Without the ecological Internet of Things, how to gather sand into a tower?
Internet of Things
The Internet of Things has been developing for many years, and the big ecology and interconnection have been shouted for many years. Has it really succeeded? It seems not. Under this circumstance, many new opportunities have appeared in the Internet of Things, and new problems will still be faced. The new and old problems are superimposed, and the appeal for ecological construction is even more urgent.
By 2021, the China IoT Conference of E-enthusiasts.com has been held to the eighth. This year's theme is "Building an Ecosystem for Common Development". In the roundtable forum held at the same time as the IoT conference on December 10th, I was fortunate to be the host of the roundtable forum with Zheng Chunhui, executive deputy general manager of Weirong Technology Marketing Center, Jessica Zhou, senior manager of Qorvo UWB business department, RT-Thread ecological operation Director Chen Feng, and U-Blox South China Technical Manager Meng Peixin and other guests together focused on the theme of "breaking the ecological margin of the Internet of Things, where are the new opportunities for the value chain?" In-depth exchanges and sharing were conducted on many topics such as automobiles.
The 2021 epidemic changed the Internet of Things
The superposition of the epidemic and the shortage of goods has caused some changes in the development direction of the Internet of Things. Weirong Technology Zheng Chunhui said that in the second half of the year, affected by the actual shipments of ICs, we see that the growth of the Internet of Things field is weaker than that in the first half of the year. However, high-speed IoT modules and Internet of Things products have evolved from just linking to data and computing. At the same time, the Internet of Things connection of smart homes and smart buildings has increased, and the trend of data clouding, etc., the volume of these high-end products is increasing. Therefore, while the Internet of Things is driving growth, it is also moving towards high-quality development.
Since Apple iPhone11 is equipped with UWB chip for distance measurement and positioning, more and more manufacturers have joined the ranks. Jessica Zhou, senior manager of Qorvo UWB Division, looks at the development of the Internet of Things from the UWB subdivision. She said that UWB is used for precise positioning, which is equivalent to the perception layer of the last meter or so of the Internet of Things. It makes the connection between objects and devices more precise and more detailed data collection. This market will be very large in the future. It is not only used in the consumer market, but also in industries, smart homes and other fields. For example, coal mine tunnels require more precise location information to ensure the safety of people and assets.
The shortage of MCUs also affects the development direction of the Internet of Things. Chen Feng, the director of RT-Thread Ecological Operations, said that the rise of domestic MCUs under the situation of MCU shortages is very clear. Maybe some domestic MCUs that were not well-known before also have engineers. Choose Import. MCU is inseparable for the Internet of Things, and there will be more and more chips for MCU+Bluetooth and WiFi. In addition, the scenes of voice interaction and interface interaction, such as smart bracelets and smart watches in the wearable market, have increased in scale in the past one or two years. Domestic shipments of smart watches have exceeded 100 million. In the past, smart watches needed a SoC plus Android system, but now MCU plus RTT, the MCU supports APP, install calculators, maps, and soon will support the installation of WeChat. There is also the need for MCU to be applied to edge AI.
The epidemic has changed the way people interact. Meng Peixin, technical manager of U-Blox South China, believes that non-contact, remote state perception and control technology are more important. The entire Internet of Things market has moved from a recovery affected by the epidemic to a growth process.
Relying on giant companies to build an ecosystem?
This year, we saw Arm build the entire ecological platform for IoT software and hardware, including cloud native. RISC-V accelerates the development of IP and high-performance computing. At the operating system level, Hongmeng, RT-Thread, etc. penetrate into multiple fields .
When it comes to building an ecosystem, we usually think that it should be led by giants, which in itself is a mature and easy-to-success model. However, what do manufacturers in different links of the industrial chain think about building an ecosystem?
Meng Peixin believes that in the ecological links of the entire industrial chain, the voice of the leading equipment vendors and integrators is more important, and it will be an important reference for our other manufacturers to participate in the entire market. U-Blox provides IoT chips, modules and solutions to help the construction of the entire ecosystem.
As a provider of IoT operating systems, RT-Thread attaches great importance to the developer ecology. Chen Feng believes that there are many aspects to the IoT ecosystem. Our experience in the developer ecosystem is whether this ecosystem is friendly enough for users. In the past, there was a saying in the software industry: whether this software is good or not depends on whether an engineer can run it in 10 minutes. This is a measure. On the other hand, on the chip side, do engineers have enough information to refer to and research after getting the chip? In the past, many domestic chip manufacturers did not pay much attention to ecology, but now they are paying more and more attention to this matter. In terms of talents, if the company can more easily recruit relevant talents in such an ecosystem, it also shows that this ecosystem is valuable.
Chen Feng also believes that in an ecosystem, it is not that there is a company that can take the lead, but the upstream and downstream reach a consensus and work together to promote the ecosystem. Everyone works together and all contribute their own strength, and the ecosystem can become bigger.
Jessica Zhou believes that, especially like UWB positioning chips, different objects need to interact with each other, and this kind of application particularly needs ecology. Of course, the first is the advancement of leading manufacturers. For example, Apple can drive the entire industry chain. What chip manufacturers can do is to participate in the international and domestic technology and ecological alliances to jointly formulate technical and ecological standards, so that more manufacturers can join the ecological alliance, contribute to the spark of wisdom, and use innovative ideas to expand this ecosystem. . In addition, Qorvo has also worked with Google, Apple, etc. to do some interconnected design, modular design and reference design on the hardware, and also provide software packages for engineers to carry out R&D and design.
Compared with the development of smart phones to a relatively mature stage in terms of technical functions and user experience, Zheng Chunhui calls for the experience of smart wearable devices and the richness of IoT application scenarios to be improved. Especially with the Internet of Things, how to break the barriers of each system at present, this is also happy to see as a supplier of Internet of Things devices.
What happened to the interconnection of ten years?
Zheng Chunhui further believes that from the perspective of user experience, even if the home appliances are all intelligent, there is a problem of how the home appliances are interconnected before. If you use different APPs to control different home appliances, obviously the convenience is not enough and the user experience is not good enough. . But at present, there is no good interconnection ecology among various home appliance manufacturers. Similarly, Jessica also believes that by breaking ecological barriers and superimposing ecological effects, ecological talents will become bigger and bigger.
Chen Feng believes that the reality is still very difficult because the Internet has not been connected for so many years. However, similar to the WeChat applet, users can control home appliances through different applets without installing multiple APPs, which is relatively more convenient and operability. Technically, there is no problem with interconnection and interoperability, but there are many other problems in it that will take a long time to resolve.
To interconnect and communicate, common protocol standards are indispensable. Meng Peixin believes that interconnection based on common protocol standards will be a sign of the maturity of the Internet of Things. Nowadays, whether mobile phones, computers or other Internet of Things devices will set foot on the information highway, only people and things, things and things will be connected. , In order to further pull the animal network forward.
Look at smart wearables, smart homes, cars, and meta universe in 2022
As for which IoT markets the industry is optimistic about next year, Zheng Chunhui has a greater opportunity for peripherals related to smart phones. First of all, TWS headsets have already started, the smart wearable market will also be larger, and there will also be smart homes. These applications will have a huge demand for ultra-micro MLCC, and WeChat products have been applied to many first-line brands, and we are optimistic about the Internet of Things market next year. At the same time, I hope that IC supply-side problems will be better solved next year, so that the entire supply chain, including MLCC manufacturers, will be more stable.
Jessica is very optimistic about the UWB market driven by Apple. She believes that next year will be the year of UWB outbreak. Hope that easy-to-use hardware technology, coupled with a strong interconnection ecosystem, and open interconnection standards will make the market bigger and bigger.
Chen Feng said that in addition to smart wear, there are opportunities in the automotive market. Now many car manufacturers and IoT manufacturers are interacting and will do more projects in the Internet of Vehicles. RT-Thread is also committed to building a global OS, which is used and recognized by developers at home and abroad.
Meng Peixin also believes that in-vehicles are a big market for the Internet of Things. U-Blox itself covers three product lines: satellite positioning, short-range communications and wide-area interconnection. In terms of in-vehicles, U-Blox has found that through customizing the needs of different in-vehicle customers There are many new opportunities under the entire Internet of Things concept.
Meta Universe is a hot topic this year, and the Internet of Things must be its most important supporting technology. Guests said that the Internet of Things should support Meta Universe from connectivity, precise positioning and security. At the same time, Meta Universe’s representative device AR\VR Whether the immersive experience is good enough and whether Metaverse devices are also facing the problem of interconnection and interoperability are also in front of everyone. In other words, the "hard bones" of the interconnection and interoperability of the Internet of Things has to be gnawed down.
