For entrepreneurs cutting into the smartwatch industry, the Chinese market, where industry giants are generally absent, may not be as easy as they think. But with the advent of third parties offering smartwatch operating systems, a unique ecosystem is being built.
On June 16, Yingxiao Technology CEO Wang Xiaobin announced the launch of the new smart watch product inWatchT. Similar to the Apple Apple Watch, the products are divided into standard, sports and designer versions depending on the design and use. After several years of difficult growth, Wang Xiaobin thought very thoroughly about the development of Yingzi Technology. “We have two product line directions, one that solves our products is more perfect, and another full-featured smart direction.†He told Tencent Technology, “We have been making big moves and plan to launch a product in 8 months. At the same time as the release of new products, Wang Xiaobin said that he has given up a lot of investment in the operating system since the first half of 2014, and this time the new product adopts TencentOS launched by Tencent ( The "TOS" operating system is referred to below, rather than the operating system developed by itself in the early days.
On the basis of Android4.3, custom-made GEAK Watch OS shell electronics, and now its CEO Gu Xiaobin's thinking is changing. He told Tencent Technology, "The launch of Baidu Duwear and Tencent TOS is two good news, because any small vendor can't build its own system." Baidu and Tencent can provide operating system, background services, and the entire software ecosystem. The system, Gu Xiaobin said, "We are also preparing new products, but it is estimated that it will be later."
Another entrepreneurial team, Turman, who cut into smart watches earlier, was not so lucky. In 2013, only one design drawing could be virally spread on social networks and gained millions of crowdfunding, but it failed to ship in anticipation, making many subscribers jealous, complaining and even angry. At the time of the first appointment of the second generation of products in 2015, market attention has shifted. In fact, in addition to a few still concerned, the domestic smart watch market in 2015 was indifferent. Some people say that in the end, it is still a problem of software and hardware integration and ecosystem establishment, which is difficult for general startups to solve. It is also said that this market is still in the early stage, and the emergence of domestic third-party operating systems (based on Android modifications) will greatly stimulate the development of the market.
Manufacturer's choice
"As a startup company in the context of Google (microblogging) is increasingly closed for wearable devices, the development of operating systems alone is of little significance." Wang Xiaobin told Tencent Technology. Before learning that Tencent was going to be a TOS, In the first half of 2014, Image Technology had reduced its investment in operating systems, especially the Chinese version.
In Wang Xiaobin's view, it is difficult to promote the development of domestic smart watches by a few small entrepreneurs, and the input-output ratio of building an ecosystem is not cost-effective, and it is too difficult. In fact, the development ideas of early smart watch manufacturers are similar to those of mobile phone manufacturers. They claim to have their own set of "operating systems", and these so-called operating systems only add a desktop launcher based on Android. However, in order to reduce the time and financial resources invested in software, Gu Xiaobin believes that most manufacturers will choose to cooperate with third parties such as Baidu and Tencent.
For the cooperation with Tencent, Wang Xiaobin said that the social system-based account system will make the ecology simple. Choose to build your own, or cooperate with other market participants, the account system is difficult to be compatible, and the workload of API docking is also very large. Not only that, Wang Xiaobin also said that this time the choice of TOS is because its smart watch hopes to achieve the ultimate in the most simple functions that users want most, including WeChat, qq reminder and reply; use QQ object for simple operation; The bottom layer is connected with the drip taxi and the navigational and horizontal ecological layer. "The whole domestic smart watch market is immature. This market does not exist yet and we need to open up this market."
Wenbo, head of Tencent's TOS, said in an interview with the media that it will continue to launch TOS-based products in cooperation with other vendors this year. In response, some sources said that it includes mobile phone manufacturers such as ZTE.
The rise of third parties
Foreign media quoted Yang Yong, the person in charge of Huawei's wearable products, to confirm that its first smart watch will be delayed in China. For reasons, he said, "Google's Android Wear has encountered some problems in China," but he did not elaborate further.
Insiders pointed out that Android Wear integrates a lot of Google apps, making it look more closed than Android itself. Chinese smart watch manufacturers need localized solutions to smoothly promote the user experience and market sales of products, which has become one of the important reasons for the rise of third-party operating systems.
At present, there are two main types of third-party operating systems in China: one is the Internet giant represented by Tencent and Baidu, they often have a large amount of user resources and the corresponding ecosystem; the other is accompanied by smart watches. The operating system modified by the manufacturer, they are similar to MIUI, FLyme, etc.
Wenbo said that TOS is based on the latest Android system development, optimized, and cooperation with the chip platform. Due to the avoidance of legal risks, it did not choose some solutions based on Android Wear for decompilation.
However, for those small players, the market currently has room. Just went into the smart watch market and asked his co-founder Li Yuanyuan to introduce Tencent Technology's operating system TIcwear, which was released in December 2014. Before supporting its recently launched smart watch TIcwatch, TIcwear provided the brushing business for users who purchased other smart watch manufacturers. Li Yuanyuan said that the operating system has accumulated more than 30,000 users.
The development direction of OS
For the user, the functions provided by smart watches are still lacking in stickiness. Gu Xiaobin said that health function is one of the core functions of smart watches at present, and it is one of the reasons that users can wear for a long time. In his view, with better materials and processes that make smart watches feel like the most basic watches, manufacturers should try to use more and more sensors to get more data through their wrists. It can be seen that TOS is building a more complete ecosystem. On the one hand, its system platform has been adapted to WeChat and QQ, which makes the strong social relationship of Tencent account system more convenient for users to share sports and entertainment content, which helps to enhance user experience and stickiness.
On the other hand, TOS works with third-party mainstream applications in the industry to improve services. At present, there are 12 mainstream applications such as Drip, Tengmi, Douban FM, and Clove Doctor, which support the TOS system, covering life, entertainment, transportation and health.
Wenbo said that in the future, smart watches equipped with TOS will also support in-depth services such as smart home, mobile payment and identity authentication. Taking the cooperation with the ink weather as an example, Wang Xiaobin explained to Tencent that it needs the lowest level of cooperation, and such a startup company is difficult to do. Through Tencent's ecosystem, the application link can be done well.
As for Baidu Duwear, it is similar to TOS and integrates Baidu maps, Baidu wallets and mobile assistants.
Another judgement is that third-party operating systems will drive a large number of smartwatch app stores. Gu Xiaobin explained that the reason is the determination of the size of the screen, as well as the popularity and compatibility. However, due to the performance limitations of smart watches, there is a vendor-supplied app store that offers a specific version of the app. To put it simply, some normal applications are "reformed" for smart watches. Most of the calculations are done on the mobile phone side, and the watch side only provides applications that support simple functions such as push.
Li Yuanyuan pointed out another bottleneck in development, namely how to input more smoothly on the small dial. She believes that smart watches can become full interactive devices through voice, touch, scratch, shake, etc. This is one of the development directions of the operating system.
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