Whether or not a sweeping robot has embodied intelligence is the key to breaking the "involution"

If you pay attention to industry summits such as the 2023 World Congress, as well as press conferences of Microsoft, Google, and major domestic manufacturers, in addition to "big model", you should hear another high-frequency word - embodiment.

Embodied intelligence refers to an intelligent entity that has a body and supports physical interaction. This concept can be traced back to 1950, when Turing proposed in his paper "Compung Machinery and Ligence" that machines can interact with the environment like humans, make plans, make decisions, act, and have execution capabilities, which is the ultimate form of AI.

It sounds very advanced, but in fact, embodied intelligence has long been familiar to the public. Sony's robot dog AIBO, SoftBank's service pepper, and Boston Dynamics' humanoid robots and robot dogs, etc. A more widely used type of embodied intelligence in the home is the sweeping robot.

The advent of the big model era is expected to significantly evolve the full-chain capabilities of embodied intelligence, including understanding, analysis, decision-making, and execution. The update and iteration of technology never stops. What changes will it bring to the sweeping robot market?

Recently, EZVIZ, which is controlled by the company, launched the AI ​​Sweeper 20 Pro for the C-end consumer market, and the cloud vision commercial cleaning robot BS1 for the B-end market. This is also a breakthrough in embodied intelligence in the field of cleaning robots.

Let’s start with EZVIZ’s entry into the robot sweeping market, and see what kind of chain reaction its entry with “technical trump cards” will trigger in this field.

The "involution" trend of sweeping robots

Most people are familiar with sweeping robots. Today's household cleaning robots are no longer in the early "pioneering" stage. Consumers' awareness and acceptance have been opened up, the product form and function are basically complete, and the market competition environment is increasingly fierce. Traditional home appliance manufacturers, specialized and new enterprises, 2B OEM factories have turned to 2C... Various players are launching new machines, and the speed of product iteration is getting faster and faster.

This reminds us of "involution". The term "involution" originally refers to the phenomenon that after agriculture develops to a certain form, it stagnates or cannot be transformed into a higher level, and can only carry out simple repetition without innovation.

The current field of sweeping robots is showing a trend of "involution", which is mainly manifested in several aspects:

1. From the user's perspective, consumers' sense of novelty has decreased, and their expectations for products have decreased. The technical capabilities of traditional robots have limited breakthroughs. Some users are repeatedly disturbed by the reminder of "the brush is entangled, please clean the brush" every day, which is annoying; after the sweeper passes by, there is still dust and garbage on the ground, and users have to clean it manually again. These problems make consumers' decisions more rational.

2. From the product perspective, products are highly homogenized and differentiated needs are not met. The basic functions and appearance are similar, and many segmented scenarios and personalized needs cannot be met. For example, there are more and more pet-raising families in cities, and some sweeping robots cannot distinguish between pets and other obstacles, cannot avoid obstacles accurately, and rush around randomly, scaring timid pets to flee everywhere; they cannot accurately identify obstacles such as pet toys and shoes, and push them all at once, making the home environment chaotic.

3. From the perspective of manufacturers, the business model of the same type of products is single and the competition is becoming fierce. The result of homogeneity is that the speed of product iteration is getting faster and faster, but technology accumulation is not a matter of one day or one night, and it is difficult to quickly widen the gap in technical capabilities and product innovation. They can only compete on limited factors and enter the stage of competing in marketing and price, and the pressure on cost and revenue has increased sharply.

Once entering the "involution" stage, industry innovation will stagnate, which will further erode consumer enthusiasm and accelerate market saturation.

Obviously, EZVIZ’s entry into the market at this time is not to “roll in” with everyone, but to bring about some possibilities of “rolling out”. The innovative visual technology accumulated over the years is EZVIZ’s trump card.

Smart upgrade, "external volume" begins

Is there still room for growth in the robot vacuum cleaner market? The potential is huge.

Taking pet-raising families as an example, the 2022 China Pet Industry White Paper shows that the urban pet (dog and cat) consumption market will reach 270.6 billion yuan in 2022, which is a steadily growing consumption field. Among them, pet hair cleaning is a problem that troubles many pet-raising families, and the demand for sweeping robots has become urgent.

However, whether technological innovation can be transformed into product strength to drive new growth is a new challenge facing sweeping robot manufacturers.

Traditional cleaning robots are not capable of dealing with pet hair. Pet hair cleaning is a long-standing problem:

The problem of "aging" lies in frequency. Pet hair will shed normally, and cleaning is necessary every day during the shedding season, so cleaning problems exist for a long time. High-frequency cleaning will still be a burden to pet owners if people need to manually change water, dust boxes, mops, etc.

"Big" means complex. Pets' activity areas are large, the area of ​​hair cleaning is large, there are many obstacles, and the routes are complex, which poses challenges to the full-link capabilities of the sweeping robot, including perception, analysis, decision-making, and execution, and involves a wide range of technical systems.

The difficulty lies in the depth. Different from the pure optimization of "off-body intelligence", the sweeping robot requires the coordination of various elements such as algorithms, sensors, etc. For example, if the robot can accurately identify garbage and the instructions given by the system are also accurate, but the roller brush is entangled with a lot of hair when performing the task, it cannot be lifted high or sucked completely, and it cannot achieve thorough cleaning. Therefore, the innovation of the sweeping robot must be deeply integrated with the scene to solve real pain points and real problems.

Relying on its own continuously accumulated and mature robotics technology, EZVIZ AI Sweeper RS20 Pro attempts to give the answer.

The embodied intelligence body consists of three parts: the cerebellum, the brain, and the body. We can look at how the EZVIZ RS20 Pro implements "embodied intelligence" from these three perspectives.

1. A fully perceptive "little brain".

The realization of embodied intelligence depends on perception, which requires multiple methods such as vision, laser radar, etc. to perceive changes in the physical world, accumulate high-quality data, deeply understand and convert them into machine instructions to control the robot's "body". The sensor and visual perception technology of EZVIZ RS20 Pro is equivalent to giving the sweeping robot a "cerebellum" with rich perception capabilities.

The camera on the EZVIZ RS20 Pro, combined with the self-developed line laser and other obstacle avoidance sensors, can accurately judge and understand the environment. For example, the LDS laser radar can quickly and accurately build a map within a few minutes, so as to better plan the obstacle avoidance path, and achieve an obstacle avoidance effect that is better than most sweepers on the market; it is equipped with a carpet recognition sensor, which will mark the location of the carpet after recognizing it, ensuring that you will not bring a wet mop onto the carpet and avoid getting the mop wet.

Similarly, the EZVIZ BS1, which is aimed at the commercial market, has for the first time achieved the elimination of lidar in robot navigation technology, and used six cameras to form a multi-camera vision system, allowing the cleaning robot to have the ability to build richer maps and have stronger adaptability in complex and changeable environments such as shopping malls.

In general, full perception is a prerequisite for the EZVIZ cleaning robot to achieve a higher level of embodied intelligence.

2. The “brain” of intelligent decision-making.

With years of accumulation, EZVIZ has brought the comprehension, decision-making, and obstacle avoidance capabilities of sweeping robots to a new level, allowing them to make smarter decisions under the command of the "brain" of AI algorithms.

For example, when navigating, the EZVIZ RS20 Pro uses visual recognition and obstacle avoidance technology to identify at least 65+ types of objects, thereby accurately planning routes; when cleaning, it can automatically identify and mark rooms, such as kitchens, bedrooms, corridors, etc., identify different types of ground dirt, and automatically match different cleaning modes. When encountering dirt, it will automatically increase the suction force while preventing garbage from flying away.

For families with pets, users also hope to be able to remotely look after their pets at home at any time when they are out. The AI ​​pet recognition and tracking technology of EZVIZ RS20 Pro can realize the pet tracking function, automatically generate pet emoticons and Vlogs, and alleviate the "separation anxiety" of "pet owners".

A smarter "brain" allows the EZVIZ RS20 Pro to achieve more considerate cleaning capabilities, and it can also adapt to changes, actively learn, and evolve in real time. Obstacles that it doesn't recognize this time will be recognized next time, making it less worrying the more you use it.