PCB News - Samsung Electronics shifts its focus from smartphones to smart homes. New opportunities in the PCB industry

At present, many PCB manufacturers are thinking about the next hot application industry in the circuit board industry. According to South Korea’s "Joongang Daily" report on August 27, "The changes in the next 10 years will be greater than the changes in the past 50 years." This is the first time Microsoft put forward the concept of "smart home (then called digital home)" in 1999. Founder Bill Gates (59 years old) wrote in his book "Future Speed". Gates used the home automation (HA) technology of his own house in Seattle as an example. He described that "in the future, all homes will have this kind of server, computers and other home appliances can automatically communicate with each other, and any place in the home can be connected to the Internet."

In 2014, 15 years later, the global IT industry has regarded smart homes as the main product of the "next 10 years". Industry observations believe that smart homes will be popularized within 3 years at the fastest and 10 years later. According to the market research agency "Strategy Analytics", the global smart home market will increase from 49 trillion won this year to 114 trillion won five years later, with an average annual growth rate of about 20%.

Therefore, electronic companies such as Apple and General Electric, as well as a handful of information technology (IT) giants such as Google, Qualcomm, and Intel, are launching fierce competition for dominance around the issue of formulating international standards for smart homes. Under this circumstance, Samsung Electronics has been evaluated for its first-class technical capabilities in the field of smart homes, and it has walked in the forefront of the world. And this is also providing a new silk road for future market development for many circuit board manufacturers represented by Shenzhen Circuit Board Factory.

Samsung recently spent US$200 million to acquire "Smart Things", a US venture company that develops a smart home platform. In addition, at the European home appliance exhibition "IFA 2014" held in Berlin, Germany in September, Samsung Electronics will also launch an active publicity campaign for consumers around the world, using this exhibition as a "general meeting place" to promote Samsung's cutting-edge smart home technology. To this end, Samsung plans to publish on IFA four new technologies related to location recognition, unmanned alarm services, energy monitoring, and voice control technology equal to smart home.

It is particularly noteworthy that the major feature of Samsung's new technology disclosed this time is that the object (electronic device) can first respond to the owner and automatically act according to the owner's preferences. For example, when the owner is almost at home after get off work, the indoor lighting will be automatically turned on even if no order is given, the cleaning robot will automatically stop cleaning, the air conditioner will automatically start according to the situation, and everything in the room will automatically be ready to welcome you The master prepares to go home. The smart home service announced by Samsung in January of this year requires the electronic devices in the home to respond after the owner issues an order. In contrast, the new technology is obviously a step forward. Moreover, in the previous technology, users need to say "good night" before the indoor lights go out. In addition, new technologies have greatly expanded the linkage between smart phones, wearable devices and smart homes.

A person from Samsung Electronics stated that "using the voice control service on the smart watch "Gear series" and the smart phone "Galaxy series" can activate the home air conditioner, cleaning robot, lighting and other equipment at any time."

In the field of operating systems (OS) that drive smart homes, Samsung is actively building related platforms with an "open ecosystem" as the center. At present, Samsung is investing about 1,000 people to develop its own operating system Tizen, and the acquisition of "Smart Things" that supports more than 8,000 applications is also for the same purpose. A related person in the IT industry said that “the smart phone market will eventually evolve from terminal competition to operating system competition, and the smart home market will ultimately depend on the competitiveness of the operating platform.” “I look forward to Samsung’s acquisition of “Smart Things”. To create a comprehensive effect".