Market Research and Development Trend Forecast of Smart Home Industry in China, 2015-2020

In 2011-2014, the growth rate of smart home in China has maintained over 30% for four years successfully, in which, in 2014, the market scale hit CNY 28.61 billion, up 39.36% over 2013.

At present, the independently-developed smart home system in China is becoming mature gradually with the strong competitiveness with overseas smart home system and products. In technical field, the gap between domestic and foreign smart home is not large. In the near future, China will popularize smart home networking system and products in the homes of ordinary residents all over country. Currently, many developers have considered the smart function and facilitates more or less in design stage of residence, and some high-grade residences have equipped with relatively complete smart home networking.

At present, as the extension industry of real estate industry and home industry, the smart home develops steadily with sound development momentum. Currently the high-end market in China is mainly occupied by Honeywell International, ABB, Schneider Electric, Merten GmbH & Co.,KG and Singapore Nico etc overseas brands. Generally, the high-end market brands have the integrated smart home system products with higher price and complete after-sale services, mainly applied in luxurious residence project. The middle-end market is mainly occupied by domestic well-known brands, such as Anjubao, Tianjin Ruilang, Shanghai Super, Bochuang S&T, Qingdao Haier, ShenZhen(China) SoBen Skysafe Hi-Tech Develepment CO.,Ltd, and Fujian Aurine Technology Co., Ltd etc, the market is relatively mature. Generally speaking, the middle-end market brands also have integrated smart home system products, mainly applied in middle, high-grade residences. While the low-end market is still in chaos, the product qualities are very different, seldom has complete set of system products.

At present, the smart home products in market have been abundant and smart home technologies are also changing with each passing day. However, after all, smart home is a new field without uniform industry standard, the poor compatibility and unstable operation commonly etc weaknesses exist in the products in markets. In respect of technology, RS-232/485 serial communication technology, power line carrier technology and radio frequency technique etc technical agreements of smart home are popular now. According to wiring modes, the smart home technologies in market can be classified into 4 kinds of technologies: field bus, power line carrier technology, wireless technology and centralized control.

Technical Category Related Contents

Field bus technology Field bus control system realizes the networking and signal transmission of home lighting, electric apparatus and alarming system through system bus, the decentralized field control technologies can controls each functional module in network only by inserting into bus nearby, and the wiring is also convenient.

At present, LonWorks, CE?BUS, CAN and H?BUS mainly adopt bus technology. the oversea enterprises, such as HONEYWELL, etc have such products, the domestic enterprises, such as?Shenzhen WRT Intelligent Electrical Appliance Co., Ltd, Hisense Kelon Electrical Holdings Company Ltd, Tsinghua Tonghua and Haier also develop similar products. the smart home systems based on this technology take large market shares in China.

Power line carrier technology Power line carrier technology uses power line as transmission media of carrier signal. At present, the most popular power line carrier technology is X10, IBM, CISCO, Siemens, Samsung, Microsoft, Sony and Panasonic, etc well-known enterprises entered into this industry at very early. In China, Super smart home system and ShanDong Zhong Xun High-Tech Electronic Co.,Ltd have introduced PLC-BUS technology.

Wireless technology Wireless technology mainly includes 802.11b?Bluetooth and Home RF. The smart home systems basing on Bluetooth technology used in China include Soben wireless smart home system and M.U.S.T(Macau University of Science and Technology) smart home system. the smart home system basing on wireless technology has the advantages of wiring-free and convenient installation, but the cost is higher and is subject to disturbance easily, so it has not been used widely yet in market.

Centralized control technology The smart home system adopted the decentralized control mode is mainly structured by the system host taking single chip microcomputer as core, CPU is responsible for the signal processing of system, some peripheral interface units are integrated on system main board, including: security alarm system, telephone module, control circuit (I/O) module etc. such products adopt Star-type wiring modes, all security alarm probes, lighting and apparatus control circuit have connected into main control box. Compared with the traditional indoor wiring, the wiring length is added and more complicated.

• Technologies used Function Stability extensibility Wiring


• Field bus Comprehensive Good Good Convenient


• Power line carrier Comprehensive Moderate Good Free


• Wireless Restrictive Moderate Good Free


• Centralized control Comprehensive Good Poor Complicated

At present, the problems existing smart home industry mainly include three aspects: first, smart home industry has not unified the industrial standard, many of middle and small enterprises go their own ways and their products are not compatible mutually; second, because the technicians have not conducted deep market research, the developed products are advanced in respect of technology, but poor in respect of practicability, and out of joint with market demand; third, technically, large-amount of funds are needed for R&D, some middle and small enterprises have no power to innovate constantly, and even harder to form scale production, so product price is always high. In smart home field, the industry leader with powerful technical strength, openness and marketability is needed urgently. Smart home is only one of application orientations of internet of things and it still need to combine with internet to realize the real life of internet of things.