With the advent of the second wave of smart voice, smart speaker device manufacturers must find the best balance between functionality and user experience while maintaining a competitive price... Perhaps you have not heard of it, 2017 has been called the "voice interface year". Since the beginning of the year, the "Voice Launch" of the Las Vegas International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) has become the focus of attention, and the topic continues to be extended to the World Mobile Communications Conference (MWC) held in Shanghai in the middle of the year. This title is further blessed by a number of Internet and technology giants who continue to join the competition and launch smart speaker-based personal voice assistants. This market has grown exponentially since the launch of Amazon's smart speaker Echo in 2014. According to audioxpress.com, in the United States, smart speakers account for 30% of the home audio hardware category. It is expected to continue to grow in the next few years and will reach a scale of 100 million US dollars by 2020, of which 75% of American households will have smart speakers. Since the release of Google Home speakers last year, it has successfully occupied a certain market share, but still lags behind Echo. According to eMarketer US's forecast for 2017, Amazon Echo speakers will have a market share of 70.6%, Google Home will reach 23.8%, and the remaining markets will be distributed in Lenovo, Harman Kardon and LG. Small participants. Figure 1: The giants in the technology field are competing for a small circular space on your coffee table (Source: Reuters/Harman Kardon) However, after Apple released its high-priced high-end speaker, HomePod, this situation is about to change significantly. Microsoft will also join the competition, but instead of building its own speakers, it will soon launch a Harman Kardon device called Invoke, powered by Cortana. Earlier this year, another focus of entering the market was Lenovo's Smart Assistant speaker, which will be the new owner of Amazon Alexa. Users can now choose any device product that is supported by Alexa Smart Voice Service, but not necessarily manufactured by Amazon. The sound system of the Lenovo speaker will also be supported by Harman Kardon. At the same time, in China, Alibaba announced the launch of the Tmall Genie X1, which officially entered the smart home speaker market. The Tmall Genie X1It is expected to be available soon, at a price of about $75, which is much cheaper than the US devices. However, the Chinese market itself has begun to compete. One of Alibaba's competitors, the rising star of online retailing, JD, and iFlytek, launched the Linglong series of smart speakers last year. China's search engine giant Baidu (Baidu) is working with hardware company AiNemo to build a slightly different choice in the field of smart speakers. The device called Little Fish is powered by DuerOS, Baidu's voice-activated operating system (OS). It differs from the other products discussed so far in that it is equipped with a screen and a camera. The intelligent robot can track the user's face and use the face recognition function to verify online shopping. It can also display information and images in response to user queries. Figure 2: Baidu introduces a smart speaker with a screen and camera that can track you around the room (Source: Baidu) This is similar to the latest Echo Show product in the Amazon Echo product line. But compared to Little Fish, Echo Show can't move, so it's not possible to track around the room. You can't even manually change the angle of the screen, so it has a lot of limitations, but it's the first smart speaker on the screen in the US. So, as we see more and more products that mimic the original Amazon Echo, Amazon itself is turning to new features. The competition in this market is still in its early stages, and the similarities between the products are surprising. Except for the slight design, there is almost no difference in the appearance of the device, only some more interesting differences appear inside. There is a considerable change in the number of microphones. From Google Home, only two microphones are used (the minimum requirement for far-field voice extraction is performed), and up to eight microphones are supported by Lenovo Assistant. The number and quality of speakers are also different. In Lenovo and Apple's upcoming products, attempts have been made to boost audio beyond Amazon and Google through multi-channel tweeters, room correction and audio beamforming. The level of existing products. The difference in intelligent control behind the speakers is even more pronounced. Artificial intelligence (AI) platforms are not exactly the same in terms of skill sets and executable tasks. Alexa has achieved more than 15,000 skills, far better than any competitor's product. According to Voicebot, Google Home ranks second and only supports 378 skills. In terms of skill sets, the future may be a big selling point and a factor of differentiation. Another important aspect is the “smartness†of the underlying AI platform. Being able to talk, understand the context of the language, and answer subsequent questions is a good example. Measuring this is more difficult than computing skills, but Google Assistant may surpass Alexa in this regard. In general, search giants such as Google and Baidu can get a lot of information and have more advantages in deep learning, which will help their future development. At present, the AI ​​platform and physical speakers have been integrated and will soon change. Since Amazon and Google have already opened their services to third-party devices, the design of the speaker hardware itself is open to anyone. With a solution that is sufficient for far-field voice pickup, any device can connect to the selected personal assistant via API and provide intelligent voice services. This opens up a number of opportunities for chip and device manufacturers to build smart speaker hardware to capture any market opportunity. As for Apple, the company still keeps Siri in its own hardware. Combining all the above points, I think this marks the impact of the second wave of smart speakers. In the second wave of cycles, device manufacturers use the same personal assistant platforms to reduce costs and achieve a large market. To do this, they must find the best balance between functionality and user experience while maintaining a competitive price. In addition, market leaders will try to improve the skills and intelligence of the platform and introduce new feature features (such as screens and cameras) to achieve varying degrees of success. Just like the smart phone platform war a decade ago, despite many changes, it will eventually be integrated into the consumer's Darwin “survival of the fittest†option. The voice interface market is booming and more companies are expected to join. Observing Lenovo speakers and Invoke will also be particularly interesting, as it symbolizes the beginning of a “division†between the voice assistant itself and its consumer applications. Power Transformer,Dc Transformer,Control Transformer,Small Transformer Shaoxing AnFu Energy Equipment Co.Ltd , https://www.sxanfu.com
