Smart speaker introduction
Background
In 2016, the sales of the smart home market in the United States was 9.7 billion U.S. dollars, while China only had 520 million U.S. dollars. The increase in penetration rate is even more alarming. The value in the United States is 5.8%, while that in China is only 0.1%.
Due to the relationship across the ocean, many people have questioned the "exaggerated" sales data of Amazon Echo. They also asked a domestic smart speaker manufacturer. He replied: "The sales effect of Amazon Echo smart speakers in 2016 It’s really good. Its total domestic production has just exceeded 8 million units. The initial Echo and the simplified Echo Dot are almost half and half. The first domestic sales volume may only be 1/100 of it."
Features
The representative products of smart speakers, Alexa behind Amazon Echo, and its predecessor Siri, are actually smart voice technology. The core is very brief-to make the machine have the ability similar to human in this part of the voice dialogue. Smart speakers become a general existence of small household appliances and penetrate into people's daily life.
Development status
A domestic smart speaker practitioner said, “The output and sales of domestic smart speakers are still fluctuating between tens of thousands and tens of thousands. The best-selling one is Jingdong’s Dingdong, but the actual number is still far smaller than that of Echo. . The largest number is still inferior smart speaker products produced by many small manufacturers. It is good that 2 of the 10 sentences of that product respond."
In the more than two years since its official release in November 2014, Amazon Echo smart speakers have become one of the hottest smart home products on the market. People can use Echo to control home appliances, purchase goods, and inquire about and consult with their voices. According to survey data from the research organization eMarketer, in the United States, about 36 million users will use voice-controlled speakers once a month, and this number is still expanding.
On November 16, 2017, Baidu held a world conference and brought the first smart hardware Raven smart speaker-Raven H.
On March 26, 2018, Baidu released Xiaodu's smart video speakers at home at Baidu Science and Technology Park in Beijing.
On June 11, 2018, Baidu released its first self-branded smart speaker "Xiaodu Smart Speaker" in Beijing.
On June 1, 2019, Baidu’s artificial intelligence assistant "Xiaodu Smart Speaker Donkey Kong" landed on Xiaodu Mall, opened the reservation, and went on sale at 0:00 on June 12 at a price of 199 yuan.
On November 25, 2019, Huawei held a full-scene new product launch conference in Shanghai and released the first flagship smart speaker Huawei Sound X.
On March 24, 2020, Xiaodu launched its first smart screen in 2020. The Xiaodu Home Smart Screen Air is aimed at the needs of the entire population and full time in all-round home scenarios, forming a product portfolio difference from the previously released Xiaodu Smart Screen X8 , Which greatly reduces the barriers to entry of smart speakers with screens.
Technology development editor Voice
Products need to be iterated and perfected continuously to ensure a stable network connection; for example, a beautiful speaker needs to repeatedly break in the appearance design; for example, voice interaction requires a good sound reception effect, and the speaker itself will sound, when the smart speaker is awakened in the far field , It is necessary to eliminate the sound of the speaker itself; even when the volume is high, the vibration will affect the sound reception, so the distance between the sound cavity and the microphone needs to be considered.
The problem of "split development" in the smart speaker market: The seemingly simple smart speaker wants to truly realize daily voice interaction, but it is actually a technical problem. It is these problems that have slowed the development of China's intelligent voice market, and the most influential one is the machine's understanding of Chinese, which is what we commonly call NLP.
