"In the past, you could turn on the TV and watch the program directly, but now the two remote controls are swapped back and forth and I don't know how to operate." Grandma Li told the Beijing Business Daily reporter. Presumably, this is also the voice of many elderly users. With the advent of the intelligent era, traditional household appliances have become smart home appliances, but for the elderly, the complex operation process not only does not bring them any convenience, but also loses a lot of the joy of life.
In this context, some elderly home appliances came into being, such as the elderly TV, but in the function of simple and rude "one size fits all", directly drawing a gap between the elderly and intelligence. Industry insiders suggest that manufacturers should avoid entering the "one-size-fits-all" or superficial misunderstanding when designing home appliances for the elderly, and focus on the practicality of the lifestyle, knowledge structure and objective needs of the elderly.
Hands free or kidnapped hands
Mr. Shi recently prepared to buy a TV for his family, but he was confused in front of various color TVs, but he was not entangled in whether to choose lcd screen or OLED screen, but smart and non-intelligent.
"I live with my parents, usually like to watch movies on video sites, parents like to watch news and TV series, originally buy a smart TV can meet the needs, but now the smart TV operation process is complicated, I am fine when I am at home, if not at home, parents have to complete the selection of signal sources, choose live TV, or find the relevant App search TV series and other processes, they are old and can't remember, teach once to forget, or remember this step but can't remember the next step." Mr. Shi said bitterly.
These concerns are due to the fact that we have encountered this situation before. Mr. Shi said, "Now the household appliances are intelligent products, last year the home changed a drum washing machine, the function is quite a lot, washing coats, washing wool, washing down jackets ... There are also various modes, each with a different wash duration set. But parents sometimes prefer to wash by hand rather than in the washing machine, because the buttons that need to be pressed before washing give them a headache. ”
Ms. Li also expressed the same confusion to the Beijing Business Daily reporter. Because she saw the propaganda in the advertisement, last year, Ms. Li bought a sweeping robot for her family, thinking that she could free her hands and save time, but she did not expect that when working around the machine, she almost tripped over her elderly mother, and it was not safe for children to run around at home. "Later, it was rarely used to sweep the floor robots, unless the elderly and children were not at home."
In fact, this phenomenon is very common. In the view of the relevant person in charge of the pursuit of science and technology, with the integration and set of development of home appliances, the current home appliances for the elderly have the disadvantages of functional complexity and difficulty in operation, and even many of the products on the market that flaunt intelligence cannot even fully realize a single voice control function, and additional operations are needed, which cannot truly meet the physiological and psychological needs of the elderly.
The relevant person in charge of Gree Electric Appliances also said that the utilization rate of intelligent functions of the elderly products on the market is not high, but it increases the difficulty of product use. The relevant person in charge of Sichuan Changhong highlighted the interactive experience of smart home appliances.
Design flaws in elderly home appliances
The Beijing Business Daily reporter noted that in fact, the elderly are not without their own choices in the home appliance market.
For example, searching for "elderly home appliances" on Taobao can see some elderly TV products, which are characterized by non-intelligent, small size, and no ads at boot. Different from smart TVs, users watch TV series and movies through non-smart TVs, which are inserted into external memory through USB, or connected to a computer to watch online.
But such products also have defects, such as where does the film source come from, can the elderly solve this problem themselves? For example, why is the TV set designed for the elderly generally small in size, and is generally under the banner of "bedroom TV"? What kind of sales psychology is behind this?
In addition to the elderly TV sets, air conditioning manufacturers have also launched products specifically for the elderly group, such as Gree Electric Appliances for the elderly air conditioners specially created for the "silver-haired group". Because considering that the elderly's body sensation is more sensitive than that of young people, in terms of effectively avoiding cold air blowing, the elderly air conditioner is equipped with a Gree patent 360-degree super large wind guide, so the air flow of the air sent out will be more uniform; considering that most of the elderly have farsighted eyes, the design of the remote control font is larger, the arrangement of the keys is simpler, in order to make the elderly determine whether they operate correctly, they are also equipped with a voice broadcast function.
Home appliance observer Xu Yiqiang believes that the elderly appliances have not yet formed a system, scale and camp in the Chinese home appliance market, and are still in the early stage of development, relatively chaotic, but there are some attempts in some categories. "For example, adding fonts to the remote control, adding some active reminder functions, etc., is not of great value to the experience and practical value of elderly users, making this market development for decades still tepid."
"There are still relatively few home appliances for the elderly on the market, and there are very few home appliances specifically for the elderly, and many products are mostly produced by unknown small brands." The person in charge of chasing technology said.
How to change the status quo under the standard
Relevant data show that as of November 1, 2020, the national elderly population aged 65 and above has reached 190 million people, accounting for 13.5% of the total population, and aging has become an unavoidable problem in social development. However, the elderly population has its own particularities in terms of vision, hearing, touch, body movement, cognition, etc., so the elderly will eventually occupy a more important position in the intelligent terminal market.
In the second half of this year, the State Administration of Market Regulation and the National Standards Commission also specially announced two national standards, GB/T 40443-2021 "General Technical Requirements for Household Appliances for the Elderly" and GB/T 40439-2021 "Intelligent Home Appliance System Architecture Model for The Elderly", which put forward more detailed requirements for household appliances for the elderly.
So, what kind of smart home appliances are more suitable for the elderly group?
The relevant person in charge of the pursuit of science and technology concluded that safety should be the primary feature of the elderly home appliances, give special care to the elderly group, and should be easy to use when designing home appliances, reducing the frequency of bending down, squatting and other actions; secondly, the home appliances of the elderly should also highlight the main function of home appliances, reduce complex auxiliary functions, and avoid problems such as increased operational difficulty caused by complexity of human-computer interaction.
Taking air conditioning as an example, the relevant person in charge of Gree Electric Appliances pointed out that one is health, one is convenient, which is the most important for the elderly.
Taking the TV set as an example, the relevant person in charge of Sichuan Changhong said that it is necessary to pay attention to the simple and convenient interactive control, the low consumption of healthy eye protection, and the clear content and sound and picture. He introduced that for elderly users, in terms of interaction mode, Changhong TV supports multi-modal interaction to achieve free switching between near and far field speech (dialect recognition) mode, ordinary remote control mode and light mouse mode; in terms of auxiliary functions, it supports large fonts, voice reading, screen magnification, high contrast and color weakness compensation functions; in terms of eye protection, laser products without blue light and LCD products with low blue light meet the latest industry standards, AI image repair function and AI image stabilization function effectively adjust the dynamic picture, no flashing screen, no eye shaking.
Taking the sweeping robot as an example, the relevant person in charge of Stone Technology pointed out that in terms of experience, it is necessary to meet the experience of young users' intelligent interconnection, remote control, and sweeping and dragging and washing integration, and at the same time to take into account the low-threshold operation mode such as one-click start/recharge for the elderly. "In terms of ageability, smart home appliances should have the characteristics of intensive pluralism and low threshold at the same time."
"For the product development and market expansion of elderly home appliances, home appliance manufacturers should also pay attention to the less hype of technical concepts and more practical functional experiences; less flickering and more sincerity, to really go deep into the life scenes of the elderly, listen to and gain insight into their needs." Xu Yiqiang said.
Beijing Business Daily reporter Shi Feiyue Image source: Taobao a small LCD TV self-operated store