| Intelligent speakers grow fast, need to |
Berlin International Consumer Electronics Show (IFA) has always been a big stage of global fashion electronic products get together appearance, opened in September 1st of this year's IFA, intelligent speaker become dazzling star, including SONY and Samsung, Matsushita was acquired by Haman and many other manufacturers have released their new products.
Smart speakers fast water, Amazon's explosion models products Echo can not be done. The market for two years, Echo has sold more than 10 million units, means that every 8 families have a Echo, investment analyst at Morgan Stanley even called it the most successful consumer electronic products after iPad "". Subsequently, Google, apple, Facebook and other famous enterprises smart speaker products have unveiled, and some institutions even predicted that smart speakers in 2020 will cover 75% of the United States family, reaching 94 million 200 thousand units.
At home, technology giants and artificial intelligence start-ups are also starting to deploy in this market. The Alibaba issued a "Tmall Wizard", iFLYTEK and Jingdong joint venture Ling long technology, and issued a "Ding Dong sound", Lenovo launched the "Lenovo smart speaker", launched the "millet millet AI speaker, Google investment background, start-up companies go ask also issued a" ask the speaker"...... "The Chinese market can copy the success of Amazon Echo, smart speakers in China will certainly reach tens of millions of shipments." Ling long technology CEO Wei Qiang is quite optimistic.
Smart speaker seems to have become a new hot air, but with artificial intelligence, what can be done? Intelligent hardware review history, from the smart bracelet to the smart router, attempts to create intelligent hardware entrance move is not "small talk" is to "intelligent speakers with broken halberds defeat, fate will be different?
"Smart enough" will be "good""
Compared with ordinary Bluetooth speakers, intelligent speaker what is special? The reporter actual experience that, if the Bluetooth speakers like a tool, intelligent speaker is more like an assistant, listening to music, check the weather, set the alarm clock, Home Furnishing intelligent control equipment...... These features have become "standard" for smart speakers, and they are all done through voice interaction.
If you've ever used Apple's voice assistant "Siri", you must be right. "I don't know the answer to that question," the answer was familiar. But for voice only to control the smart speakers, consumers are obviously not satisfied with such an answer. So, is the smart speaker good enough to see if it's smart enough?". For example, when you want it to "play a different song", it won't play you a song called "difference".
From practical experience, because the support of artificial intelligence algorithms, intelligent speakers to understand the language of surprising, whether it is to ask the "hot today?" "will it rain today?" or "what is the temperature today Celsius", the mainstream intelligent speakers on the market are able to understand this is asking about the weather. And to optimize the answer according to different questions. Ali Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Director Chen Lijuan said, Chinese voice interaction difficulty lies in the semantic understanding Chinese, artificial intelligence algorithms to support Chinese semantic understanding engine timing, reminders, weather, shopping and other language content of commonly used optimization. "The Tmall Genie can understand 786 Chinese questions only on the weather forecast.". In addition, the northern language sound of children and children, including swallow words, reduplication, missing words and pet phrase, which can be optimized by the depth of machine learning."
"Smart enough" smart speakers also have some unexpected features. For example, Tmall elves can directly with the user's Alipay account open, using voice recognition for mobile phone recharge, and can help users looking for a mobile phone call, ask the speaker in the performance of several rounds of interaction, such as weather, you can directly ask "how is the weather in Beijing?" "where is Shijiazhuang?" "the day after tomorrow?" it all know that you're asking about the weather.
In addition, taking into account the use of voice control and low threshold characteristics, intelligent speakers also illiterate, smart phones will not operate children are regarded as their target users. Tell stories, sing children's songs, and tell jokes...... Most intelligent speakers have a variety of interactive functions with children. Millet AI speakers even designed a "listen to what they call" function, when you ask "elephant call what", it will play the elephant's cry.
Voice interactive "exercise"
Intelligent speakers can realize the function is quite rich, but to do a best-selling product, not the giants collective into the market is the main reason. "The Internet or voice technology, ulterior motives, they calculated using intelligent speakers to promote their own interactive voice technology." "Artificial intelligence service providers will think," chief market officer, long dream bamboo said.
Indeed, if the touch screen smart mobile phone has changed the way people interact with smart devices, so the speech interaction is considered to be the next generation of human-computer interaction, intelligent voice interactive speaker is the first entrance product. Go ask the founder Li Zhifei said: "artificial intelligence and speech interaction is the soul, but need to find a carrier for the soul, even though the carrier is not necessarily sound, but in contrast the most easy to promote intelligent speaker."
The speaker is intelligent voice interactive technology technology giants "exercise", if one day people abandon mobile phone for smart devices, interactive voice technology will be more useless. Because of this, including iFLYTEKTuring robot, will think Chi, etc. in the field of speech recognition technology of artificial intelligence head enterprises also have to participate in this upsurge, such as voice technology Lenovo smart speakers from Turing robot, speech technology from Tmall wizard will think chi.
However, want to drill technology, but also to consumers "buy it."". From the Amazon Echo generation for $179.99, the two generation of the $49.99 price, the domestic smart speaker pricing is not high, the buzz TOP price of 399 yuan, Tmall X1 price 499 yuan, millet AI price 299 yuan, the highest price ask speakers Tichome price of 649 yuan, co-founder of millet Wang Chuan said. This pricing strategy is to reduce the user cost of trial and error. "Because this is a new class, the average user doesn't know what it can do, or whether it can be as good as the demo.". The price is too high for consumers to try."
For consumers, the price must be considered useful. This is reflected in two aspects: content and ecology. This is the advantage of giants, with music copyright, Tmall wizard relies on belong to the Alibaba under the small shrimp music, but for startups, usually can only choose Baidu music as music source. In the ecological open, like the Echo in Microsoft Office series to be included in the scope of the voice interactive support, have their own intelligent hardware ecological chain owned by millet, intelligent speakers are obviously more likely to connect all kinds of "brother hardware", Tmall and Taobao electric wizard open platform can accurately answer questions like "where I express." such a problem.
Simple reproduction is not easy
Copying Echo's success is not easy. The sea know intelligent CEO Dianxia Xie said, the difference between the two countries great scenes of life. "In the United States, the use of Echo scene is in the kitchen, the American housewife had to cook when listening to music or listen to the news of the habit, also because American cuisine and the China fry cook more quiet, suitable for listening to speakers, so in the United States has always belonged to large consumer goods." Two user understanding of intelligent speakers are different, go ask had to do user research in the United States, the United States 80% of respondents know intelligent speakers, but the domestic respondents to the awareness rate of only 15% to 20%.
Li Zhifei also admitted that today's smart speaker market also beware of quick success. "The evolution of artificial intelligence that supports intelligent speakers takes time, but what happens is very fast in the Chinese market, which is fast and slow," he said." Insiders also revealed that some small intelligent speaker manufacturers is to buy a speech recognition service authorization, and then save a speaker, "very poor user experience, found bad user fresh, which greatly hurt the market".
In addition, the standards faced by smart home are still unresolved. The smart home industry in the United States has a unified standard agreement, Echo can directly access all kinds of smart home equipment, but domestic basic or a giant led by the island, their own world. Wei Qiang said: "although the giants have claimed to open, but not open to each other, the past two years, this separation is an important reason for the stagnation of smart home industry, the development of intelligent speakers also affected."
Thus, manufacturers dream of fullness, but intelligent speakers can break the "big toy" destiny, fresh strength will lead to dust, and now it seems unknown. |
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