"The sweeping robot has hosted the floor cleaning work in my home.,Anyway, if you can't clean it once, you can sweep it again.,As long as you don't have to take it over yourself.,And there's no one at home during the day.,Sweep over and over again.,There's always a time to sweep clean.。 In a cleaning appliance brand store in Beijing, a post-90s software development engineer described his views on sweeping robots in this way.
From the beginning of its appearance,Sweeping robots are considered to be"lazy economy"The category that benefits the most,Especially for the post-80、90Post-generation,Compared with do-it-yourself cleaning,Sweeping robots"Fully managed"The cleaning method and "off-peak work" attributes are the fundamental reasons for their favor.
According to the data of Aowei Cloud Network, from January to May this year, the retail sales of China's clean electrical appliances online market were 11.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 16.4%, and the retail volume was 9.92 million units, a year-on-year increase of 2.0%. Among them, the retail sales of sweeping robots increased by 20.1% year-on-year. The same is true in the global market, with the acceleration of Chinese brands going overseas, there are 8 Chinese brands in the top 10 global market share, and the global market share of Chinese brands has reached 63%.
It can be said that although the sweeping robot is a "foreign product", the Chinese brand has made remarkable achievements.
Halfway to the road, the former overlord occasionally got the "cheats"
"Trilobite" sweeping robot
If the competition of sweeping robots is compared to a "martial arts dispute", Electrolux from Sweden can be said to be the "first person" of the founding faction.
In 1996, the prototype of the home sweeping robot "Trilobite" developed by Electrolux came out, but the process of "Trilobite" from its debut to mass production did not go smoothly, and it took five years to finally launch it on the market, but its high price of $2,000 discouraged many consumers.
Many people may have no concept of the purchasing power of $2,000 in 2001, according to the data retained by the Cockeyed website, the price of McDonald's cheeseburgers and small fries in United States that year was $0.99, that is, the price of buying a trilobite sweeping robot is basically enough for a single person to eat McDonald's for a whole year.
In addition to being too expensive, the "trilobite" is also facing the problem of increasing competitors, and in the same year that it was released, Dyson, which is now known for its high-speed hair dryer and vacuum cleaner, also designed a sweeping robot with the model DC06.
Dyson DC06 robot vacuum
According to the relevant information officially released at the time, DC06 has 90 built-in sensors, 60 batteries, 3 processors, and its structure is even more complex than the "trilobite", even if mass production is realized, the price will be an astronomical amount, so Dyson chose to stop losses in time, and this product will stay in the prototype state.
During the same period, LG released the Roboking robot vacuum, and Electrolux's North American subsidiary Eureka also launched related products, but these solutions are the same as the "trilobite".
It can be said that,Before 2002,All sweeping robot brands are still in a state of "enlightenment",Strive to study and polish their own martial arts skills,There are almost no real outstandings that can have influence in the rivers and lakes,On the contrary, the practice "gave up halfway"accounted for the majority。
The original Roomba robot vacuum
Until iRobot brought the "Roomba sweeping robot" into the rivers and lakes, the sweeping robot suddenly became a "hit", and in September 2002, the first generation of Roomba was launched. According to Colin Angle, former CEO and founder of the company, "In 2001, iRobot had just come up with the idea of building a robot vacuum cleaner for the home, and a few months later, Roomba was born, using the relevant experience in the field of robotics and vacuum cleaning technology from vacuum cleaners." ”
Originally, iRobot didn't have high hopes for Roomba, and when the product was first launched, the initial goal was to produce 10,000 to 15,000 units, however, surprisingly, soon after the product was released, it quickly sold more than 10,000 units, and the market demand was far stronger than iRobot expected. Started to increase production of the product, and in the first year of its launch, Roomba achieved sales of 70,000 units.
Wei Jian, a technical engineer with more than 15 years of experience in the research and development of sweeping robots, told Titanium Media APP: "The success of the first generation of iRobot Roomba is not inevitable from a technical point of view, and the product adopts the same random collision cleaning path as the 'trilobite', compared with many products with complex structures in the same period, whether it is cleaning efficiency, interactive experience or cleaning ability, it has no significant advantages." ”
But iRobot can fight all the way from the competition because it has mastered the "martial arts cheats" of the consumer market - mature technology + low-price strategy. The $200 price makes it only one-tenth or less of its competitors, and the technology it applies comes from established suppliers and existing products, so the threshold for mass production is lower, so it can quickly amortize R&D costs by scale.
"One of the best comparison cases is the RoboCleaner released by the Germany company Kärcher (formerly known as Kärcher and a brand famous for industrial car washers and vacuum cleaners) in 2002, although the technology applied the leading base station automatic dust collection capacity at that time, but because its price reached about $1300, far exceeding the expectations of ordinary consumers, it did not attract market attention." Wei Jian said.
Samsung robot vacuum
As the market heat of sweeping robots continues to rise, brands including Hitachi and Samsung have also entered this market, but they are no match for the first-mover advantage occupied by iRobot, and the products launched have not received much market response, so many brands have silently closed the relevant product lines after launching the first generation of products to test the waters.
Looking back on iRobot's "god when you come out of the mountain", it can be said that there are drama and inevitable factors, although the founder team of iRobot and the business they have been engaged in before are all related to robots, but they are not closely related to household use and cleaning scenes, and the key to success lies in basic cleaning ability and low-price strategy.
Coupled with the market awareness established by the first-mover advantage, iRobot has made great progress in the sweeping robot market, and by 2004, the sales of Roomba sweeping robots have exceeded 1 million units, and continue to lead the track.
Misguided and fell sideways, the rivers and lakes are now killing moves
If you follow the routine of the general cool article, it is almost the turn of the "male protagonist" to appear at this time, and it is true, around 2004, iRobot began to look for foundries in China to further reduce product costs. Colin Angle mentioned in his communication with Titanium Media APP: "Since 2003, iRobot has been looking for suitable assembly and component foundries in China, and soon the annual production volume has reached about 350,000 units. ”
Jinyu Group is one of the cooperative suppliers of iRobot in China, and with the influx of OEM demand for sweeping robots, domestic R&D teams and foundry companies have begun to target this field. In 2005, Shenzhen Baole Robot Technology Co., Ltd. (now renamed Guangdong Baole Robot Co., Ltd.) was established and entered the field of intelligent sweeping robot foundry.
During the same period, Qian Dongqi, the current chairman of Ecovacs Group, also began to lead his team to research and develop related products, and successfully developed the prototype of the first generation of vacuum cleaner robots in 2005. Like iRobot, Ecovacs is also "halfway down" to make sweeping robots, and it is quite interesting that iRobot relies on "robots" while Ecovacs relies on "sweeping the floor".
Ecovacs, formerly known as Suzhou Taiyikai Electric Appliance (TEK), was established in 1998 and was mainly engaged in the R&D and manufacturing of vacuum cleaners. The characteristics of the sweeping robot using suction as the main cleaning means coincide with the vacuum cleaner.
From the perspective of iRobot at that time, it is completely unnecessary for Ecovacs to appear as a new competitor, first of all, as a new brand, it needs to re-establish market awareness, and compared with Samsung, Hitachi and other old manufacturers, the company's volume is not at the same level at all.
iRobot was successfully listed on NASDAQ
At the product level, iRobot at this time has also completed the iteration of the Roomba series of sweeping robots and launched the Roomba 400 model, which has mainly been upgraded at the level of cleaning performance and navigation system. In addition, in November 2005, iRobot was successfully listed on the NASDAQ, and the Scooba 5900 mopping robot was released in December.
Neato Robotics, which is also a United States company, was also established in 2005, but like Ecovacs, the fledgling Neato Robotics has neither market influence nor a decent product in the short term.
To put it more colloquially, at this time, iRobot is like a martial arts league leader who has just won the championship in the martial arts competition, and Ecovacs is just a nameless stranger from the market who is learning sticks and fists, so naturally he will not take it seriously.
It is also from 2005 onwards,Sweeping robots have entered the first trough period of technological innovation,Although the market performance is still rising,But the growth rate has declined significantly。 On the one hand, the sweeping robot products that use the random collision cleaning method do not meet the expectations of consumers for the intelligent performance of the "robot", and the problems it brings also include the cleaning of the area that is prone to dead ends, the lack of avoidance ability to ground obstacles, and so on.
As a pioneer in the industry, iRobot has not carried the banner of innovation, and has always insisted on tinkering with the cleaning path planning of random collisions, so that the product experience has never been able to improve to a higher level.
At the same time, iRobot's dominance, but also made it gain a stronger pricing power, initially relying on the "cost-effective" route to become famous, the terminal price also began to rise with the fame, product positioning is also rising, first from the first generation of 200 US dollars to 300 US dollars, to the development of 2011 Roomba 700 series, the price has risen to 600 US dollars, at this time, the original "dragon slayer" has become a dragon at this moment.
Neato XV-11
Fortunately, the two spoilers have come out of the "novice village" at this moment, Ecovacs launched the DEEBOT series of sweeping robot products in 2009, and in February 2010, Neato Robotics launched the Neato XV-11 sweeping robot, no one would have thought that iRobot's martial arts dominance would go from sitting back and quiet to the brink of loss in the next 10 years.
Neato Robotics chose to innovate at the technical level, by introducing laser navigation technology (LIDAR) into the sweeping robot, which can allow the robot to move in the room at the same time, create an indoor map, and plan the cleaning path based on it, which is the SLAM (Synchronous Positioning and Mapping) algorithm that was later used as the basis of navigation technology for all sweeping robot manufacturers.
The first generation of DEEBOT 730 added the dialogue function, but compared with the influence of Neato Robotics that directly changed the technical direction of the industry, Ecovacs at this time is more like aiming at the track of future development with the help of sweeping robots, and then launched air purification robots and window cleaning robots, and did not spend much effort on the iteration of sweeping robots.
Because of the change in the direction of technology,Many brands that have been following the trend have decided to wrestle with iRobot,Samsung、LG has successively released sweeping robot products based on visual navigation (vSLAM) technology,Although the technical path is different from the use of lidar drawing,But compared with the traditional random collision algorithm,Products with visual navigation capabilities have significant enhancements in path planning and obstacle avoidance capabilities。
iRobot Lighthouse System
In 2007, the Lighthouse system (Virtual Wall Lighthouse) was unveiled, and the lighthouse device communicates with the sweeping robot through infrared signals to create a virtual wall or navigation path. Sensors on the robot can detect these signals and move them in a predetermined route, enabling efficient cleaning and precise positioning.
At first glance, this solution seems to be feasible, but there are many problems encountered in the actual operation process, the most criticized of which is that the lighthouse system needs human participation, and the requirements for the placement are not low, it can be said that it should belong to the sweeping robot's "automatic cleaning" work, but eventually it has become a test of the user's path planning ability, until 2015, with the release of iRobot Roomba 980 fully turned to vSLAM technology path, the lighthouse system withdrew from the historical stage.
But it is precisely the missing years that have allowed the superior to find an opportunity, and at the same time, the technical barriers that iRobot has built have disappeared completely, and he is forced to stand on the same starting line with everyone. It can be said that the key is that the former martial arts alliance leader's "misguided entry" and the new entrant quickly find the "life door" that exists in the market and products.
The martial arts competition won the jackpot, and it was a foregone conclusion that Jiangshan changed his surname
According to relevant market research reports, in 2010, the global shipment of sweeping robots was about 1.6 million units, and by 2015, this number had grown to 4.1 million units. In 2012, Ecovacs has established sales subsidiaries in Germany and United States, and has entered the European and American markets, accelerating the expansion of overseas territories, and its sales performance in China is also increasing rapidly.
Domestic sales of sweeping robots
In 2011, Ecovacs joined the Double 11 Shopping Festival for the first time, with sales of 2 million yuan, followed by 62.27 million yuan in 2013, and then two years later, Ecovacs' sales of Double 11 have reached 315 million yuan. According to the relevant data released by Zhongyikang, since 2013, the proportion of Ecovacs' domestic sales has surpassed that of iRobot.
In terms of products and technology, the DEEBOT 9 series launched in 2013 announced that Ecovacs has also switched to SLAM technology track, and in 2015, DEEBOT DR95 was launched, equipped with Smart Navi technology, which already has the overall planning and cleaning logic of "building the map first, then cleaning".
In contrast, Neato Robotics is not having a good time, although the technical level is betting on the right direction, but in the United States market due to the existence of iRobot, it does not leave enough room for growth, coupled with the rapid follow-up of SLAM technology by competitors and the lack of its own clean-related technology accumulation, so that it experienced a short highlight moment after the release of the first generation of products, the market performance declined rapidly.
In 2015, Neato Robotics had a global market share of less than 3%, announcing that the company was in trouble, and in 2017, the Vorwerk Group acquired Neato Robotics and tried to revitalize its brand and business through restructuring, but ultimately failed to succeed.
It can be seen that the success of Ecovacs is also supported by many factors, one of which is that the Chinese market has greater potential as an emerging region, Abby, the former head of the marketing department of iRobot China, said to Titanium Media APP: "iRobot has been sold in China as an agent since 2011, and when Hunan Kefanda introduced products, many brands in China have begun to make sweeping robots. iRobot has not been able to take the lead in establishing a cognitive relationship between brand and product in the minds of users like the European and American markets. ”
The excessively high pricing of the products has also affected iRobot's development in markets outside of Europe and the United States. In addition, the technical level lags behind competing products, especially its products equipped with SLAM technology did not come out until 2015, you know, at that time, the sweeping robot products on the market that used collision logic for ground cleaning were generally labeled as "low-end".
Many users spend a lot of money to buy a product at home, only to find that it is just a "brainless robot" that has no head and no brains, and it is rambling around, which further damages the brand image. In addition, iRobot also has a lot of problems at the market decision-making level, Abby pointed out: "After seeing the success of Ecovacs' Double 11 Shopping Festival, iRobot even considered launching low-end products to fight a price war, however, low-end products are not competitive enough compared with competitors, so this batch of products eventually suffered from unsalable products and could only be piled up in the warehouse and no one cared about them." ”
Mijia sweeping robot
In 2015, iRobot adjusted its technical direction in time, which can be said to have won a respite for the brand, but since 2016, the competition intensity of the sweeping robot track has suddenly changed from a small-scale "duel" to a "martial arts conference". The new entry of Roborock, with the Mijia sweeping robot 1699 yuan + LDS SLAM technology, suddenly made the high-end sweeping robot in the past into a "cabbage price".
After the release of the first product in 2013, the rapid rise of Posanico, with a year-to-one iteration of product update rhythm to quickly release its own market energy, coupled with Philips, Panasonic and other old home appliance manufacturers to disrupt, iRobot can be said to have quickly lost the right to speak in the domestic market.
It is in such a critical situation,iRobot still made a wrong choice in the technical path,Around 2015,Sweeping robot brands represented by Chinese brands began to invest in research and development"Sweeping and mopping"Products。
Different from the past sweeping robot used side brush, roller brush and suction as the way of cleaning process, the sweeping and mopping all-in-one product adds a mop module behind the roller brush, and gradually releases the water storage in the water tank to moisten the mop, and cooperates with the sweeping robot to achieve the purpose of sweeping and mopping.
The reason why the demand for mopping will arise mainly comes from the fact that a large number of hard floors are often used in China's interior decoration, such as floor tiles, floors, etc., and the attachment of dust and dirt is not enough to solve the problem by suction, in contrast, mopping is a more effective means of cleaning.
iRobot's mopping robot
At a time when domestic manufacturers have switched to integrated sweeping and mopping products, iRobot chose to launch independent mopping robot products. The concept of "sweep first and then mop" is true, but the space encroachment and cleaning efficiency problems brought by the two products, coupled with the high price of the products, directly make the mopping robot a failed category.
In 2016, Anker entered the field of sweeping robots, launched the Eufy brand, and set its sights on overseas markets as soon as it came up, and in 2018, the local brand SharkNinja in United States also announced its entry into the smart home market and launched the Shark ION Robot sweeping robot.
The latest overall technological innovation of sweeping robots occurred in 2018, and the emergence of "base stations" not only allows sweeping robots to obtain self-cleaning capabilities such as mop cleaning and dust collection, but also makes it possible to wash mops with hot water and switch independent sweeping/mopping capabilities.
"From 2018 to the present,Sweeping robots can be regarded as entering a new round of technology platform period,From the overall technical direction and form,It is difficult to find a revolutionary breakthrough,The exploration of various manufacturers in technology has not stopped,But they are all solving the corners of the cleaning process。 Liu Chao, general manager of Haier's home robot industry, said.
Now, both the head manufacturers and new entrants are looking for a way to improve from 90 points to 95 points, such as in order to clean the corners more thoroughly, Dreame and Roborock chose to add a robotic arm with mop traversing ability, while Ecovacs chose to change the fuselage structure to make it closer to the corners of the house.
But can the "good" to "excellent" experience really impress consumers? Liu Chao believes that experience upgrading and cost reduction can actually be understood as a symbiotic relationship: "At present, the average price of products with base stations is generally high, so in the future, with the further acceleration of the popularization of technology, the price of terminal products will fall, and users will still pay for the convenient cleaning experience." He said.
Since the birth of the first generation of sweeping robots, in just 28 years, sweeping robots have experienced 4 innovations at the technical level and 2 iterations on the competitive landscape. According to the latest data released by IDC, the global shipments of intelligent sweeping robots in the first quarter were 4.554 million units, a year-on-year increase of 11.1%.
It is worth mentioning that among the top 10 manufacturers, there are 8 Chinese brands, and the remaining two are United States brands, and the total share of Chinese brands is also continuing to increase. Specifically, iRobot is experiencing a year-on-year decline of 13.2%, while the rest of the manufacturers are in a state of growth.
Zhao Siquan, senior analyst of IDC China, pointed out that United States is still the largest market for intelligent sweeping robots, although Chinese manufacturers have superior product strength and faster iterative update speed, but due to the impact of multiple factors such as channel resources and brand influence accumulated by local brands for many years, the market share of Chinese manufacturers in the United States market is relatively low.
However, it is foreseeable that Chinese brands have been at the forefront of the global sweeping robot market, and Roborock, Ecovacs, and Xiaomi are all expected to take over the position of alliance leader from iRobot and replace it as the market leader. Titanium Media APP predicts that by the end of 2024, there will be a "replacement" of iRobot's existing market position among Chinese brands.
Looking back on the transition from imported products to obtaining entry status to winning in the domestic market, leading the direction of technology iteration, and occupying the global market, in just 15 years, Chinese brands have completed the road of counterattack in the field of sweeping robots.
To sum up, the key points why Chinese brands can succeed are as follows, first of all, the attributes of emerging markets and the soil given by huge domestic demand, so that local brands have enough room for growth, and secondly, they have OEM genes and experience, in terms of related industrial chain and talent accumulation, quickly wiped out the disadvantages of the starting point, coupled with a clear understanding of user needs, the ability to polish the detailed experience, and finally by virtue of the continuous accumulation of perfect products and brands, the reverse external output. (This article was first published in Titanium Media APP Author/Deng Jianyun Editor/Zhong Yi)