. Whether it can be accepted and loved by users is the purpose of the company's survival and development.

Suppose there is such a scenario in the future, customers or consumers can customize the smart module according to their own needs, such as switching to the movie mode, you can turn off the TV light while turning the TV on, instead of an APP controlling the TV, Multiple apps to control room light bulbs.

Although this is only an idea, with more and more corporate attention and technical contributions, I believe that in the near future, smart lighting is no longer a "dream" of the industry.