Overnight routers from obscure network devices became dazzling stars

With Millet, 360, music to see one after another to join the war, smart router market shine, overnight routers from the unknown network equipment has become a dazzling star, the future of Family control center, the future of the home network, such as the concept of the entrance, but also to make smart routers full of imagination space. But these tall theories rarely really focus on what the product itself can do, in fact, in the absence of the whole hardware and software industry, the smart router has no obvious intelligence, and its performance is not strong, new features are not obvious, the price is relatively high, There are still quite a few variables in the market, and in the competition of products like boxes, there is still a lot of uncertainty about the future trend.

Where is the smart router?

Although the current industry has interpreted the concept of intelligent routers countless times, but in addition to depicting a better future and strategic layout, functional introductions are superficial, as the user is still unknown to me, know, Baidu above asked similar questions, but also a lot of explanation intelligent explanation is also foggy.

In the millet route and the pole Route's official website, has the following propaganda to its product:

Millet's official website on the millet router has five highlights: the first is to support the latest 802.11AC protocol, the second is the sharing of storage and background downloads, the third is through the wall, four is home control, the last is safe and easy to use management.

The official introduction of the pole route also has five highlights: the first is to wear walls and signal good, the second is a key to accelerate and fast, the third is the remote control of the app, the four is set simple, the last is safe and stable.

Aside from the industry's excessive interpretation, it can be seen that the official introduction is more real, or stressed that the signal is good, can wear walls, set simple, safe and stable these are the most just need for the router, these and traditional routers do not make any difference, even in a lot of users of the spit slot, their signal is still a lot of precipitation for many years of traditional manufacturers, It's just that traditional manufacturers don't advertise that. and mobile phone app remote management is not the so-called "smart", because the router itself is through remote management, the mobile phone just added a way.

Compared with traditional wireless routers, the real difference lies in whether the software platform is open and whether it can carry more applications. The traditional router is a black box, just plug in the power of the line, can not be added to the application, and the smart router in the sale, you can install the application plug-in on demand, using the computing power of the router to do something, such as backstage download, acceleration, home control.

These changing software applications are the key to intelligence.

The reason for ordinary users to pay is not enough

First of all, but no matter how beautiful the vision, how powerful the function, as a common user, the most important thing to buy wireless router is: Good signal, fast, the same situation the cheaper the better. In a "brush out of existence" as the theme of the router salon, the polar Route founder Ding also said that users do not perceive the existence of the router is right, users need to perceive the ubiquitous WiFi signal, powerful signal is kingly. In this demand, how many users are willing to pay for the extra functions of the router? In the mall on the wireless router entry, the traditional TP, link sales far more extreme routes, and from the user Word-of-mouth, the actual signal of the pole route is not better than the traditional router is also a matter of opinion, as for the millet route, just say sold, specific sales do not know.

Second, the router generation impulse is not high. The router is not a bad device, and it's a device that lacks a sense of being, except when it comes to buying it in broadband. My home 05 years of link Wireless router has been running well, and the ability to wear the wall seems to be better than the other routers, I believe that many small white users and I, with the old routers, as long as not bad has been used, this and smart phone replacement, and so there is a big difference.

Thirdly, the current intelligent home application is still in the Gao stage, the intelligent router lacks the application scene. As the previous analysis, the smart router's biggest bright spot lies in the open platform application, but because now smart appliances in the absence of standards, their own King stage, the router can only control itself, which greatly limits the use of intelligent space, so the pole route to take the shot of the application is to accelerate and intercept ads, and millet route is to add a hard drive Way to increase the scope of the application, these applications also have a lot of alternatives, it does not constitute a screaming router killer application.

Finally, the independent brand of intelligent router market scale by the telecommunications/radio and television impact. For a long time, telecom operators have a variety of names to buy broadband routing activities, the surrounding most families are always in the use of telecommunications to send Huawei, ZTE and other manufacturers such as the router, in the past two years, radio and television also began to exert force, the introduction of many set-top boxes and wireless routers in one terminal, the same is So most users don't need to buy them separately. According to the 13 earnings, telecom broadband users a net increase of 10 million, unicom net increase of nearly 6 million, while the pole route in the Beijing-east propaganda mentioned up to March 14 cumulative sales of 1 million units, visible, operators affected by the market and independent brand market is not a measure of magnitude, The position of the operator on the router may affect the whole industry.

To sum up, due to the router product positioning, replacement mode, industrial ecology, operators and other influences, in the short term smart routers will not quickly occupy the living room. But has it never been seen that the path is the right one?

Future trade-offs: Keep it light, or get heavier?

With the mobile internet as a cautionary tale, in the smart home war just kicked off the moment, the entrance of the collective anxiety disease, so that the Giants have been eager to start the layout. But the battle for the family is far more intense and complex than the individual battles, and mobile phones have become the undisputed center of the individual, but there are many competitors in the home, and routers, boxes, smart appliances and some new products (such as nest) have the potential to become control centers.

Want to be the center of the family, routers occupy a lot of advantages: one is in the home network of Exports and network Connection center, with all the equipment connected to control the access to all data; the second is to maintain the longest power on all the equipment, as long as there is to network equipment, it will not shutdown. Routers are the best choice if you want to control network management across your home.

But the router wants to become the center, Pure Network layer control and management is not enough, if only this layer, it is destined to be a lack of sense of existence, silently eating dust in the corner of the equipment, the distance from people must be more than boxes and so far. But to the application layer development (that is, the so-called intelligent direction of development), it is bound to more and more applications, the more an open application platform, the computational capacity needs to be upgraded, storage is bound to be more and more large, operating platform gradually toward more complex Android and other systems migration.

At this time, it and the function of TV box is bound to be more and more coincident, more and more conflict, which will inevitably exist to download film and television resources is the box to do or the router to do, the public store in which equipment, and so on, for the family, will not buy two computing resources duplication, storage resources duplication of equipment, therefore, Either the router goes back to lightweight mode, the lightweight device that focuses on the network connection, and the box is peaceful and compatible, or the router moves toward the integration of the function of the box (or the box toward the converged router), so that video decoding, gaming capabilities, Home storage and other functions are slowly loaded into the router, the remote can also operate the router, the two merged into a more powerful equipment, become both the network capacity, and entertainment storage capacity, and even have a certain display ability equipment (feel like mobile phone). In fact, radio and television to provide high-definition set-top box is already such a thing, for ordinary families, the integration of products is a simpler solution, but also more able to impress the stock user replacement program.

But is this the router or the router? This may be the fate of the router, or be alone, or face (Huan) (RAN) (Yi) is not (Xin).