Apple Smart Home Landing or Agitating the LED Smart Lighting Market

A year later, Apple Smart Home finally lifted the veil of mystery. Apple's smart home products have begun to stir up the market of LED smart lighting products. How will they affect the future smart home and smart lighting market?

On June 3, it was reported by foreign media that the first batch of HomeKit smart home products released came from five manufacturers. These products can control LED lights, room temperature, fans and other home appliances through iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch. There is also a recent statement that Apple is expected to add a "Home" application to iOS9 to manage and control smart home devices that support the HomeKit framework.

Wang Hao, CEO of Phantom Smart, said that Apple's appeal in foreign markets is almost monopoly, and its entry will certainly promote the development of the smart home market. "In the past, everyone wanted to be dominant. Some home appliance manufacturers had their own complete set of closed things many years ago. But now, everyone realizes that professionals are required to do professional things." Wang Hao added that appliance manufacturers are not professional enough in the cloud and control fields, and it is more unrealistic to integrate similar brands. They must have a platform independent of the equipment itself. Therefore, it is impossible for one smart home company to be dominant. Even Apple has chosen to integrate its efforts to improve its ecology.

Finally "settled" after 1 year

According to 9to5Mac, an American technology blog, Apple employees are testing an iOS9 system containing an application called "Home" recently. With "Home", users can not only set smart home products, but also classify different products into different rooms and connect to Apple TV. If so, it will better match the smart home platform HomeKit launched by Apple last year.

As we all know, Apple's layout in the field of smart home is to build a platform and build an ecosystem. This is the purpose of the "connection hub" HomeKit. Before the release of the first batch of smart devices supporting the platform, the smart home market did not rise rapidly due to Apple's participation. However, it is undeniable that with its brand advantage, Apple is more likely to authorize a large number of third-party manufacturers to produce devices that meet its own compatibility requirements and security standards. Once Apple's layout starts to deepen, its appeal to the ecological chain will be a highlight.

It is reported that the first five products supporting HomeKit, two of which have been launched, and the other three are planned to start selling in the next few weeks. According to a recent analysis, the first batch of HomeKit devices marked that Apple's framework planning for smart home was gradually clear.

It is learned that Google recently released the operating system code named "Project Brilo" at the 2015 I/O Conference, aiming at the Internet of Things and smart home. Also released at the same time is the special language "Weave", which has cross platform, developer API support and other features.

In fact, in addition to foreign giants Google, Apple and Samsung, domestic Internet enterprises Xiaomi and JD.com, and home appliance manufacturers Haier and Midea are all involved in smart home. But Wang Hao said frankly that at present, the development of this industry at home and abroad "is not healthy, but it is in a thriving development." The promotion of Apple is undoubtedly beneficial to the development of the industry.

Integration of LED lighting and smart home manufacturers

What is the ecological status of smart home at home and abroad? Wang Hao believes that the development speed abroad is relatively slow. For example, Google has made a set of agreements after acquiring Nest, but there are no mature products from other manufacturers except Nest itself. It took Apple a long time to launch the first batch of products after it launched HomeKit. On the other hand, there are many smart home platforms emerging in China. In addition to BAT's layout, JD is more typical. It does not make its own products, but only platforms. As a smart home manufacturer, Phantom Smart mainly involves in the fields of lighting and security. This leads to the question, where is the layout space of small manufacturers compared with large manufacturers building platforms?

"Big companies make big ecology, small companies make small ecology". Wang Hao said that in the past two years, with the deepening of the above fields, Huanteng is no longer a single product company. After the LED lighting industry gradually became a brand, it also began to export technology to other manufacturers.

"In terms of technology, HomeKit is a very high-level system. If a domestic lighting manufacturer wants to be controlled by it, HomeKit cannot provide support." Wang Hao added that through the open interface, Huanteng can be integrated into a larger ecosystem with its partners.

He added that the so-called "hot money" was actually a phenomenon of excessive concern. The smart home industry, no matter big or small, is in the stage of the education market, far from the time of price competition. At present, smart home products may appear more in exhibitions or exist like toys. Regardless of whether there is real demand in the market, whether the usability and stability of related products can withstand the long-term use of users is still one of the factors restricting the development of the industry. The second factor is that the sales channels of products are not mature enough.

For LED lighting, Apple's smart home products provide a powerful technical support for smart lighting technology, enabling better integration of LED lighting and smart home, from which we can see that the future of smart lighting is not far away. From another perspective, we can also see how urgent LED enterprises are for the layout of the intelligent lighting market. In the future LED market, who will be the "cake" of intelligent lighting? We'll see!