A few months ago, the description of "100 smart speaker manufacturers in Shenzhen within one kilometer" was still in the ear. Now, smart headphones are starting to emerge from the complicated hardware market.
In 2017, it was a carnival of smart speaker manufacturers. Apple launched the new smart speaker HomePod at the WWDC (Apple Global Developers Conference) in June, which brought this atmosphere to a climax. For a time, Internet companies including Alibaba and Himalayan have launched speaker products.
For the giants, smart speakers are the best way to build a smart ecosystem in their eyes. Amazon has taken the lead in this regard, and its smart speaker Echo has become an indispensable part of overseas families. Copying the above precedents to the country is exactly what Alibaba and other giants want to see.
But Western learning has never been a simple matter. User habits, network environment, infrastructure, and ecological maturity – all of which have become obstacles to the development of smart speakers in the domestic market.
Therefore, even if the domestic Internet giants continue to launch a variety of speaker products, consumers are still rarely on the desktop. More often, smart speakers are just a "fresh play" role, bought by a few users who are keen on early adopters.
In this context, some companies are beginning to look for new smart interactive portals. Headphones that are more snug and use more time are becoming their next target.
one.Since November 2017, a variety of smart headphones have appeared in the public eye.
At the Tencent Global Partner Conference held in the month, Tencent exhibited an AI voice headset. This headset is made by Guangzhou Ailang Intelligent, and it is equipped with Tencent Jingdang voice assistant.
A month later, another smart headset that also equipped with Tencent's voice assistant was released. The product was launched by the sports and headset brand 1MORE, mainly for the sports crowd.
By 2018, more smart headphones have sprung up. Internet startups, including door-to-door questions, and new headset brands like FIIL have launched their own voice-interactive headsets.
"Headphones will be the next tipping point for voice interaction." Go out and ask the founder Li Zhifei to believe in his own judgment.
There is a shortage of people who have the same views with Li Zhifei. Some people even think that the prospect of smart headphones is brighter than smart speakers. The reason is simple, smart headphones are much more convenient than smart speakers.
"The biggest value of headphones is that it is easy to carry, no matter where you can use it, but the speaker is more suitable for indoors." Lin Boqing, co-founder and vice president of 1MORE Marketing, said that this is the most important reason for his optimistic development of smart headphones. one.
This also means that smart headsets can have more usage scenarios than just smart home portals.
For example, 1MORE's smart headset positioning sports scene, the use of people and range is more extensive than ordinary headphones. "This is a process of zooming in on the scene." Lin Baiqing said.
In the view of Zhao Zhiyang, deputy general manager of Ailang Intelligent, the shortcoming of smart speakers is that domestic users use less frequently and play an entry role. As the entrance continues to increase, the situation of the speakers is a bit embarrassing, and people's willingness to purchase will gradually decrease. Headphones are instead a larger entry type product.
The user's usage habits can greatly influence the market trend.
"Compared with the overseas market, the domestic speaker product penetration rate is not high, let alone the concept of intelligence, market education is more difficult than Europe and the United States." FIIL CEO Su Ning believes that the high-frequency use of headphones saves the education market This step.
Many respondents believe that in the domestic market, the development speed of smart headphones will eventually surpass smart speakers.
"The burst of smart speakers has given a good start to many domestic manufacturers. While providing technology, it is also trying to interact with voice. But this is not the final answer. Now vendors are looking for other directions, The plan is landing. This is an opportunity for the development of smart headphones." Zhao Zhiyang said.
Even so, the attitude of hardware practitioners is a bit more cautious. Some of them no longer embrace the market with great enthusiasm as they did with smart speakers.
The hardware practitioner Wang Yu (pseudonym) company is the witness of the earlier smart speaker boom. At that time, many customers took the initiative to find them, but there were only a handful of companies that finally reached a cooperation.
Their concern is that small companies like Wang Yu have limited ability to build hardware products. If the product itself has a poor experience, even "smart" is just a false proposition.
This makes Wang Yu and his partners dare not easily enter the smart headset market. "Headphones are a complex product, hardware is not good, and there is no difference between those low-end products, and the market prospects are worrisome."
This also shows from the side that the threshold of intelligent hardware products has been established in the hearts of some practitioners, and is no longer an industry where everyone can share a piece of cake.
two"Headphones belong to personal products, user requirements are relatively high, even if the price war is not necessarily useful. Compared with speakers, headphones are still a relatively healthy industry." Zhao Zhiyang cautiously optimistic about the status quo of smart headphones industry.
Corresponding to the above situation, among the smart earphone manufacturers that are currently entering the market, the figure of the earphone manufacturer has occupied more seats.
According to Suining's design philosophy, FIIL smart headset products still regard "headphones" as the primary attribute of the product, not "smart".
"Our core competitiveness is first to provide high-quality headphones, and intelligence is just a icing on the cake. Users will pay for high-quality headphones with excellent value for money, but they will not be motivated by intelligence."
In the eyes of headset manufacturers, instead of speculating on the concept of intelligence, it is better to invest more energy to develop a product and strengthen key usage attributes.
In addition to focusing on the sound quality of the headphones, how to reduce the noise of the microphone during the voice interaction process has become a problem that every manufacturer needs to solve. This determines the user's experience of using voice interaction.
Lin Boqing said in an interview with the interface news reporter that in order to develop the noise reduction technology of the microphone, 1MORE began research and development of related technologies from 2014. To this end, the company also invested in electro-acoustic technology solution providers and A-share listed companies to achieve electro-acoustic to strengthen their technical reserves at the end of 2017.
Before the official launch of the smart headset, 1MORE has launched an e-sports headset, which initially released the noise reduction capability of the product. They canceled the original tubular microphone and switched to the embedded dual microphone solution.
"One of the two microphones is used to accept the user's voice, and one to eliminate the external noise. After compensating according to our own research algorithm, the last user hears the processed voice, there will be no noise." Lin Baiqing said .
Compared with e-sports headphones, smaller size sports headphones have higher requirements for the arrangement of internal microphones. 1MORE's smart headset products currently use a single-microphone solution, which has invested a long time in algorithm development and added more technical applications.
"For chips and algorithms, we have different choices. At present, it is basically possible to limit the radio reception angle of the microphone to the vicinity of the user's mouth, and to reduce the noise as much as possible through directivity." Lin Baiqing said.
In 2016, we started to develop the smart wave solution of the smart earphone solution. We also use algorithms to reduce noise in the radio. They set a certain sound collection range on the hardware to eliminate as much interference as possible.
In addition, the company hopes to further improve the efficiency of noise reduction by introducing voiceprint recognition technology.
"Technology means that the earphone can learn the voiceprint of a particular user, and then decide whether the earphone responds only to the user's voice." Zhao Zhiyang said that most hardware manufacturers are not good at voiceprint recognition technology and need related technology. The provider provides a solution for use by headset manufacturers.
“The collection, documentation and analysis of voiceprints are actually in the category of artificial intelligence and big data. This is what Internet companies have to do. Hardware manufacturers are more focused on providing solutions for radio and noise reduction,†he added.
threeBut the focus on sound quality and noise reduction does not mean that the smart performance of a headset can be reduced. This determines whether a traditional headset can add value due to its smart attributes.
Among them, the voice interaction ability and the richness of platform content are the two directions that manufacturers value most.
Suining began to develop voice headsets in early 2016. He believes that connecting headphones to the music library and using voice to search songs will be a breakthrough direction. Before joining FIIL, he worked for the headset brand Plantronics and accumulated a lot of technical experience in voice interaction.
Driven by the above ideas, he began to develop smart headphones.
At the beginning, FIIL independently developed a solution for voice wake-up and semantic understanding, and used the speech recognition technology provided by HKUST.
"We are a small team, the technical strength is not as strong as BAT, we can only do some very basic technical work." Suining said that under the technical ability of the time, FIIL matched the songs and singers' names with the music provided by Ocean Music Group. The library eventually formed an intelligent solution with a recognition rate close to 70%.
Through continuous iterations, the FIIL technical team increased the recognition rate of the above programs to 80% in 2017. However, with the increasing popularity of artificial intelligence, Suining feels that such recognition rate cannot provide sufficient use effect.
At an industry conference, he was in contact with the head of the Baidu Duer OS team. After some trade-offs, he chose to cooperate with Baidu.
"In fact, BAT has talked about it, but it feels that Baidu is determined to invest in artificial intelligence." In Suining's view, artificial intelligence may be just a growth point for a certain business of Ali or Tencent, but it is related to Baidu's life and death. This also means that FIIL can get more opportunities from cooperation. In the end, the FIIL smart headset equipped with Baidu Duer OS came out in February this year.
There are also manufacturers who value Tencent's balance of content and technology. For them, the rich content ecosystem is also an integral part of the headset.
Zhao Zhiyang of Ailang Intelligent believes that voice interaction is essentially a means. What is important is what users can do through voice. This requires the Internet platform to provide enough content.
“Tencent has the largest domestic music copyright content and has enough applications.†He believes that Tencent can satisfy many user usage scenarios, such as completing WeChat payment by voice or reading WeChat by voice. "This will be a killer."
For the 1MORE smart headset with the main sports scene, the importance of music content is self-evident. After all, many users choose to use their mobile phones to listen to songs while running.
1MORE initially cooperated with the sports to develop sports headphones, and the addition of Tencent complemented the shortcomings of both parties. “Whether it is voice technology or music content, Tencent is relatively leading in China.†Lin Boqing said when talking about the reasons for choosing Tencent for cooperation.
fourUnlike smart speakers, in the development of smart headphones, Internet platforms tend to play a more important role. This situation has existed since the beginning of the market.
"In the era of artificial intelligence, it is difficult for manufacturers to fight alone. Only by uniting to make a product can they occupy a favorable position in the market." Lin Baiqing said.
Zhao Zhiyang believes that the headset is just a tool. The question now is how the Internet platform empowers it and makes the headset a channel for intelligent content.
This also means that the amount of open resources on the platform side will determine the ease of application of the smart headset.
“When I was running, how did the headphones recommend songs suitable for running? I was tired, and the headphones would tell me how my physical condition is. This is why the headset manufacturers should work together with their partners.†Lin Baiqing said. .
But hardware vendors may not be able to get the support they want from the Internet giant.
Judging from the current layout of various enterprises, the application of artificial intelligence technology has not yet formed a true synergy, and more attempts have been made to promote the exploratory development of related technologies.
Tencent is a good example. Inside, the jingle voice assistant belongs to the MIG (mobile internet) business group, but according to interface news reporters, Tencent Cloud, Tencent AI, Lab and other departments are also preparing related voice technology solutions. Small and micro-intelligent service systems like Tencent Cloud can also provide corresponding technical services.
The competitive environment inside the platform will inevitably lead to the consumption of certain technical resources.
"This is a competitive mechanism for Internet companies. It is not good or bad, but it will have an impact on the industry." In Zhao Zhiyang's view, only when the technology of a certain department rises to a certain level can it be able to obtain rich resources. Like the original WeChat.
Prior to this, smart headset manufacturers could only enjoy some of the resources of these giants. This has become one of the potential factors affecting the breakthrough in the smart headset industry.
Limited resources have made many manufacturers take a wait-and-see attitude toward the smart headset market.
A headphone manufacturer in Shenzhen told the interface journalist that big companies are not sure what to do, and small businesses are even less daring to enter.
Suining also said: "For smart headphones, we must be very restrained and objective. We can't raise the expectations of consumers very high. Otherwise, the impetuousness and expansion in the early stage will eventually hurt the market." Even if it is a first-time enterprise, it hopes to do its best. It may reduce the risk of production and sales of smart headphones.
Of course, this does not mean that the development of smart headphones will stagnate. "A year or so" is a timetable for Zhao Zhiyang's smart headset to achieve large-scale commercial use. He has been frequently communicating with Internet companies recently and found that the giants are in the technical stage.
“When the application and content are fully mobilized, there is enough hardware to form a connection, which is when the smart headset really breaks out,†he said.
Wuxi Doton Power , http://www.dotonpower.com