Internet celebrities promote the products and pet owners are chasing after them. Will smart pet hardware be popular in 2021?

At the beginning of "The Consumer Society", Jean Baudrillard wrote: Around people today there is an astonishing phenomenon of consumption and abundance consisting of an ever-increasing amount of objects, services and material wealth.

This phenomenon has been particularly noticeable in the past 2020. Offline experience has continued to shrink, while online consumption has triggered a shopping spree as anchors keep calling for "link up". People fill space and time with countless items, among which smart hardware equipped with AI technology has also begun to occupy a place.

They are either the intelligentization of traditional hardware, such as beauty mirrors, cameras, and water dispensers; or new applications built based on algorithms, such as companion robots. New user habits, production logic, consumption logic, etc. are increasingly being released in these intelligent hardware, forming a wave that cannot be ignored.

Different from the previous round of IoT trend which was "much ado about nothing", many smart hardware in niche fields have not forced themselves to label themselves with the grand AIoT label, but are "making a fortune in silence" in the niche fields.

Next, let’s take a look at the stories of these consumer-grade smart products.

The pet market is the next consumer gold mine

Pet hardware will definitely become popular, it’s just a matter of time.

Why do you say that?

From the perspective of consumer generations, according to the classification of Sanpu Hideki in "The Fourth Consumer Era", China is in a transition period from the pursuit of special products to pleasant experience-based consumption. Shopping is not only for possession, but also a way to fill the inner emptiness and pursue happiness. This has led to the emergence of products and services that carry emotional value.

Pets, as an important vehicle for empty-nesters, singles, and DINKs to escape from "group loneliness" and gain companionship and psychological support, have also begun to gain an independent and even transcendent status in first- and second-tier cities and on the Internet. "Young, with both a cat and a dog" may be the shortest "Versailles literature" in the world.

"Pet control" has become an emotional attribute and label for contemporary young people. According to a study by Tencent Think Tank, 71.4% of post-2000 netizens have the experience or willingness to keep pets, and 43.1% of them regard pets as "as important as family members."

If we regard raising pets as a "copy game" in human life, it is easy to understand why pet owners project all kinds of demands onto their pets, worry that they are hungry, cold, lonely, or depressed, and then start to consume them with love.

Coincidentally, the collective maturity of 5G, cloud, AI, etc. has brought about a leapfrog upgrade in the capabilities of the Internet of Things, and has also brought smart hardware into a critical period of innovation. Combined with the needs of pets and the younger pet-keeping population, the code to wealth can be unlocked in minutes.

The pet hardware market is booming and it’s hard to tell the difference

The logic is this, and manufacturers with a keen sense of smell naturally saw the business opportunities earlier. These include not only some small and medium-sized hardware factories and entrepreneurial brands, but also giants such as Sony, Microsoft, and BAT.

Where is the entry point for making money from pet smart hardware?

From the current market perspective, we can divide mainstream products into two categories:

One type is smart hardware that simulates the experience of raising pets, such as companion robots and electronic pets such as AIBO. The other type is smart hardware that improves the quality of life of people and pets, mainly targeting the eating, drinking, playing, clothing, food, housing and transportation of pets in pet-owning families.

Although both are products of the pet economy, it is obvious that the focus and driving forces of these two types of products are very different.

Smart electronic pets are designed to allow people who are limited by time, energy and money to take care of real pets to experience the joy of raising pets. Therefore, they must meet at least three requirements: 1. Simulate the appearance or characteristics of pets; 2. Provide simulated and natural interactions; 3. Support personalized growth and learning. Only in this way can a unique and intimate emotional connection be established between people and pets.

For example, everyone will definitely think of Sony AIBO. This robot with the appearance of a pet dog has gained countless fans and was "resurrected" at the end of 2017. Through 22 moving axes to achieve flexible movements, it can achieve behaviors such as clapping and rolling, more like a real dog. The new AIBO naturally also emphasizes the technical capabilities of artificial intelligence. Through voice recognition, it can respond to the name given by the owner and some commands. With the help of a variety of electrostatic pressure sensors and deep learning technology, AIBO can also learn the owner's habits and perceive the owner's emotions during interaction to adjust its own personality and behavior in real time.

However, AIBO cannot provide the pleasure of stroking animal fur. So during the epidemic, some new "furry" hardware began to appear. A "tail" robot called Qoobo allows people who cannot go out due to the epidemic to feel the joy of stroking their pets, and it is sold out on the Amazon platform. Similarly, MOFLIN, launched by a Japanese AI company at CES 2021, looks like a guinea pig with thick fur and round eyes. The research and development team claims that it also has the same evolved emotional abilities as animals and can respond differently to various actions and sounds of its owner.

It is not difficult to find that compared with conventional smart hardware, smart electronic pets have greater room for imagination, and are worth looking forward to in terms of hardware, follow-up services, and extended consumption. For this reason, people have higher technical requirements for smart electronic pets, not just voice chat, but also the ability to communicate through gestures, sounds, touches, and other multi-dimensional interactions.

In order to accurately perceive the owner's information, it is often necessary to equip the robot with highly sensitive tactile sensors, microphones, gyroscopes/accelerometers, etc. It is also necessary to develop specialized algorithms to learn and iterate based on different user data.

However, due to a series of obstacles such as chips, networks, and robot hardware, smart electronic pets, like humanoid robots, cannot completely replicate the behavior of living things. This may disappoint those who are eager to replace real pets with machines.

(Qoobo robot)

So, can we get rid of the troubles of smart hardware by raising a real pet?

The answer is obviously no.

In fact, all kinds of smart hardware designed for pets on the market have more or less drawbacks:

1. "Intelligence is based on changing the shell" is a makeover of traditional products that cannot provide additional value.

For example, if you change the shell of the locator and add a collar, it becomes a smart collar exclusively for pets, claiming that it can track and prevent loss, and it sells for several times more than the anti-loss bracelet for people. For example, if the smart camera changes its shape, it becomes a companion robot that can interact with pets at home. It is much more expensive than professional camera brands, and it is difficult to give people peace of mind in terms of privacy and security protection. Previously, a developer invented an iCalm speaker. If the dog at home is not well-behaved, the speaker will play corresponding music to soothe them. Does it look down on the white noise music library of the 99 yuan home smart speaker? The Qoobo robot with a heartbeat function is more like a plush pillow, but it is sold for $135, which really makes people want to sigh "How stupid".

(The music albums built into the iCalm speaker need to be purchased separately)

2. There are many small and medium-sized manufacturers, and the product quality and design levels vary greatly.

Pets cannot directly convey their feelings to their owners, which naturally encourages many small and medium-sized manufacturers to sell inferior products as good ones after seeing business opportunities, and use crude products to gain short-term profits. Even a well-known brand of pet smart water dispenser has quality problems such as leakage, which was not discovered by pet owners until many cats died as a result. Pet owners lost their pets and were unable to protect their legal rights.

Jackson, a well-known American pet show host, clearly opposed automated pet products in his show. For pets that cannot talk, even a 0.01% failure rate can lead to extremely serious consequences.

3. People-oriented rather than pet-oriented. False demands will increase extra operational burden and eventually become idle.

Many manufacturers have taken a different approach, creating robots that can automatically feed and throw toy balls from the perspectives of preventing pets from destroying the house, avoiding separation anxiety, and remote interaction. However, such products, which are based on human needs, do not fully consider the real cognitive abilities of animals.

Pets have different sensory systems from humans, and they often recognize their owners through smell, body language, and other information. Remote chat is just an object that makes strange noises for pets, and it is difficult to achieve the purpose of comfort and communication. As for products such as feeding and ball machines, they can indeed achieve the purpose of interaction in a short period of time, but they still cannot replace the owner's companionship and games.

There are also some pet nests that can record basic consumption, activity consumption, calorie consumption and other data through detection, smart cat litter boxes that can detect the number, quantity, time and weight of cats going to the toilet, set food bowls that recommend pet feeding amounts, etc. Experienced pet owners can find and solve problems in daily interactions. Do they need to pay extra fees for additional data recording functions? Perhaps the Apple Watch and smart bracelets covered in dust in the drawer can tell you the answer.