Parents complained: The learning machine bought for more than 8,000 yuan has similar functions to the learning app of more than 100 yuan, is this really the case?

Chengdu Business Daily Red Star News

2024-04-08 21:02Published on the official account of Red Star News of Chengdu Business Daily, Sichuan

"Is the learning machine you bought at home useful?" Ms. Chen, a parent, frequently asked about the effect of the learning machine in her mother's group. During the winter vacation, she followed the advice of her relatives and spent 8,599 yuan to buy a Xueersi learning machine for her children in primary school. However, she recently learned that the parents of her classmates spent less than 200 yuan to buy the annual membership card of the learning app, and the core functions are similar. Only then did she realize that there are many learning products on the market, including homework help, zebra, ape tutoring, etc., all of which have hardware equipment and learning apps, and the price difference is very large, which makes her feel suspicious.

Nowadays, the learning product market is highly competitive, and learning apps are vying to enter the hardware market. Even between the same brand, there seems to be a fierce "involution" between App and hardware. Ms. Chen's confusion may also be a question that many parents encounter when facing many learning products: how to choose?

Parents are confused

Why is the price difference between the learning machine and the App 12 times?

"I bought a learning machine and spent 8,599 yuan, but I recently heard that the parents of my classmates bought an App membership for only 178 yuan. Buy one year and get half a year free, which means that 712 yuan can cover 6 years of primary school. Ms. Chen calculated an account for the Red Star News reporter, "If you use it in the entire primary school stage as a comparison, the price difference is 12 times, is it really cost-effective?"

Unlike Ms. Chen, who bought a learning machine for the first time, Mr. Zhou, a parent, can be said to be a loyal fan of learning machines. "Because our family has two children, one in junior high school and one in the second grade, one machine can meet the learning needs of different school ages," he said, adding that his children had been attending classes at Xueersi Online School before, but when he found out that the learning machine was launched, he started after many comparisons. In his opinion, the learning machine not only has the division of the difficulty of the course, but also can be accurately learned according to the individual situation of the child. "Originally, children would have to be equipped with tablets as learning aids, so the price of the learning machine was acceptable," he says.

"The portability of the learning machine is not so good", Mr. Li chose to buy a homework help app membership. He believes that the biggest daily demand is to correct homework and solve problems, which can be basically met by an app. His fifth-grade students often use functions such as memorizing ancient poems, error books, and test papers, and other charging items are rarely used.

Ms. Song, whose daughter is in her second year of junior high school, has used two products, the learning machine and the App, and she believes that the difference between the two is also quite obvious, "The learning machine focuses on the explanation of knowledge points and provides personalized tutoring, while the App's question bank and homework correction are more portable and easy to use, and I feel that they are aimed at classes and brushing questions respectively."

Market scramble

Educational companies are dabbling in learning machine hardware

In recent years, education companies have continued to enter the learning machine hardware market. Brands such as Xueersi, Homework Help, Ape Tutoring, Zebra, etc., which have their own curriculum research and development capabilities and a large number of learning customer groups, are trying to compete for the hardware market. Compared with the brand that started with hardware, their own curriculum system seems to be more favored by parents. "There are also a lot of learning machine brands. I have also tried the iFLYTEK learning machine, and in comparison, I am a big fan of Xueersi," said Mr. Zhou, who prefers the latter between pure hardware parameters and curriculum system.

"The cost of the hardware of the Xueersi learning machine itself is relatively high, and under normal circumstances, this category of products will not be sold at a price of 100 yuan. In response to the price difference, Xueersi responded to the Red Star News reporter that the learning machine products on the market currently correspond to different price ranges to match different user groups. The learning machine matches its price from three aspects: content, hardware and AI.

"The question bank resources of the homework help learning machine are very rich, how to let children practice more efficiently in the massive question bank? What are the exercises related to a certain knowledge point? Can we draw inferences from the child's easy-to-make questions? Our R&D team has helped us solve these problems", said the person in charge of the homework help intelligent hardware teaching and research team.

Expert Analysis

Different product forms and resource functions are different

In this regard, the Red Star News reporter interviewed experts in learning hardware products and learned that learning App and learning machine are actually different product forms in the eyes of industry insiders, and their resources and functions are very different.

Learning apps are software, which is more flexible and convenient to use, and some learning apps will also provide low-cost or free basic services. However, the content is relatively rudimentary, general, and children are easily distracted by other apps when using it. In terms of cost, the high-quality courses of the learning app need to be paid multiple times, and the cost incurred in the long run is not low.

Learning machines often have built-in higher-value learning resources, invest more in content, and hardware and systems are also the advantages of learning machines, such as smart eyes, software and hardware integration and other learning solutions. Especially with the advancement of technology, some brand learning machines rely on artificial intelligence big data to accurately analyze subject weaknesses and knowledge point loopholes, and realize personalized learning push. At the system level, some intelligent learning machines can open up all App data on the device and become a super collection of learning content and learning tools. In addition, the learning machine system restricts the installation and use of other applications to ensure that children can focus on learning, "for families with two or more children, learning machines may be more cost-effective than learning app memberships."

"Many parents come to me to ask me which is better, learning machine or learning app, I really can't answer," said Ms. Luo, who has been engaged in primary school Chinese teaching for nearly 20 years, and she always believes that the classroom is the first, and extracurricular supplements are just the icing on the cake, "Because my children are also in school, I have paid attention to related products." The curriculum system is still very scientific, and parents can choose according to the family budget and the needs of their children, but they can't hope to improve their grades on learning equipment or applications."

Yang Xinyu Red Star News reporter Guo Jingjing

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