Not to mention Gree, even Chen Zifan is not very clear about the progress of Midea's smart home. Of course, this is just because he does not pay attention to this aspect. If he pays attention, he will definitely know Midea's next actions in advance.
But other companies are different. They do not have such in-depth cooperation with Midea, and they rely entirely on the supply chain to obtain information about competitors. However, this time it was too sudden, and Midea's smart home seemed to appear out of thin air.
I have to say that they did a really good job of keeping secrets, but after Chen Zifan carefully studied it, he discovered that Midea did not deliberately keep it secret, but used another method that could achieve the same effect:
"Reduce the sense of presence"!
It is to first reduce the presence of its own smart home research and development, so that everyone will mistakenly think that it is just a propaganda "cover", and then hire a large number of trolls to distort the facts and guide public opinion to the "sales war".
For example, take out the product list of a certain category and compare it with the products of competitors, and use the victory of single product sales to promote and flaunt your own success.
And why would Gree, who was at his peak, care about Midea's lame methods? Even many consumers regard Midea as a joke, but these are all pretended by Midea to suppress a big move.
Things developed as they expected. Even if a little bit of smart home news is occasionally revealed, it will not attract widespread attention. Stardust Technology has been creating the focus of public opinion, which is another layer of barrier.
After going through the operation step by step, Chen Zifan was dumbfounded. No wonder Midea was able to defeat Gree and successfully take the top position. It was not that their products were really much better than Gree, but that the development strategy they chose was very fierce.
According to his understanding of Midea, the quality and workmanship of some of Midea's small home appliances cannot be called excellent, but overall there is nothing wrong with them, and the price is tens or hundreds of dollars cheaper than competing products. It's that simple.
But things are different now. With the popularity of smartphones, its connection with Stardust OS, and overwhelming advertising, Midea has almost monopolized all small and large home appliances before the Spring Festival.
Especially for Gree, the sales of many of its electrical appliances collapsed. Ms. Dong was so angry that she couldn't sleep for several days. She held a high-level meeting overnight to discuss countermeasures. She had no choice but to join in if she lost the lead.
However, after studying Midea's new smart home products, Ms. Dong believed that Midea's products were just superficial, while Gree's products were better than them.
Regarding the question of whether to build a smart home, Ms. Dong intercepted it on her own and expressed a completely different opinion:
"Our products do not need to cooperate with those smartphone manufacturers. Refrigerators, air conditioners, water heaters... no matter what kind of product it is, practicality is the most important."
Having said that, but...
Without gimmicks, what would happen to product sales?
Everyone is buying smart homes. Don’t talk about practicality or not, the functions are in place! For example, through the Midea APP, you can see the remaining water volume and temperature in the water heater, and you can also set the heat preservation time.
Another example is Midea's smart washing machine. After installation, you only need to throw the clothes in, close the lid, and set the mode, water level, and time directly from the mobile APP. There will also be a special beep when the washing is completed.
No laundry detergent?
There is a special box for storing laundry detergent. You can see how much laundry detergent is left on your mobile phone and display it as a percentage. You only need to add it regularly, which is truly one-click laundry.
Even if there is a fault inside the washing machine, an error will be reported. It is easier to make an appointment for after-sales service. You can make an appointment from the mobile APP. At that time, dedicated after-sales personnel will come to repair the machine.
Of course, there is a charge for door-to-door repairs, except during the warranty period. If you are worried about damage, you can purchase some insurance in advance when purchasing the product.
But this kind of home appliance product with a long service life will not break down under normal circumstances, unless you encounter the situation where you buy a washing machine to wash sweet potatoes. It is normal for it to break down. Even if it happens, can it be repaired?
The most important thing is that the price of such an awesome product is not much higher than Midea's previous products, and it is still in the same price range as products of competitors such as Gree.
, so he went crazy.
Even if smart homes are currently limited to relatively high price ranges, like a 100-yuan washing machine that you can’t afford, it doesn’t matter. If you can’t afford a complete set of smart homes, you can’t even afford one of these products?
How about a few more packages to take home to the head office?
In what age are you still using hot water kettles? Can't you get an electric kettle? It only costs a few dozen yuan. Just add water, press the button, and it will boil in a few minutes. Isn't this more convenient than filling a kettle?
Isn’t this the charm of technological development?
Some people may say that many so-called electrical appliances do not have high technological content...but they have indeed changed people's lives. Even if they do not have high technological content, they are still technological products, and they are more convenient and safer than before.
Except for products from some unscrupulous manufacturers...
As the saying goes, success or failure, Midea's product promotion this time is more fierce than ever. Either it will directly ride on the wave of "intelligentization" to reach new heights, or it will lose a lot of money and continue to survive.
In fact, the products they launch have lower profits than before in order to seize the market, but the success or failure depends on this. They give up part of the profits, hold down the price, and gradually increase the overall profits after establishing a foothold in the market.
While Midea was killing everyone, many companies also discovered something: Midea’s APP was also developed by Stardust Network, which means... they can also ask Stardust Network to develop APPs! As long as the funds are in place~
But not every company can afford this money. Who doesn’t know that the APP developed by Stardust Network is beautiful, simple, smooth, highly adaptable, and includes post-maintenance, but Stardust Network’s quotation is also high!
Many people don’t know why Stardust 3+ is so smooth, and why the practical experience of Changhe 3 is much better than that of Dimensity 300. Whether it is chip performance issues, it is also related to chip structure and APP.
Among current Stardust applications, 80% are made of web pages. Opening web pages requires relatively high single-core performance. Opening multiple web pages at the same time requires many high-performance single cores.
The three-core structure of the Changhe 3 chip happens to be three cores with the same frequency and size. This is one of the reasons why the background limit of Stardust 3+ is often limited to three. If there are more, the number of cores will not be enough.
The APP developed by Stardust Network is equivalent to the native application of Stardust OS. The adaptability is...that is, the original one. The power consumption and performance requirements are also ridiculously low, so it is not limited by the number of chip cores.
To sum up, if you use the Stardust app, it doesn’t matter if you open any of them. If you use the web-encased app, the background will be automatically cleaned frequently. The experience between the two is very different during use.
Chen Zifan also took a look at some of Midea's product advertisements. Well...how to put it, in the words of netizens: it smelled like Stardust Technology advertisements, so he called to ask about the situation.
The answer given by Wang Jinli was also very simple: "Oh! Their person in charge came here specially last time and said that he wanted to learn the shooting mode of advertising. The price was quite high, so I introduced a few people there."
"Okay, I get it."
It’s not a bad thing, but if everyone is the same, there will be no distinctiveness, so Stardust Technology will have to make more innovative advertisements in the future.
Chen Zifan originally thought that Midea's smart home would be the last hot spot before the Spring Festival. However, it was not over yet. Fengying Motorcycles, which had been waiting for a long time, officially announced their second electric motorcycle: Tianqi.
This is the second electric imitation car after Fengying-War. The overall specifications are one level higher than Fengying-War. It is also equipped with the same high-power fast charger as the new energy vehicle, and the charging speed is very fast.
According to Chen Zifan's understanding, if the charging time of a new energy vehicle or new energy motorcycle from 0 to 100% exceeds 30 minutes, the competitiveness will be much worse, and even a full charge in one hour will not be enough.
In his impression, some new energy vehicles cannot be fully charged in an hour due to battery, power and other problems. However, when promoting their new energy vehicles, major automobile manufacturers advertise how much their new energy vehicles can be charged in 0.5 or 0.6 hours.
In fact, it is charging from 20% to 80% at maximum power.
Or just charge from 30% to 80%. The actual charging time is much longer. Compared with fuel vehicles, it saves money, but how to calculate the time cost?
Some consumers have very high demands on their cars and have to spend at least an hour charging every two days on average, which is simply too torture.
But if the charging time can be reduced to less than 30 minutes and truly charge from 0 to 100%, then the use experience will be much better. If it can be paired with fast air charging, solar charging, etc.
Then the ones that should suffer are fuel vehicles, so Chen Zifan has been trying to find ways to improve the charging power of new energy vehicles. Traditional lithium batteries cannot be charged and discharged. It doesn't matter. He also has sodium-lithium battery technology.
If the new battery technology is really going to be applied, the first one to be used will be Xinghan 001. The remaining products will have to wait, including Xinghan 009, not to mention Fengying Motorcycles, which are still far behind in technology.
Fengying-Tianqian's main market this time is still Haicheng. There is no other way, but Haicheng's new energy industry is developed, the road conditions are good, and the management of electric bicycles and electric motorcycles is in place.
These are things that other cities do not have. Some netizens who do not understand often criticize motorcycles on the Internet, saying that motorcycles are a sunset industry. Are they really a sunset industry?
Motorcycles are a sunset industry, so are cars even more of a sunset industry? Besides, if the sunset is not sunset, what does it have to do with Xinghan 009? It's an electric motorcycle! Do you understand what electric products are?
There are so many non-compliant electric motorcycles on the market. The sales volume is so high every year, but they haven’t seen the sunset yet?
Even traditional fuel motorcycles have experienced a wave of recovery since 2018. There is no choice but to drive in traffic jams and battery-powered motorcycles cannot meet the demand for long battery life, so they can only choose products like motorcycles.
Cost is also an issue. Chen Zifan believes that aside from a few enthusiasts, most people will definitely choose a car if they have money, but how high is the cost of using a car? Have you calculated it carefully?
Wind Shadow-War, Wind Shadow-Tianqian, or Xinghan 009, they are essentially upgraded high-end models of electric bicycles, but due to the characteristics of the products themselves, they can only be classified as motor vehicles.
The main reason why motorcycles are banned in various places is not because motorcycles are unsafe and prone to accidents, but because motorcycles are difficult to control and have no choice in the face of oil resources, so motorcycles can only be abandoned.
If China were filled with oil, not to mention that there would be no ban on motorcycles, even new energy vehicles would not be able to develop at all. Not many people would buy products like Xinghan Ni and Polestar X, and they would be criticized.
In short, the specific situation is this. Is the ban on motorcycles really because they are unsafe? It's just a cover. Some cities ban motorcycles to facilitate control, and some cities ban motorcycles for the sake of the city's image.
Some cities do not prohibit motorcycles at all, such as mountain cities, while Haicheng prohibits motorcycles and fuel-powered motorcycles because they want to destroy the old transportation industry first and shape new rules based on new energy.
The purposes are different, and the choices are naturally different. The issue of traffic accidents has always been a hot issue, but in the final analysis, transportation is just transportation, and it depends on how the user uses it.
Those who pursue speed and passion on the road can only harm others and themselves. It just so happens that Haicheng officials are very concerned about popularizing traffic knowledge, which has directly contributed to the new situation in Haicheng that almost everyone has a driver's license.
Learning those rigid operations is not the point. The point is to enable everyone to learn traffic laws.
As soon as Fengying-Tianqian was exposed, it attracted a wave of popularity, and incidentally also brought back many people's memories of Xinghan 009. There was no way, or because of poverty, the price of Xinghan 009 was really attractive for less than 40,000.
There are no problems with the configuration in all aspects. The cruising range is 400k, and it can run much longer than the Xinghan ni. The disadvantage may be that it is exposed to wind, sun and rain, and it does not have air-conditioning speakers, so it is not as comfortable as the Xinghan ni.
For young people, imitating racing models like Fengying-Tianqian will be more lethal, but Xinghan 009 has brand support. How to choose... It depends on the price and configuration of the two products next year.
.
Seeing that major companies were launching heavy attacks, Zhao Wushang couldn't sit still anymore and approached Chen Zifan:
"Director Chen, our new product?"
"It's okay. Wait a minute. When the Spring Festival heat is over, I will arrange for the Stardust Marketing Department to start exposing it step by step. We have to let us and consumers have a good New Year first, right? And you, you should also have a good rest first. "
"Hey~ I'm not tired!"
"No, I think you are tired. Look at what the staff cadres gave you. Others gave Wang Jinli purple clay pots, antique walnuts, and famous cigarettes and wines. But what about you? They are all ginseng, deer antler, and tonic pills!"
"…I do not need."
"real?"
"..."
Zhao Wushang was speechless on the spot.
After sending Zhao Wushang away, Chen Zifan suddenly realized a problem: "That's wrong! Why doesn't anyone give me something? Also, we are a pure technology company! The culture of giving gifts is not allowed~"
