Listen! The attack horn of smart hardware in winter!

There is a saying in the high-tech investment circle that if a technology is declared to have entered its "first year", it will most likely usher in a cold winter in the second year. If this saying is followed, the smart hardware, which took 2014 as its "first year", is probably already in a "deep cold" now. In reality, the early investment-driven "trial and error" movement of smart hardware has indeed receded, and we often hear news that a certain company cannot continue because of a lack of new investment. In this sense, winter has really come.

On September 19, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Development and Reform Commission jointly issued the "Special Action for the Innovation and Development of the Intelligent Hardware Industry (2016-2018)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Action"), which is like a horn blown in winter and a shot in the arm for the entire intelligent hardware industry. Let's interpret what key information is revealed in the "Action".

New categories in the era of the Internet of Things

Although the term "smart hardware" has a long history, it has always been a "folk" commonly accepted concept. This time it has been "solidified" in the form of a government document, which means that the state recognizes smart hardware. If we delve into the reasons, we can easily find that the rapid development of China's electronic information industry in the past 30 years has been supported by three epoch-making products, namely color TVs, computers and mobile phones. Today, the market growth of these three categories of products has encountered bottlenecks, weak growth and even the threat of negative growth. To boost the entire electronic information industry, new product categories are needed as a driving force, and smart hardware has appeared at this point in time. Although its form is not single and fixed, it reflects the attributes and possibilities of the Internet of Things era, and it is inevitable that it will become the "focus".

Focus on new applications and new business models

Because smart hardware covers a wide range of products, the Action Plan specifically identifies several key areas: wearables, automotive electronics, healthcare, service robots, and industrial smart products. These target areas have one thing in common: through end-cloud integrated solutions, more and more innovative services can be connected behind the hardware, which is the real value of smart hardware.

In the Action, we do not see the term "smart home" that we are familiar with. This can be interpreted as: the so-called intelligent control functions currently added to traditional home appliances do not have subversive innovative genes and cannot represent the future of smart hardware. This is the first point; the most innovative connotations of future smart homes have been integrated into several key areas identified in the Action. Health care, education, medical care, etc. are the new demands for home intelligence. This is the second point. Therefore, "new" is the hard truth.

Figure 1: Action goals to be achieved in 2018 in the Special Action Plan for Innovation and Development of Smart Hardware Industry

Opportunities in the five major technology fulcrums

In the path planned by the Action Plan, which technologies will receive "special attention" is probably the topic that technology manufacturers are most concerned about. The Action Plan lists five key development technologies related to smart hardware. Do you have a chance? Please check which one you are:

1. Low-power and lightweight system design: Low-power chips, modules and IoT operating systems should be the focus, and this is the opportunity for embedded system developers to show their talents.

   
   

2. Low-power wide-area smart IoT: LPWAN has been mentioned. Since we can only follow others in terms of local wireless IoT protocols, we should strive to be the first in this new technology field. Let’s take a look at the presence of Chinese manufacturers in NB-IoT!

   
   

3. VR/AR: Needless to say, it is the commanding height of future information technology, a brand-new system that can do a lot from hardware to software.

   
   

4. Intelligent human-computer interaction: Combining the intelligent recognition technologies such as vision and voice on the perception side with the cognitive learning, analysis and judgment functions on the cloud side, the new generation of human-computer interaction will be more natural and intelligent.

   
   

5. High-performance motion and attitude control: Focus on the integrated motion control systems of drones and robots, in which servo control, gyroscopes, navigation, wireless interconnection and other products can play an important role.

Warren Buffett, the stock god, once said, "I am fearful when others are greedy, and I am greedy when others are fearful." Watch "Action" three times carefully, and maybe you will be able to discover vitality that others have not discovered in the "winter".

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