When I gave the furniture an app this year, I dared to call smart home?

This article first appeared on WeChat public number: Silicon Valley secret agent. The content of the article belongs to the author's personal opinion and does not represent the position of Hexun.com. Investors should act accordingly, at their own risk.

Speaking of smart home, what do you think of first: Is it using the APP on your mobile phone to control the lights, curtains, and temperature at home? Can you also water the flowers outside the house?

However, have you thought about it? If the control of the smart home depends on the APP in your hand, then when you go out, what do you want to control the elderly at home? I am afraid this is not enough "smart".

(the App Solution)

With such confusion, the agent recently visited Brilliant, a smart home business in Silicon Valley. Its product is a smart home controller that can talk to it, can sense body temperature and make people "interact" with the house - Brilliant Control. In their understanding, not to give furniture an APP can be called smart home.

From the pain points of existing smart homes

The story begins with company CEO Aaron, who is the first user of Brilliant Control.

Aaron is a serial entrepreneur. In 2014, after Aaron's company sold a mobile app to a Korean company for $200 million, he began to travel and have fun, and he was looking for the next startup.

When he started to renovate his house, the opportunity came.

“I want to find a product that replaces the switch inside the house, and I can control all the smart furniture in the house with a touchpad. I think there must be such a product.” Aaron told the Silicon Valley secret agent (micro signal: SVS-007).

It is not difficult to replace the original switch and use the touchpad to control it. The first reaction of the agent was to use the "smart furniture switch touch screen" as a way to find a lot of choices.

But Aaron said that he could not find such a product. why?

It turns out that Aaron needs a controller that can control all the furniture, followed by a touch. At that time, he could only control his furniture by downloading different apps.

How can other people control if they are not at home? “It’s awkward to adjust the indoor environment with mobile phones and apps. It’s not very likely for guests or children.” So, Aaron hopes that anyone can adjust the lighting of different rooms, adjust the music and temperature of the home, it’s like It is as easy to turn on the lights and turn off the lights.

Besides, if you want to control the lighting of the living room at home, you must first find the mobile phone? Can you still play happily with the lights?

So Aaron found the small partners Steven Stanek and Jeremy Hiatt who had been together before, and set off again to create such a product, so there was Brilliant Control.

Brilliant founder team, left one is Aaron

One of Brilliant's investors, SV Tech Ventures managing partner Yu Pingrong told Silicon Valley agents: "We sent a seed round to Brilliant more than a year ago. At that time they only had product planning, the product was not finished yet, but we The core team has a history of successful collaborations before, which reduces the risk of running-in."

The smart home market is fragmented seriously

Brilliant control is not the first product to focus smart home control on the touch screen.

In a research report in 2016, CBInsight classified about 67 startups in the US smart home sector, and the companies that make smart controllers are classified as one category (lower left).

The secret agent has roughly studied it. For example, Peel's versatile remote control controls all devices via mobile phone or tablet; iRule controls home lighting, sound, curtains, etc. through the app; Muzzley, a European company, is an intelligent platform for the IoT to create smart mobile applications + cloud. I can't do without APP; Ivee is controlled by voice, similar to Amazon's Echo. (Mosaic, which has been reported by the agent, is an artificial intelligence chat robot that uses voice to control everything. Click to view: Chinese team in the middle of Xu Xiaoping and YC, to be the entrance to the future Internet of Things!)

Behind many products and companies is the increasing demand for the smart home market. According to Statista's survey data on the smart home industry in the United States, the US smart home market has a capacity of US$9.712 billion in 2016, making it the largest country in the global smart home market. Only the big companies we know are Amazon Echo, a small speaker developed by Amazon, and Google Home, the intelligent voice control system of Google. But both are voice-based human-computer interaction devices or services, which are part of the huge smart furniture products in the United States.

In Aaron's view, as market share increased, there were no market leaders. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to the development of the US smart home market is that the product itself is too fragmented. Consumers need a variety of connected devices and applications to build a smart home network. The typical phenomenon is that you need to control a lot of apps in your phone, which is exactly what Aaron wants to solve.

What are the advantages and special features of Brilliant control?

Look at the product under the microscope

Calling a child to get up

When the agent first saw the product, it was not attracted by the function, but the appearance (the small detective really controls... please compare the previous figure).

Play products under the direction of Aaron

As can be seen from the above figure, the basic functions of this single switch controller include: adjusting the lighting, indoor temperature, setting different scenes (such as sleep, at home, not at home, etc.), and communication (Intercom) function.

Notice the three holes and a piece of black rubber in the picture? That is the sensor and the camera.

With the built-in motion sensor, you can feel the movement of the human body. When a person enters a dark room, the light will automatically illuminate and the light will automatically turn off when leaving the room.

What is the use of the camera? It turns out that Brilliant control has a built-in microphone and camera that makes it a room-to-room video intercom system. If mom wants to wake up the children in the room from the kitchen in the morning? Of course there is no problem. If you don't want your parents to see the sleeping position, the child can slide the black rubber device to the camera.

As for the microphone function, it is precisely the inspiration that the team got from the suggestions for the product function requirements during the early seed user test. "The user hopes to speak and speak to it." Aaron tells Silicon Valley agents.

Connect multiple smart furniture

There was an Echo speaker in the secret agent, and it was decided to buy it for $180. But Aaron said that if you buy Brilliant control, you don't need to buy a small speaker at home. what? !

That's right, Brilliant control has built-in Amazon Echo's voice assistant technology. Facing the controller is like facing the little speaker, you can ask it "hey Alexa, how is the temperature today", "hey Alexa, help me order xx books." Even you can let Alexa help you call a car.

In this case, will Amazon be happy? Aaron told Silicon Valley Secret Agent (WeChat: SVS-007) that Amazon welcomes cooperation because it not only wants to sell a speaker, but hopes that Echo's voice technology will be used by more people and enter more families. Everyone may have only one Echo speaker at home, but Alexa can be used throughout the home with Brilliant control.

Today, Brilliant's partners also include multiple smart furniture brands to connect and control multiple smart furniture. Such as Philips smart bulbs, Sonos multi-room audio system, Nest thermostat, Ring video doorbell, Honeywell smart home system.

What should I do when there are more furniture and models to be controlled? Aaron said that he didn't want it to become a huge touch screen, so there was a multi-slide controller.

Aaron unpacks the controller for three slides

As shown above, the three slides in the light mode mean that the living room, kitchen, and dining room lights can be separately controlled. The finger can slide up and down on the corresponding three tracks to adjust the different brightness (small test is used many times when it is used, it is fun...) In addition, you can scroll to adjust the temperature of the Nest thermostat system, or control the Sonos to play music in different rooms. Volume, etc.

Aaron believes that as software systems are upgraded, it can have more and more features. Future products may even be considered for customization, such as using different gestures to control the touchpad.

Do not use mobile phones to control furniture at home

Aaron and Silicon Valley secret agents stressed that they do not exclude the use of mobile phones and APP to control the home. Currently, Brilliant also has an app to download. But when people are at home, using the APP is awkward, and people interact more directly with the house.

Brilliant control is being pre-sold, with prices ranging from $149, $199, $249 to $299. The shape is available in addition to white. There are 12 options available and are expected to be delivered in August this year. Yu Pingrong told the Silicon Valley secret agent that thanks to the team's many years of hardware and software technology reserves, rich product experience, and strong commercial execution, it has been advancing well in all aspects over the past year.

The price of smart home is higher for many ordinary people. Is the price of Brilliant control too high?

Aaron told Silicon Valley agents that current hardware costs are high, with the highest percentage being screens and microprocessors. Like most technology products, it is hoped that with the popularity of the industry, the price of smart homes is expected to drop in five years.

What are the similar products on the market? Secret agents found that touchpads like Wink Relay sold for $70 less than Brilliant, but lacked the microphone function to intercom between houses. Another brand, NuBryte, has similar functions, but only single- and double-button switches are available at a higher price of $249 and $259.

To explore, as a continuous entrepreneur, Aaron does not rely on popular crowdfunding websites to sell products, but to understand the needs of customers through their own websites and improve them. After burying the head for more than a year, the product is finally available. Aaron said that he is confident to be the leader of this industry and wish him well.

Silicon Valley Micro Interview

Silicon Valley Secret Agent: What is the current size of the smart home market?

Aaron: The smart home market is huge, and consumers may spend 20,000 to 200,000 on it, which is expensive. Although the current ratio is relatively small, doorbell systems like Nest, Sonos, Honeywell or Ring have entered millions of households. Smart homes, the tens of billions of markets, have not seen market leaders, but have different successes in different fields. Perhaps the reason is that the user interface that connects these products is lacking.

Silicon Valley Secret Agent: How do you see the performance of Apple, Amazon, Google and other three giants entering the smart home market?

Aaron: Amazon has been very successful after having Echo as a platform. The entire Echo system technology is great, with different system support and the ability to integrate different technologies. Alexa is probably the best e-commerce, intelligent voice control system.

Google's Google home and system are also closely followed, Google has tried different things in smart home, such as the acquisition of equipment company Nest, and Nest has announced its open source software Thread. The two are similar and are considered successful.

As for Siri, it is still limited because it can be used on iPhone, Apple, or Apple TV. If Apple wants to break through, it may require more effort on the channel. Apple has a homeKit, but it is more slowly accepted by consumers because it requires a special chip in the hardware, which undoubtedly increases the price of the device. Consumers don't pay much attention to homeKit, so most manufacturers don't have special hardware to adapt to homeKit. I hope they can make a difference in this regard, because this is not necessary.