Smart home: The battle over standards will leave corpses everywhere

Under the background of the new normal of the economy, the "old tune" of transformation and upgrading is bound to be played again. At this year's "Two Sessions", a hot word written into the government work report - "Internet +" can be said to have a new meaning. "Internet +" means a new economic form created by the deep integration of the Internet and traditional industries.

At CeBIT 2015 held in Hanover, Germany, the presence of political leaders and China's status as an official partner country also made "Industry 4.0", another hot word originated in Germany, seem to have the same goal as the transformation and upgrading of China's manufacturing.

In fact, before "Internet +" became a hot word, the combination of "Internet + home appliances" had already set off waves in the market. LeTV Super TV proposed the "platform + content + terminal + application" ecological system strategy, and Midea and Xiaomi 's capital-level cooperation were both node events.

At present, the "Internet +" in the home appliance industry is gaining momentum, and manufacturers' transformation strategies are increasingly being labeled with concepts such as smart TV, smart home, and smart home.

Whether the conceptual grand narrative can be equal to the intelligence of specific products is one thing, but an obvious problem brought about by this is: different standards. Almost every mainstream manufacturer has tried to launch its own intelligent operating system, for example, Samsung has SmartHome, Haier has U+, LG has web os, and Skyworth has its own Coocaa system.

Back to the topic of this article, the statement “corpses everywhere” seems horrifying, but in fact it is just nonsense like “the sun will rise from the east tomorrow” - because it is too correct.

Standards refer to the joint consultation of repetitive things... as the criterion and basis for common compliance. Based on this basic definition, it is impossible for the standards of smart homes to be implemented independently. It can be inferred from this that most of the standards that emphasize "autonomy" are "corpses everywhere".

If we look to history for clues, smartphones are a living example.

Recently, a widely circulated news in the mobile phone and Internet industries is that Baidu Cloud OS has stopped updating. Backed by Baidu's resources and emphasized its determination to transform into the mobile Internet, the outcome is still like this.

Of course, Baidu is not alone. In the competition for the right to speak in the smartphone operating system, there are many similar losers.

Internationally, Symbian has withdrawn from the center stage due to Nokia's decline, and the same fate also applies to Blackberry's Blackberry OS and Palm's Web OS. The MeeGo operating system developed by Nokia and Intel also came to an end. Even Samsung, which has been the world's smartphone sales champion for many years, has disappeared with its Bada operating system. Microsoft is the overlord of the PC era, but its huge investment in mobile phone operating systems has only earned it a few percentage points of market share.

Looking at China, in 2009, China Mobile took the lead in launching its own OPhone operating system. At that time, 3G had just started to take off in China, operators had strong control over mobile phone centralized procurement, and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission had not yet asked operators to reduce subsidies. However, is there still a voice for OPhone now? And how many third-party ROMs that were once sought after by venture capital funds are still influential?

Back to the issue of smart home, the battle for standards of operating systems and connection protocols has just begun, and is still in the stage of chaos and scramble for territory. However, the result is bound to be integration. "Dead bodies everywhere" will be the final fate of most of them.

Of course, the market cannot wait. Before the actual standards and platforms are finally established, the first choice for the manufacturers involved is to use their own systems and protocols to make their products smarter and more intelligent. If more industry chain participants can be attracted to join their camp on this basis, it would be the best thing.

But the final fate will not change. From this perspective, "correct nonsense" may not be completely meaningless.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.