WeChat admittance can break the wear-resistant Council

Liu Jia

From the outbreak of WeChat tour to Tencent by WeChat "married woman model" to start a series of investments, WeChat social effects can not be underestimated, this is the turn of the wearable device.

In early July, iHealth, Huawei hardware, Lifesense and Codoon launched four WeChat bracelets online in China.

A number of wearable device manufacturers that cooperate with WeChat told the reporter of "First Financial Daily" that one of the major challenges currently co-operating with WeChat is how to strike a balance between pursuing individualization and systematization and standardization of WeChat.

"In other words, both WeChat and us are 'walking across the river with stones'," a Weixin partner told First China Daily.

WeChat "Rangers"

"WeChat is not a tool for using hardware, it accesses data, not hardware."

When the outside world is looking forward to finding out the entrance and user wearable device and WeChat combination of the collision, what kind of spark will be struck, has been and WeChat team for more than six months iHealth user experience director Guo Yang said to reporters.

In January of this year, WeChat team came to iHealth shortly after iHealth, a subsidiary of CLT (002432.SZ), showed off several of its latest wearable medical devices at CES in the United States.

"At that time, WeChat was ruminating to say that it would not do the hardware." Guo Yang recalled, "The first contact with the WeChat team, where we sit, chat more in the era of mobile Internet, micro channel users in the end what needs? Whether health has become the next topic of WeChat, more is still a discussion of the direction of the topic.

In more than six months of contact with WeChat, iHealth and WeChat took about 3 months to study whether or not to integrate and integrate the entry point. The next few months, together with smart watch AM3 and WeChat integration technology to achieve.

"WeChat said the most is not moving. Do not move product logic, do not move the logic of interaction, do not move the product definition ... ..." Guo Yang said. This makes him could not help but ridicule, WeChat hardware cooperation team is simply a "Rangers."

In addition, WeChat made two mandatory requirements for all hardware manufacturers including iHealth, including: First, getting through the leaderboard data, in particular, opening up the user movement data between the various manufacturers' bracelet products so that more users Participate in the interaction; the second is the introduction of rights centers, users are not satisfied with the use of the process can be directly feedback complaints. The reason given in WeChat is that it does not want to cause any form of interference to users.

WeChat cautious in the hardware integration can be seen. And for the iHealth and WeChat, who have felt the rock across the river, their challenge has just begun.

"Initially, iHealth thought it was easy to access WeChat. The immediate reaction was hardware switch-in, and APP embedding." That is, the previous APP was moved to the HTML5 interface and then copied in the same way as before.

"But when it's done, we do not need user testing, and our own interactive designers say it's rubbish." Guo said frankly that iHealth had previously wanted to offer a complete experience to its users via APP, and that it was out of control of the WeChat platform.

This makes iHealth aware that WeChat is accessing data, not hardware, "and its meaning is amplified by people. For most users, the most important use of data is to display, show off, compare and compete. The same is true.From adjusting and embedding, to understand the essence of WeChat platform is the social effect of data, promote and operate in order to achieve better effect.

After the adjustment, iHealth currently cooperates with WeChat in the following ways: The user pays attention to the function number of the iHealth smart watch by scanning the WeChat QR code, after which the function number is automatically searched and connected to the device to check the user's Related exercise data.

Similar to iHealth Smart Watch, the cooperation between WeChat, Smart Heart and Huawei's bracelet and WeChat is through unified data integration such as WeChat service number, user information setting and sports data record analysis. With the user's relationship chain And "circle of friends" to turn these data into shareable content.

At the same time, the service number added the purchase page, Jingdong has also made the WeChat bracelet topic, formed from the data collection to management, sharing and sales closed-loop.

Feel the stones across the river

Right now, the biggest challenge facing iHealth is how to find a balance between the pursuit of personalized and WeChat systematic and standardized.

"WeChat requires hardware must enter the public number in order to access the interface, which makes us uncomfortable.We hope to become friends with the user, appear in the user's WeChat address book, but weChat, the core of this confrontation is the application scenario But the public service number approach makes the product is very close to the user, you and it seem to always eavesdrop conversations, this psychological barrier is difficult to eliminate even make the user perception of the product become dull, the hardware becomes Passive. "Guo Yang admitted.

Gudong Network Operations Director Liang Yun told reporters that the cuff bracelet and iHealth similar needs. "In the face of user's individualized challenge, how to balance and choose, need more authority to solve the problem, this is the follow-up and WeChat team cooperation needs to be considered."

And compared with their own APP user experience, a number of cooperation with WeChat manufacturers believe that WeChat user experience on the response speed, visual effects, etc. less than the local application.

This also allows Jiang Chuan, vice president of Ink Weather, to feel: "WeChat is a technology-based, large user base service, but to the personalized, customized service may still be carried out on the APP side."

In addition, with the social chain of WeChat's huge user base, the leaderboard of all intelligent hardware data can now be freshly endorsed by a single question mark, and a question mark is put on the partners' hearts.

To a certain extent, leaderboards are an important experience that activates the user's enthusiasm. On the one hand, wearable devices currently have low levels of WeChat, deep entrances and weak brand sense; on the other hand, intelligent hardware data of various homes are not based on the same standard. "More and more customers are eager to rank in multiple dimensions, such as calorie consumption, active time, rest time ... Stand in the brand point of view, if the brand's own independent leaderboard, the future of user maintenance will be better, freshness is large The problem, "a Weixin partner told reporters.

And cooperation with WeChat, the hardware itself is not a small challenge. An active WeChat user opened the WeChat frequency too many times in a day. According to Guo Yang, one of the challenges is the communication between WeChat and wearable devices. "If the time is too short, data transmission will easily cause congestion. This also requires WeChat and its partners Improve the data computing power, make the response more timely, the operation is faster. "

At the same time, sales driven by WeChat are far from usher in explosive growth.

As of press time, according to data from Jingdong Mall, out of the four wearable products cooperating with WeChat, the Weibang WeChat version of the bracelet has a total of 124 people and the Huawei Glory Bracelet cooperated with WeChat is 450; and the heart bonbon WeChat bracelet For 189 people, iHealth received 588 reviews.

"From the information we know, the essence of brand and marketing is bigger than sales volume itself." Ai Yi Consulting CEO Zhang Yi told reporters that the brand effect and fashion effect formed by cooperation with WeChat is better than the sales of wearable devices themselves.

Zhang Yi believes that wearable devices in the practical aspects of the lack of landings, which led to the actual sales may not be particularly desirable situation.

However, everything has just begun. One partner told the reporter: "Compared with the sales volume of such joint channel transformation, we expect the influence of social groups and lead to more sales through the social sharing of users." (Intern reporter Li Sijia This article also contributes)