In recent years, smart home appliances have become increasingly popular among consumers, with sales data reaching new highs.
In the AI era, the popularity of smart home appliances stems from people’s hope that smart home appliances can reduce or even liberate housework and improve the quality of life. On the other hand, it also benefits from the rapid development of AI technology and the vigorous marketing of various merchant brands, which makes people subconsciously believe that smart home appliances have reached a very intelligent level.
However, the reality is not satisfactory.
Many consumers have reported that smart home appliances have problems such as discrepancies between actual experience and publicity.
Not long ago, a survey report on the consumption of smart home appliances released by the Jiangsu Provincial Consumer Rights Protection Committee showed that although some products have novel and eye-catching designs, their functional practicability is insufficient, and the intelligent experience they bring to consumers needs to be improved.
From the actual situation, there is a clear gap between the experience of many consumers and the intelligent scenarios depicted by merchants in marketing.
Some products labeled as intelligent are actually “pseudo-intelligent”. Problems include exaggerated functions, poor experience, and incompatibility with devices.
For example, software stability problems are particularly prominent in categories such as sweeping robots, smart door locks, and smart speakers.
Smart speakers may start suddenly, smart door locks may not be able to recognize passwords, and sweeping robots may have disordered map construction and abnormal function execution.
In addition, different brands usually need to be equipped with independent mobile clients and cannot communicate with each other, which brings great inconvenience to users’ actual operations.
Overall, there is still a big gap that needs to be filled between the current “intelligent” level of smart homes and consumers’ expectations.
However, judging from the laws of industrial development, this situation is normal.
Any industry needs to go through a process of gradual improvement, which is not only related to technological maturity, but also includes integration with user needs, improvement of relevant standards, etc.
The smart home industry is still in its infancy, with low barriers to entry and uneven delivery quality and intelligence levels among brands. In the early days, many brands were obsessed with building their own ecological platforms.
But when the industry enters a relatively mature stage and the reshuffle speeds up, these problems are expected to be better solved.
It is worth mentioning that in November 2025, the State Administration for Market Regulation (National Standards Administration) approved the release of two national standards for smart home appliances, which will be officially implemented on May 1, 2026.
These two national standards clearly define smart home appliances from the two key dimensions of “intelligent capabilities” and “scenario effects”. They not only establish norms for corporate R&D and production, but also make product selection more transparent for consumers.
For example, for the first time, five levels of intelligence have been defined for smart homes, from L1 basic intelligence to L5 high-end intelligence, allowing consumers to have clearer expectations for the intelligence level of products.
At the same time, the new standard also delineates typical application scenarios of nine categories of smart home appliances for the first time, providing a clear framework for companies in product research and development and ecological interconnection.
The improvement of the standard system means higher requirements for all smart home manufacturers.
In innovation, enterprises should focus on user needs to the greatest extent, with fewer flashy “gimmicks”, and truly focus on solving users’ actual “pain points” and improving “product power.”
At the same time, companies should also focus more on R&D and innovation instead of over-reliance on marketing.
After all, the companies that ultimately win the market will always be those companies that focus on product quality and user experience.
