Yang Kai: Deconstructing the Smart Home

In the past two years, the concept of the Internet of Things and smart home has become very popular. There are industry giants such as Apple, Google, Alibaba, Xiaomi, and telecom operators, as well as traditional black and white such as TCL, Haier, Midea, and Gree. Home appliance brand manufacturers are eager to try in this market and seize the site.

The concept of smart home is so popular that consumers are dizzying, and many participants have forgotten their original intentions and lost their direction in the busy competition. This is also why the competitive landscape of smart home products has not yet taken shape. Even the above-mentioned giants are aiming at "carding" as their primary purpose, and they have not been able to submit a truly mature business model answer sheet.

So, how should we play in the smart home market, which involves hundreds of millions of families and has an output value of over 100 billion yuan? Today, many industry leaders and entrepreneurial teams are using their own practices to answer this question, including Shenzhen Galaxy Fengyun Network System Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Galaxy Fengyun") behind the Wukong i8.

Born for simplicity

In the smart home context where ecosystems are often talked about, the small air-conditioning thermostat of Wukong i8 may not be eye-catching, but with accurate grasping Living in the pain points of consumers in the process of using air conditioners - energy saving, safety and convenience, Wukong i8 is like a wild lily in spring, blooming and growing in the field of smart home, and gradually developing its own market segment.

How to make smart home products, Galaxy Fengyun Network System Co., Ltd. has a very clear and firm attitude and philosophy. Facing the dilemma caused by peers who dare not or do not know how to make choices, Galaxy Fengyun CEO Yang Kai Said: "We remain vigilant, and the addition must be done in moderation. The seemingly cool intelligence is not the real demand of consumers to some extent. With the help of intelligent means to manage home appliances, reduce unnecessary expenses, and eliminate potential safety hazards. This is what consumers care about.”

Driven by this idea of finding market segments, Galaxy Fengyun has found the stock market of installed air conditioners, focusing on air conditioning energy consumption monitoring, remote management and other functions.

If it is said that doing subtraction and finding market segments provides a direction, then doing a good job of the product itself is the key to Wukong i8 being able to stand out.

"We have turned almost all domestic and foreign air-conditioning brands upside down, compared more than 2,000 air-conditioning remote controls one by one, and established a very complete database in the cloud. No matter what brand of air conditioner consumers use, the one they just bought is still an antique, as long as they install the Wukong i8, they can connect to the Internet and use it.” Yang Kai introduced that the Wukong i8 can not only monitor the running status of the air conditioner in real time, but also provide the power of the air conditioner. Analysis, and can be automatically adjusted at any time according to user settings according to changes in indoor temperature, which is very considerate and convenient to use.

In 2014, Wukong i8 raised funds on the Jingdong crowdfunding platform, and the crowdfunding fund exceeded 10 million yuan in just 5 days, making it the fifth project on the Jingdong crowdfunding platform to raise funds exceeding 10 million yuan , is also the brand with the most crowdfunding in this category.

On May 5 this year, Wukong i8 was officially launched on JD.com, and it was sold out on the first day. At the same time, Galaxy Fengyun has increased its efforts to develop overseas markets. The overseas sales of Wukong i8 account for about 40% of its total sales.

Temperature control experts

The development of smart sockets for the purpose of making smart sockets often fails to grasp the real pain points and needs of consumers, which Galaxy Fengyun recognized and avoided early in the morning. . Regarding the positioning of Galaxy Fengyun, in Yang Kai's concept, "temperature control expert" is more appropriate and accurate than the description of "smart socket supplier".

For example, in winter nights, users may not only want to sleep peacefully, but also hope that when the indoor temperature drops to a certain level, the air conditioner will start to run heating, but it is limited by traditional air conditioners. , often users need to boot all night. The Wukong i8 with a temperature sensor can detect changes in temperature from time to time, and automatically send out infrared commands to adjust the temperature of the air conditioner.

In order to do a good job of temperature control and truly reach the expert level, in addition to ordinary home users, Galaxy Fengyun also cooperates with a large number of enterprise users to provide them with an overall solution of intelligent air conditioning, so as to achieve To reduce operating costs, etc.

"The power consumption of air conditioners accounts for a large proportion of the hotel's operating costs, but traditional air conditioners cannot provide power consumption data, which is convenient for hotel operators to manage and control. At this time, the use of Wukong i8 can solve this problem. Problem." Yang Kai said that Galaxy Fengyun has signed an agreement with the first batch of 30 model hotels. Once this model works well, it will be promoted to a wider range of fields.

With the gradual improvement of the brand awareness of Galaxy Fengyun, some traditional electrical appliance manufacturers have also begun to come to the door to seek the support of intelligent transformation.

Yang Kai said that Galaxy Fengyun can provide a complete set of intelligent transformation solutions for traditional electrical appliance manufacturers, including hardware design, software debugging, supply of intelligent modules, cloud services and provision of APP framework, "We have tried it. A project can be completed in 10 days, and the efficiency and effect are ideal.”

At present, Galaxy Fengyun needs to upgrade about 100,000 traditional electrical appliances every week. The stock of wall-mounted air conditioners has reached 400 million to 500 million units, and with other traditional electrical appliances, the number will be further expanded. From this perspective, Galaxy Fengyun has indeed seized the "big market in the segmented market".

Chairman Zeng Yu believes that in the ordinary consumer market, products should pay more attention to highlighting practicality, while in the enterprise market, in addition to the functions of the products themselves, they should pay more attention to the technical strength and services of suppliers Capability, whether it can open development kits, APP development, provide cloud services and other production support to enterprises will be taken into consideration by customers.

On this point, Galaxy is full of confidence. According to Yang Kai, Galaxy Fengyun is a research and development company with long-term technical accumulation. It was established in 1993. It used to be a leading pager enterprise in China. Later, it developed core router products and entered the data communication industry.

The Wukong i8 product can be said to be the epitome of the technical strength of Galaxy Fengyun. It has received high attention at the CES exhibition in the United States and the CeBIT exhibition in Hannover, Germany. . In addition, when participating in the Shenzhen Division of the "WeChat Hardware Innovation Competition", Wukong i8 stood out from 12 smart hardware products and became the runner-up in the competition.

Yang Kai said: "We have an important task next, which is to integrate the industrial chain and re-deconstruct the smart home industry." This is not a distant dream for Galaxy Fengyun, which has strong technical strength.

Maker Talk

Q: Why does Wukong i8 stand out in the hardware innovation competition?

Yang Kai: We were vigilant when we developed the Wukong i8, and the addition must be done in moderation. To some extent, the seemingly cool intelligence is not the real demand of consumers. We use intelligent means to manage home appliances. Products, reducing unnecessary expenses, and eliminating potential safety hazards are what consumers care about.

Q: Why does Galaxy Fengyun deconstruct the smart home industry?

Yang Kai: We can provide a complete set of intelligent transformation solutions for traditional electrical appliance manufacturers, including hardware design, software debugging, supply of intelligent modules, cloud services and provision of APP framework. We tried to finish a project in 10 days, and the efficiency and effect are ideal.