As ChatGPT gains widespread popularity, AI large models have become a strategic high ground that various industries must compete for. Internet giants like "BAT," telecommunications behemoths such as Huawei and Xiaomi, and several vertical AI companies have all begun to actively position themselves in the large model market. It is well-known that the key to developing large models lies in the implementation of application scenarios. Therefore, as an important field for large model applications, the home appliance industry has also started to accelerate the integration with large models.
At present, the wave of large models is gradually spreading to home appliances and consumer electronics terminals. For the home appliance industry, smart homes have always been an important direction for industry development. Thus, it is only natural that the AI large model trend reaches the smart home field. In this context, many domestic home appliance manufacturers have also begun to ride the wave of ChatGPT, launching their own large model products.
Capitalizing on the Trend of Large Models
The hot topic of smart homes often attracts a lot of attention, and the surge in popularity of large models has led smart home manufacturers to focus on new technologies. Naturally, large models for smart homes have become a highlight of the entire industry. Nowadays, smart homes are becoming an increasingly important part of people's daily lives, and the rapid development of large model technology brings more possibilities to smart homes. The reasons why various smart home manufacturers are making significant strides in the field of large models are self-evident.
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Firstly, large models can bring technological innovation to smart homes, helping them better meet market demands. Nowadays, users' demands for smart home products are becoming more diversified and personalized. The capabilities of AI large models in multi-round language analysis and logical deduction precisely address the current pain point of smart homes not being smart enough. With large models, smart homes can achieve more natural and intelligent control methods; and based on large model intelligent recommendation algorithms, smart home systems can also analyze users' needs and environmental data to automatically make the best decisions and actions, thereby effectively helping people improve the efficiency and convenience of life.
Secondly, large models can provide emotional interaction for smart homes, which is conducive to enhancing the user experience. Traditional smart home systems often rely on pre-programmed rules and commands, limiting the ways users interact with the system. With large models, not only can they better understand users' instructions and needs through natural language capabilities, thus providing more personalized and intelligent services; they can also provide customized services and recommendations by analyzing each user's interaction data and preference information. Clearly, the introduction of large model technology has not only improved the quality of life for users but also increased their dependence on and satisfaction with smart homes.
Lastly, large models can provide security for smart homes, helping to fully protect users' privacy. The popularity of smart homes makes the protection of personal privacy increasingly important. Although large models require a large amount of data for training, they can also analyze users' instructions to smart homes and identify potential security risks through intelligent assistants. In addition, large models can also protect users' personal privacy through means such as anonymization and encryption, ensuring that users' personal information is not misused or leaked. Moreover, smart home systems, with the help of large models, can also collect and use personal information through user authorization to ensure that user privacy is fully protected.
Midea Group "Gearing Up"
The application of AI large models in the field of smart homes has broad prospects and infinite possibilities. Therefore, Midea Group has been exploring how to integrate them into its own business. It is understood that Midea released the "Midea Large Model" aimed at the smart home field last year to enhance the user interaction and autonomous decision-making level of smart appliances. Undoubtedly, with the empowerment of large models, smart homes will usher in new development. And in response to the popular large model technology, Midea's ambitious investment is certainly inseparable from its deep accumulation in the past.Firstly, Midea has been increasing its investment in research and development, which helps to further enhance the intelligence level of its large models. Midea has always maintained a high level of investment in scientific research and talent. Over the past five years, Midea has invested more than 50 billion yuan in R&D, with over 12 billion yuan in 2022 and an expected over 13 billion yuan in 2023. To date, Midea has 31 R&D centers and 40 major production bases in more than 10 countries worldwide. Moreover, Midea has established a global R&D scale advantage through its "2+4+N" global R&D network, with over 20,000 R&D personnel, including 700 doctors, which are all important supports for the implementation of its large models.
Secondly, Midea has accumulated rich industry experience, which can provide strong technical support for the launch of its large models. Midea has been deeply involved in the home field for many years, not only accumulating certain technical and experiential knowledge in AIoT and robotics, but also having a profound understanding of home market user needs and scenarios. For example, Midea has accumulated technologies such as artificial intelligence vision perception, artificial intelligence voice recognition, electronic nose technology, non-contact temperature sensing technology, millimeter wave radar sleep monitoring technology, and electronic tongue technology in the field of human sensing technology, all of which can promote the successful implementation and application of its large models.
Thirdly, Midea has a high brand recognition, which can lay a solid mass foundation for the implementation of its large models. As a well-known domestic home appliance brand, Midea has high brand recognition and market influence. With the help of large model technology, Midea's smart home products can provide more intelligent and personalized services according to user preferences and habits, better meeting users' deep-level needs. The introduction of large model technology has brought more innovation and possibilities to its smart home products, and can further enhance user satisfaction and loyalty.
Haier Smart Home "Quick March"
Large model technology can bring more intelligent, personalized, and humanized interactive experiences to smart homes. Therefore, Haier has always been eager for the upgrade and transformation of home appliance intelligence. As early as before Midea Group announced the launch of the "Midea Large Model," Haier Smart Home has already deeply deployed in this field and upgraded and released the first vertical domain model in the smart home field, Haier Smart Home Brain HomeGPT. In terms of filling the industry gap, Haier's confidence in taking the lead comes from its strong strength.
Firstly, Haier has advanced technical advantages, which give it the genes and strength for large model development. Haier has always been committed to technological innovation. With its strong R&D team and technical strength, Haier has a leading technical advantage in the smart home field and has led the industry to achieve the implementation of large models in smart homes. In the standard field, Haier took the lead in jointly with the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology to lead the development of the first domestic home large model standard; in terms of achievement certification, Haier Smart Home Brain HomeGPT has obtained the highest level of "4+ level" evaluation for large model standard conformity verification, and is the first professional model in the smart home field to obtain authoritative evaluation.
Secondly, Haier has a rich user accumulation, which can provide a large amount of data resources for its large model. As a leading player in the smart home industry, Haier has served more than 1 billion user families worldwide, with more than 130 million network devices. On the Haier Smart Home Brain platform, it has accumulated rich professional knowledge in the field of home and a large amount of user data resources. These integrated and accumulated home data have formed the Haier Smart Home Brain HomeGPT. Currently, the model has undergone hundreds of millions of knowledge enhancement training in the field of home, has been self-learning online for 20,000 instruction manuals, and has mastered a large amount of home appliance knowledge.
Thirdly, Haier has a wide range of products, which makes the implementation of its large model have the most convenient scenarios. As we all know, Haier's smart home product line is very rich, covering smart air conditioners, smart washing machines, smart refrigerators and other categories, covering all scenes of clothing, food, housing, entertainment, and health. With more professional fields of life, the Haier Smart Home HomeGPT large model will also greatly enhance the natural understanding and interaction capabilities of artificial intelligence in home scenarios, and more accurately understand user needs to provide users with a more natural interactive experience. It is also because of the in-depth exploration of smart home life that Haier has been able to establish a large model so quickly.
Smart Home Large Model Blooms but Does Not Bear Fruit
Whether it is from the trend of future technology or the development of home appliance enterprises, AI large models are the main theme for a period of time in the future. Moreover, at present, the speed of landing and application of AI large models in the smart home field is continuously accelerating. However, although large models are blooming everywhere in the main home appliance enterprises, the smart home large model is still not mature at this stage and still faces multiple challenges.On the one hand, the penetration rate of the smart home market is low, and the extent to which large models can attract users still needs to be verified by the market. The intelligentization of household appliances is an inevitable trend, but from the current practical application situation, consumers seem to lack understanding and acceptance of smart homes, and their enthusiasm for smart appliance products is not as high as expected. According to data from Statista, the current penetration rate of smart homes in China is only 13%. At present, the addition of large models is mainly to enhance the voice interaction capabilities of home appliance products, which has a relatively limited impact on the fundamental performance of the appliances. Therefore, it is still unknown how much attraction large models can generate for consumers.
On the other hand, large models require substantial computing power for training and inference, and it will take time for large models in smart homes to be successfully implemented. Smart home systems need to have high real-time and response speeds to meet users' demands for quick responses. The more intelligent and humanized smart homes become, the greater the computational load for large models. In other words, the deployment and maintenance costs of large model technology are also higher, requiring a significant investment of human, material, and financial resources. This is not an easy task for any manufacturer that is planning to deploy large models in smart homes.
In addition, the fragmentation in the smart home industry also poses certain challenges to the implementation of large models in smart homes. In reality, the smart appliance market is still in the development stage, with most companies in the industry focusing on single smart products. There are often compatibility and interoperability issues between products from different manufacturers, and the industry fragmentation is relatively severe, making it difficult to improve the level of scene intelligence. If the barrier issues are not effectively resolved, no matter how outstanding the large models are in intelligently transforming home appliances, they still cannot truly enhance users' smart living experience in all aspects.
In summary, there is still a long way to go for large models to truly land on the end side, but it cannot be denied that large models have indeed provided new paradigms and ideas for improving the level of intelligence of smart home products. As large model technology brings smart homes closer and closer to users, in the future, smart homes will play an increasingly important role in people's daily lives. However, at present, whether it is Haier or Midea, to deeply explore smart homes and truly change life with technology, they still need to be fully prepared.