The apple headset was gnawed by Huaqiangbei

At 21:00 Beijing time on January 19, Apple's first headset Vision Pro officially opened for pre-sale, and the first batch of supplies was sold out in less than ten minutes after the pre-sale opened.

Apple's entry into the MR market, such a blockbuster digital circle event is naturally indispensable to the figure of Huaqiangbei, the "Silicon Valley of China". On the one hand, Apple's genuine products are expensive and still hard to find, and on some channels, the purchasing fees have reached five figures, while on the other hand, the price is less than a fraction of the original, and the knockoff goods named "AppleCore" have been lying on the counter of the boss of the Huaqiangbei stall.

Compared with the high price of 3,499 US dollars (about 25,171 yuan) of the genuine version, the price of the Huaqiangbei copycat version can be described as very close to the people. "For domestic customers, it is 1,600 yuan per unit, and the foreign trade price is more expensive, 500 US dollars per unit. Li Mo, the owner of a stall in Huaqiangbei, revealed to the alphabet list.

As Apple's first device to enter MR, the Vision Pro is full of sincerity in terms of materials, according to the Vision Pro bill of materials circulating on the Internet, the headset costs as much as 1,509 US dollars (about 10,857 yuan) alone.

The domestic price of Huaqiangbei copycat version is less than a fraction of the genuine version, and the factory and dealers still make money, and its low cost can be seen. "It should be a solution with mature products on the market, and a high-imitation shell. An industry insider speculated.

As for the experience, with such a huge price gap, the copycat version is of course not comparable with the genuine version, and even has a gap with other competing products. Some users who have experienced it say that both hardware and software are far inferior to other mainstream brand headset products.

From the perspective of product experience alone, it is not cost-effective to buy such a copycat headset for 1600 yuan, but if it is to "support the scene", or out of curiosity, this price can be called "cost-effective".

Huaqiangbei is not targeting domestic individual users. "At present, we do not accept retail orders, mainly do foreign trade, catch up with the first wave of overseas heat, individual buyers can wait and see. Li Mo said.

A

On January 15th, many Huaqiangbei bosses received invitations to participate in a "briefing", and the products introduced at the meeting were copycat versions of Vision Pro, which were still four days away from Apple's Vision Pro pre-sale.

But in fact, as early as last year, this copycat headset called "Apple Core" has already entered the market. On January 5th, the up master of station B "Xiaochen Attack" released an evaluation video of this product, introducing in detail the software and hardware configuration and experience of this copycat headset.

In terms of exterior styling, the copycat model can indeed be fake at first glance, but once it is placed with the original rendering, even the layman can see the difference between the two: the Apple headset is equipped with 12 cameras and 5 sensors, and the copycat version is equipped with only two cameras in the middle of the eyes;

After turning on the phone, it is not the Apple logo that catches your eye, but a big Android, and then a 3D "Vision SE" will appear in front of the user's eyes. After entering the desktop, the entire UI interface basically replicates the style of Vision OS on the promotional video of Apple's press conference in June last year, which is based on the "magic change" version of the Android system.

In the introduction of the copycat headset product obtained by the alphabet list, the hardware configuration is unknown, and the seller claims that this copycat headset is equipped with "the industry's top Qualcomm Snapdragon MR chip", and the viewing experience is equivalent to "120-inch 4K high-definition giant screen".

However, according to user evaluation, the sdm710 chip (Snapdragon 710) carried by the copycat model uses 10nm process technology, which was first equipped by the Xiaomi Mi 8 launched in 2018, and the display resolution is only 720P, which is more than an order of magnitude worse than the 4K resolution advertised.

Of course, this knockoff headset isn't for nothing but cheap. This copycat supports external memory cards up to 1TB, and users can say goodbye to "memory anxiety" completely, while the Apple Vision Pro needs to pay an additional $400 (about 2884 yuan) if you want to upgrade from 256GB to 1TB.

The price of the copycat model is 1600 yuan, which is less than a fraction of the original product, which seems to be quite cost-effective;

If it's just for early adopters, then the PICO entry-level NEO3 that has fallen below 1000 yuan on the second-hand platform can meet the needs of the vast majority of white users, and if you want to experience it further, Meta Quest3 only needs about the price of two copycats to win, if you compete with these well-known brands, copycats have almost no chance of winning.

B

Among the high-imitation Apple products, the most popular ones are headphones, watches, and external batteries. These products are usually easy to carry and use infrequently, and Huaqiangbei copycats can allow users to satisfy the vanity of gathering "Apple Family Bucket" at a low price without affecting the experience as much as possible.

However, the experience of Vision Pro is extremely dependent on the screen, camera, and software ecosystem, and the product is not portable, so such a knock-off product is not attractive to most individual users.

In fact, the target group of the copycat Vision Pro was not C-end users from the beginning. In some drainage posts, the seller did not peddle the product to ordinary C-end users, but looked for various channels and agents, and for some individual buyers who were interested in trying it, some upright sellers even directly persuaded them to quit in the comment area, saying that "the product is not in place, it is recommended to wait and see".

Copycat Vision exterior

Although the manufacturer has priced the copycat Vision Pro at home and abroad, and the foreign price is much higher than that in China, according to Li Mo, the main sales channel of this product is overseas. "At present, we mainly do foreign trade orders, and we just sent a few hundred units today. Li Mo said.

As for what kind of users will buy this product, Li Mo said that some are for product evaluation, and some are for business, such as VR experience stores. "The needs are varied, and we don't know about them, but there are needs anyway. Li Mo said.

After the pre-sale of Vision Pro opened, various digital bloggers have posted "good news" on social media, and some bloggers are ready to leave for the United States, intending to compete for the first wave of traffic in Apple's headset evaluation.

And for some bloggers who didn't grab the first release, or who already featured curiosity, spending 1,600 yuan or $500 to buy such a knockoff is also a means to rub traffic.

On YouTube, an overseas video platform, many evaluation videos about this copycat headset are more popular than genuine experience videos. More than 25 million users subscribed to the unboxing blogger "Unbox Therapy" released the copycat headset unboxing evaluation video, in just two days received 640,000 views, 28,000 likes, some users in the comment area who do not know Huaqiangbei were even "planted", began to buy a copycat version of Apple headphones. The copycat headset that rubbed the traffic unexpectedly became the "drainage model" of Huaqiangbei shelf.

In addition, although this product is currently almost exclusively for foreign trade, if domestic buyers are willing to pay for bulk purchases, manufacturers are also willing to give a little production capacity. "We don't do one or two, ten up can do it. Li Mo said. According to him, there is no problem with the "piggybackers" at the factory to divide them into several units. "You can go offline to see the sample first, and if you are satisfied, you can get the goods in one to two days after payment. ”

C

The production capacity of genuine products is insufficient, and it takes two weeks from pre-sale to delivery at the earliest, and the counterfeit goods are on sale at the same time, which is immediately desirable, and Huaqiangbei has rubbed the traffic of Apple's headset faster than Apple itself.

This is the routine operation of Huaqiangbei, since the birth of the iPhone, Apple and this street on the other side of the world have started the years of love and killing.

Parallel iPhones used to be the "main product" of Huaqiangbei's copycat industry, and overseas versions of iPhones flowed into Huaqiangbei from various channels and were sold to customers at low prices after the carrier lock-up was lifted.

The Apple products in the hands of some Huaqiang North stall owners may be more complete than many Apple dealer stores. In 2017, former Silicon Valley engineer Scotty Allen bought all the parts of the iPhone6s in Huaqiangbei for only more than 2,000 yuan and assembled a brand-new mobile phone.

The release of Apple's wireless Bluetooth headset AirPods gave Huaqiangbei a second spring, and after the release of AirPods, Huaqiangbei quickly followed up and launched copycat products. The price of genuine products is prohibitive, and Huaqiangbei cottage only costs 50-200 yuan, not only in appearance, but also in support of "name change positioning, pop-up window connection, in-ear detection" and other functions that only genuine products have.

Due to the fact that there are too many copycats and it is difficult to distinguish, Apple even changed the after-sales policy in China in 2020, and AirPods damaged during the warranty period need to be screened and identified at the repair center in China first, while they can be replaced directly abroad.

This copycat version of Vision Pro is on sale at the same time as the original product, which seems to be just an ordinary step for "Huaqiangbei Technology" to try to keep up with Apple's footsteps, but it may also be the last step.

Although the shipment of cottage headphones is huge, the profits are relatively meager, and with the follow-up of domestic manufacturers, the living space of Huaqiangbei cottage headphones is gradually shrinking.

Starting from the iPhone15 series, the American version of the iPhone has canceled the SIM card slot, although Huaqiangbei has also developed countermeasures, but because the plan wants to destroy the fuselage structure, the process is complex and cumbersome, not to mention, it will also affect the second-hand residual value, and the "parallel import" iPhone is becoming more and more chicken.

In addition, the living space of Huaqiangbei bosses is also squeezed by the market environment and e-commerce platforms. In recent years, the consumer electronics market has been sluggish, and the "diving" of the initial price of iPhone has become the norm, while the "10 billion subsidy" strategy of e-commerce platforms and the investment in second-hand recycling platforms have further compressed the profit margins of Huaqiangbei merchants. Backpackers continue to leave, some businesses begin to withdraw stores, and Huaqiangbei's consumer electronics industry is no longer as brilliant as it used to be.

According to media reports, on the day of the release of the iPhone 15, a factory in Huaqiangbei got the original Apple Type-C interface data cable and began to study. After years of development, "only fast and unbreakable" is engraved in Huaqiangbei's genes, and Shanzhai Vision Pro vividly embodies this style of play.

Maybe one day in the near future, Huaqiangbei will come up with a copycat Vision Pro with better quality and better functions, but at a time when Apple is going to transform in the MR field, Huaqiangbei's copycat industry may also start thinking about its future.