Samsung to release its wearable products-smart watch Galaxygear

Famous product manager "Sharp knife Tsing Yi" has said that wearable equipment, "China ancestors" is not the "star Ye" Mo, that can be used as a hair dryer shoes, that can do shaving knife "big Brother", then pull the wind.

"The Internet Queen" Mary Mik's 2013 Internet Trends report says smart wearable devices are emerging as a major technological change that will drive innovation like the PC of the 80 's and the current mobile computing and tablet computers. Innovation Workshop Lee also said that with the mobile Internet more closely linked to life, the future can wear the internet era promising.

However, in the interview, it is found that there is a problem that the industry chain is disjointed and fails to form a closed loop in the field of wearable subdivision. There is no "giant crocodile" to integrate the industry chain, and those "small fish shrimp" is unable to integrate.

Ecological chain growth dilemma: products difficult to mass landing

At the 2013 China Internet Conference held in mid-August, when asked about the views of wearable industries, Millet Technology Chairman said: "Not optimistic about glasses and other wearable equipment." He explained that the Nuggets in the wearable equipment industry were a complex and systematic problem that required the entire industry chain to operate, but the industry chain was still immature, so large-scale commercialization would take time.

The cold and cheerless behind the fiery onlookers

Also held in August in Guangzhou Information Week Consumer Electronics exhibition, the obscure Shenzhen Macro Intelligence Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Macro intelligence) launched their wearable equipment products-mind game head hoop. See in the scene, the experience of many, will be the scene of the three demonstration instrument battery exhausted, macro intelligence staff had to keep charging.

However, the fiery experience was accompanied by dismal sales – during the Guangzhou Information Week, the idea game headband was only successfully sold.

In an interview, Wang Li, director of the macro intelligence market, said that this is the current situation in the field of wearable market portrayal: The concept of hot, but market sales are poor.

Li Analysis pointed out that wearable equipment industry is still an exploration of the industry, the market needs incubation period. As for this product only sell one, he said, "experience and novelty seekers mostly", but the actual purchase desire is not big.

The survey found that consumers stay in the "curiosity" and there is no purchase behavior of many reasons, one of them is that consumers do not believe that this product can really through the brain waves generated signals for software control. There is also concern that the idea of the game head hoop wear on the head to use, there will be radiation problems.

Li said that with the mind game head Hoop as the representative of the wearable branch of the brain-machine interface products, its brain power is very weak, completely eliminate radiation safety problems. In fact, if the product has radiation, but also directly interfere with the EEG reading, affecting the normal operation of the product.

In the market promotion, in addition to face users of such concerns, the idea of game head hoop also encountered technical standards. As the brain-machine interface products in the field of relatively cutting-edge, the current domestic has not issued national technical testing standards. However, in the sales, in view of safety and environmental requirements, the State of electronic information products in the limits of toxic and harmful substances and prohibit the use of "directory Management" mode, access to directory products will be required to 3C certification.

It is understood that the wearable equipment industry represented by the mind game head hoop is not included in the catalogue, but in most channels, the product will still be required to be equipped with 3C certification. And the current macro intelligence products take to detect, but because of the lack of technical standards and can not detect.

In addition, as a new product, macro Intelligence channel Shop is also facing great pressure, currently limited to the official website sales. To this end, macro intelligence is also through the exhibition and other channels to find channels for business, promote products shelves.

The industrial chain is in a "disjointed" quagmire

At present, wearable equipment in the field of the "concept is very hot, the reality is very bone" of the double-sided nature, but also in the upper reaches of the macro intelligence of the company God read technology presented.

God Science technology is a brain-computer interface chip solution Provider, its business model is based on chip products, to the user to develop the corresponding design, while providing users with software interface and technical support. At present, the company is facing one of the biggest problems is unable to integrate the industrial chain, which led to the formation of the industrial chain closed-loop operation, the product is difficult to bulk landing, commercial development into a dilemma.

The company, founded in the United States, since the establishment of the Chinese office in Wuxi in 2010, more than 200 companies have been approached in more than 3 years, but eventually bear fruit to launch products and adhere to the manufacturers, very few. God of science and technology and Haier Group cooperation failure is representative.

Zhang, president of the Greater China region, said that early in the 2011, God Science and technology and Haier Group tried to develop the interactive television based on brain wave control technology. But in the cooperation found that the starting point of the two sides are different, Haier Group hopes to make intelligent control, such as the provision of ideas to control the conversion channel functions. And God science and technology is intended to achieve intelligent feedback, to make interactive games ancillary products. Eventually the partnership died out.

Haier research and development engineer Huang Orange in an interview revealed that God science and technology nowadays can provide brain-computer interface solutions, in theory, but there are short boards in the real world, such as their solution is more suitable for interactive attention biofeedback, rather than based on brain-computer interface Intelligent control, "watching TV is a relaxed, Enjoy the process while wearing a headband watching TV is not an unpleasant process, or even almost unacceptable.

In the interview found that the god of science and technology is facing another big embarrassment is: inability to integrate the industrial chain, resulting in the production of related products difficult to bulk. Products commercially encountered difficulties, will inevitably affect the further investment in technology.

2012, the God of Science and technology launched brain wave jewelry "idea cat ear" (Necomimi), its channel agents Shanghai Jia Jie technology to help it find a distributor, plate under 5000 inventory, but a year later still not sold out. In the same period, Jia Jie technology recommended Henan Rongzhi, such as a number of manufacturers jointly purchased more than 1 million yuan Mindflex and other products, more than a year down, inventory nearly half.

In this yet mature area, industrial chain disconnection is a common phenomenon. Macro intelligence also encounters similar problems.

Lu Lisu, founder of Acer Intelligence, said the company's biggest problem now is that because of the small volume of sales, the upstream component manufacturers are unwilling to provide spare parts supply to the company, even if provided, the price is also high. Products to do, and downstream channels to discuss cooperation, often by the cold shoulder, relatively passive.

Ms., founder of the smart watch Inwatch This July, is also distressed by the inability to integrate the industrial chain. Ms. introduced that the greatest value of wearable equipment is to create an independent ecology, the construction of a new hardware portal, in theory, may be the birth of another level of companies.

The interesting technology attempts to separate the intelligent watch eco-chain, but as a start-up company, itself does not have the corresponding financial resources, technical strength and brand appeal to build the ecological chain alone.

As an emerging area, if the ecological chain is delayed to build up, means that the product competition threshold is very low, easy to be eliminated or submerged in the industry competition.

Wearable market Potential: a sheet of paper to be sketched

There is a classic case in economics: two salesmen boarded an island to conduct market research on shoes. After the investigation, a salesman sent a telegram to his company: "The people on this island don't wear shoes, I will take the first flight back tomorrow morning." "B salesman also sent a telegram to the company:" Great! There is not a single person wearing shoes, this is the most promising new market, I will long live on this island. ”

Nowadays, the market for wearable equipment is similar to the story of the "Island and the Shoes", and some people think the market is huge and some people think the market is overvalued.

Understand that wearable equipment market industry chain mainly includes hardware, industry applications, social platforms, operating services, large data, cloud computing and other links. Different startups enter the Nuggets from different bites.

For example, Tenghai mainly from the perspective of large data. Liu, executive general manager of the company, told reporters that Tenghai Yangyuan is a sports health management company, based on the concept of wearable equipment in the health management level of the huge commercial value, the product line has been extended to the market to wearable equipment. Nowadays, we have introduced health products including sports hand ring, smart sports wrist strap, swimming MP3, Bicycle code table, sports heart rate watch and so on.

Liu explains the business logic of the company: the potential for wearable equipment has been favored by some in the industry, largely because of the potential for new hardware portals in the market. Due to its small screen and easy contact with the body, it is particularly promising in the health care field. The biggest potential of the market is not in hardware, but in the physical data collected by the hardware and the processing of the data.

Liu says there are two main features of large data on physical health: first, data dynamics, sustainable generation. such as a person lying, sitting, walking, moving and other data, the business value behind is enormous; second, the data is multiple and structured. such as the human body in different states produced by the heartbeat, respiration, pulse, blood oxygen and other data, can be classified treatment for commercial.

A research report on the wearable equipment market, released by his, indicates that the current industry applications for wearable equipment include industry, fitness and sports, recreation, health care and health, with the prospect of wearable business in the two segments of fitness and sports, health care and health seen as promising.

Suisse's report confirms that the current wearable sector has spawned 3 billion ~50 of billions of dollars in business, and that the data could soar to 30 billion ~500 billion in the next 2-3 years. Only the health and fitness areas of wearable market opportunities can reach 2 billion ~30 billion dollars.

VCs: Bullish "hardware + Software + Data Services" mode

"Wearable equipment can form a long enough industrial chain, such as glasses, watches and bracelets, and the hardware industry chain in the light is very large and can produce giant companies," said Dong, managing director of the 2013 China Investment Conference held in Shenzhen, August 23. These wearable devices, whether Bluetooth or other Internet technology connected to a mobile phone, connect things together ... Investors are very optimistic. ”

How do professional vcs view market prospects in wearable areas? What business models are more favored by investors when choosing a project? Based on this, interviewed the Innovation Workshop investment director Fang Yimin, Innovation Workshop investment manager Chen days and Lenovo Group Science and Technology Seed Fund investment manager encapsulates and other three professional VCs, to dispel doubts about the market.

How do you view the value of investment in wearable equipment?

Chen Days:

Within our company, the hardware has been individually taken up by a dedicated partner, and wearable equipment is an integral part of the hardware investment.

The main reason for concern about wearable equipment is that we look at wearable devices as a new entry point for future Internet services, similar to smartphones as portals to mobile Internet, and to the attention of new sources of data collection, hoping that these more dimensional data will produce special value.

We have chosen a number of hardware development strength, has been in the Internet services to establish their own brand of the team and products to invest, not too optimistic about pure hardware manufacturing team. Because the business model of independent hardware products is more difficult to build and sustainable, the latter will gradually reduce the gross margin, while software and Internet services overlay the hardware products, can effectively differentiate competition, and increase value-added service capabilities. Brands can reduce marketing and channel costs, which is critical to the success of pioneering start-ups in a burgeoning industry.

Fang Yimin:

Pure hardware projects are not easy to establish an effective market competition threshold, regardless of product differentiation and pricing. In this case it is easy for other manufacturers to imitate and beyond. This is the main reason why we value relying on our own brand hardware products, and on top of the hardware, running our own Internet software and cloud services, and even running an ecosystem of entrepreneurial teams.

Encapsulates：

At present we have not followed up the investment. Have seen some wearable hardware start-up team, these companies enter into the open mold, production, sales and other links after a lot of eco-chain problems, so we are on the industry for further wait and see. But I am sure I will keep an eye on this area.

What is the current status of technology, industrial chain development and business model exploration in wearable equipment industry in China?

Chen Days:

Domestic wearable equipment industry chain is mainly distributed in South China. Where the manufacturing industry chain is relatively perfect, the whole industry chain from raw materials, project design to manufacturing and processing are relatively complete and mature. This is similar to the logic behind the Shanzhai industry's focus on South China.

However, these wearable equipment entrepreneurs in South China, many manufacturers start from the hardware lack of internet thinking, do not understand how to use the Internet to carry out value-added development, also do not understand the value of building the data mining behind the device.

A large number of wearable startups are now starting to use Android to intelligently wear hardware, but ordinary Android needs a lot of customization to adapt to a variety of wearable devices. Android, for example, has a large power consumption, and ordinary Android phones are one day long, and it's not particularly appropriate to make wearable devices with smart-machine Android chips and system solutions. A similar problem is still to be solved.

In the construction of the business model, there are mainly the following: first, the direct sale of hardware to make gross profit; second, hardware products superimposed software and internet services to do value-added fees; third, through the collection of user's personal data, with cloud computing technology, to specific enterprises to sell cloud data.

Compared with foreign counterparts, the domestic wearable equipment industry in the field of development of the main areas to be perfected?

Fang Yimin:

The main gap is embodied in original design and innovation capabilities. At present, wearable hardware innovation, can open up new areas of the company is based on the U.S. entrepreneurial team as a representative of foreign companies, while the domestic entrepreneurial team is still more in the tracking and imitation, temporarily only in low-cost, localization and other aspects of the establishment of their own small differentiated competition strategy.

What are the similarities and differences between wearable hardware and internet entrepreneurship?

Chen Days:

1, the replacement speed of hardware entrepreneurship is not as fast as the Internet start-up, hardware products often need to open mode verification, iterative cost is high, product cycle is longer. The reason why, some no strength can wear entrepreneurial team even without funds to support the hardware to make, not to talk about the product out of the bargaining power with the channel; 2, after the product comes out, the hardware product sales and Internet products are not the same, often need direct sales and agent channels. Some of the internet's IT people in the wearable areas of entrepreneurship, do not even understand how to manage agents and how to lay down the channel, it will cause obstacles to their business; 3. The scale cost is much higher than the Internet entrepreneurship, which is why we are willing to choose strong and already have own brand companies to invest heavily in the reasons This will greatly reduce the late channel development and other costs, improve the success rate.

In the investment market, what kind of wearable entrepreneurial team is more likely to be popular?

Chen Days:

In general, a team with a background in data analysis and an idea of the interaction between different smart hardware may be more likely to stand out in a market competition. First of all, wearable computing produces data about user behavior data. The team that understands the data analysis, the later data model is easier to establish, the data analysis is more rule-based, correspondingly, the business model is also easier to build. Secondly, wearable hardware equipment, if it can be linked with other hardware, can form a larger network of things, the depth and breadth of the net is deeper and wider than the current internet, and the imaginary space of business opportunities is rising; it is recommended that, under the guidance of this larger network of things, entrepreneurs do more consumer-oriented, feminine-oriented things, At present, some wearable hardware products are too extreme passenger, resulting in the audience too small, and market opportunities were artificially compressed.

From an investor's perspective, can you provide some advice for wearable entrepreneurs?

Chen Days:

Entrepreneurship is often to seize a strong need to do deep, do fine. The start-up company has limited human resources and should not be too distracted by too many things. Hardware of the various cycles than the internet long, entrepreneurial team easily submerged in specific transactional work and lost, so the proposed entrepreneur also from time to time to get a reason to rethink the path and implementation.

Hardware products are a good cash flow business, but the cost and development of production rhythm must be well controlled, or even higher gross margin will be consumed.

In addition, in the entrepreneurial process, we need to pay attention to the protection of user privacy. Entrepreneurs should be aware of the various types of data privacy sharing level, do not abuse, otherwise easy to build up the brand to bring harm. Protect the core users, use the Internet service channels and thinking to serve the users. Currently willing to try wearable computing equipment users are not the general public, the core user maintenance costs are low, but they will have a far-reaching impact on the small white user group.