At this year's AWE site, Cloud Whale demonstrated two very interesting technologies, that is, binocular vision and large models, through the identification and judgment of indoor objects, these two technologies can comprehensively improve the robot's ability in cleaning efficiency, obstacle avoidance, etc. At the exhibition site at that time, I was also full of curiosity about when Cloud Whale would land these two technologies.
And less than a month later, Cloud Whale brought the annual flagship new intelligent sweeping robot - Cloud Whale Xiaoyao 001, and we are pleased to see the mass production form of these two technologies.
Fortunately, this time, in addition to participating in the cloud whale press conference, I visited the R&D laboratory of cloud whale, which also allowed me to further feel the research and development process of cloud whale's new products, as well as the logic behind the rapid development of cloud whale in recent years. At the same time, with the new product of Cloud Whale, we can also see what kind of development trend will be in the field of cleaning household appliances.
Cloud Whale 001: A fully intelligent cleaning robot supported by binocular vision and AI large model
Let's start with the new product of Cloud Whale this time, looking back on Cloud Whale's past products, from J1 to J4, including the floor scrubber product S1, all continue the combination of letters + numbers, and this time Cloud Whale broke this convention, giving the new product a Chinese style of "Xiaoyao", and even a bit of martial arts name, which gives it a touch of extra novelty.
Of course, returning to the product itself, this time binocular vision, and the addition of AI large models, also make Cloud Whale Xiaoyao 001 impressive.
For the current sweeping and mopping robot products, the technical level is actually quite mature, if the new product is only in the suction of these places to seek breakthroughs, it may be difficult to persuade users to renew.
It is precisely at this point that Cloud Whale has put its sights on a more comprehensive place, defining this Cloud Whale Xiaoyao 001 as a fully intelligent cleaning robot, and introducing two concepts that are currently very hot in the field of intelligence: binocular vision and AI large model.
According to the introduction of Cloud Whale, Cloud Whale Xiaoyao 001 is equipped with binocular vision, composed of 2 high-definition wide-angle cameras, and can be recognized collaboratively, covering a wide viewing angle of 136°, supporting 0.1-8 meters of 3D measurement depth, and the minimum recognition accuracy has reached 5mm. After the recognition, it needs to be judged, so the cloud whale Xiaoyao 001 is also equipped with a Xiaoyao AI large model, which can recognize large furniture, support the recognition of more than 100 common items, and even for black objects, untextured objects, which are difficult to identify in the past, can also be easily dealt with.
At the same time, behind these functions, there is also the strong performance support of the chip. Cloud Whale Xiaoyao 001 adopts a dual-chip configuration this time, providing 4TOPS of AI computing power and supporting about 1.5 million high-resolution depth observations per second.
To be honest, at the press conference of a sweeping robot, it was a bit surprising to start talking about AI computing power. When all these powerful software and hardware are combined, they form the true AI dual-core dual-mode system of Cloud Whale Xiaoyao 001.
Thanks to such a powerful basic function, Cloud Whale Xiaoyao 001 has excellent active judgment ability, such as charging cables, paper towels and other items that we drop on the floor every day, the robot can identify and detour to avoid entanglement. Of course, compared with previous robots, Cloud Whale Xiaoyao 001 can be cleaned as close as possible to obstacles before going around, which improves cleaning efficiency.
In addition, dirt such as pet poop and solid-liquid mixtures, which used to be a "nightmare" for robots, can also be identified and avoided to avoid expanding pollution. In addition, the mode switching, which will be more arbitrary, after the robot recognizes the liquid, it can automatically switch to the single-drag mode for cleaning. In the face of solid particles, the suction power and so on will also be adjusted according to the results of the recognition.
Based on these upgrades, we see that Whale Spirit Hosting has also been upgraded to 3.0 this time, through visual recognition of dirty, cleaning preference setting, alleviating temperature and humidity, room dirtiness, floor material adaptation, dirt detection, rewashing and mopping, etc., through the robot's own judgment, providing users with an unattended cleaning experience.
In addition to intelligence, cleaning itself, Cloud Whale Xiaoyao 001 has also made a lot of updates this time. For example, the roller brush has been upgraded to the diversion type zero-winding roller brush 2.0 to deal with various hair winding problems. For another example, the 12000Pa hurricane suction, combined with the U-pipe air duct, improves the suction power and reduces the resistance of the air duct to comprehensively improve the cleaning effect. Of course, there is also a hot water washing function that condenses the wisdom of Chinese washing mops, and Cloud Whale Xiaoyao 001 also provides a hot water washing function that supports dynamic temperature adjustment this time, providing different water temperatures for different stains, which is more scientific.
On last year's Cloud Whale J4, Cloud Whale brought a concept of dust collection, by removing the dust collection pipeline, to solve the problem of pipeline dirt and noise. I thought this was already a good solution. This time, Cloud Whale made a further upgrade. In addition to the 120-day dust collection capacity, the biggest highlight is that through the optimization of the pipeline and targeted noise reduction treatment, the dust collection volume can be reduced to 70dB, which is far better than the advanced products on the market.
Behind the excellent product strength, Cloud Whale continues to pursue technology
From its establishment in 2016, the launch of Cloud Whale J1 in 2019, and now the Cloud Whale Xiaoyao 001, in just a few years, Cloud Whale has developed rapidly and iteratively, speaking with product strength, and thus achieved a good market position. Behind this rapid development, in fact, is the continuous research of cloud whales on technology. This time, in addition to coming to the press conference, I was also fortunate to visit the Cloud Whale R&D Center, which also allowed me to see how Cloud Whale continued to cultivate on the track of cleaning household appliances and achieved the current results.
For the entire industry, Cloud Whale can be said to be a fairly young enterprise, less than ten years since its establishment. But in just a few years, Cloud Whale can be said to be a continuous explosion, from the first to launch a self-cleaning mopping robot, to the first to launch an automatic water system, Cloud Whale provides users with a home cleaning experience beyond the past. And behind these outstanding achievements, it is also inseparable from Yunjing's insistence on self-research.
In the R&D headquarters of Cloud Whale, we further felt the efforts of Cloud Whale in insisting on self-research. Through self-built factories and R&D laboratories, Yunjing realizes a closed loop of research, production and marketing, effectively controlling costs while quickly responding to market changes. In particular, its R&D laboratory covers many aspects from sensors, algorithms, cleaning power, etc., and covers all aspects of R&D to mass production to ensure that products can provide users with an excellent experience.
For example, this time Cloud Whale Xiaoyao 001, whether it is the industry-leading dual-mode vision module or the impressive dust collection noise control, it is inseparable from the repeated verification of Cloud Whale related laboratories. In addition, from the whole machine to the components, Cloudwhale will also carry out rigorous reliability tests, in addition to strong performance, it can also ensure that users can provide a lasting and reliable experience.
In addition to the R&D stage, in the production process, Yunjing has also formulated strict corporate standards, and framed the quality of its own products with higher requirements than industry standards. At the scene, Yunjing engineers also showed some of the enterprise standard verification methods of Yunjing, which gave us a very clear and intuitive understanding of Yunjing's efforts in quality control.
From Cloud Whale Xiaoyao 001, look at the development trend of domestic clean household appliances
As a representative of China's clean home appliances, the development of Yunjing in recent years actually reflects the development process of China's clean home appliance brands. The first is to grasp the trend of industry changes. For a long time in the past, foreign brands such as Dyson and iRobot occupied the absolute right to speak in this field. In this field, Chinese enterprises are more of an OEM and a follower. At the same time, limited by the limited market size at the time, it was difficult for Chinese brands to gain more market from it.
However, with the improvement of user consumption demand, the market for clean home appliances has gradually expanded, and clean home appliances are also developing in the direction of comprehensive functions. For example, washing machines are no longer limited to cleaning functions, and value-added functions such as drying, deodorization, and sterilization have become the pursuit of more and more users. On the side of sweeping robots, while major brands continue to launch sweeping and mopping robots, such as self-cleaning, dust collection, and automatic water loading and unloading, they have gradually become standard configurations to meet the diverse needs of the market.
And the major cleaning appliance brands we are familiar with today are also keenly grasping this trend. Of course, the opportunity of market changes is important, and the brand's own technology accumulation is also very important. Just like the cloud whale we see today, if there is no research and development capability of the whole industry chain, how can we gain the market?
At the same time, for domestic clean household appliances, it also has a more affordable price. This time,Cloud Whale Xiaoyao 001 brought a price of 5399 yuan,And at such a price,You can experience the cleaning ability of the current ceiling level、Obstacle avoidance ability,And intelligent experience。 If your demand is lower, Cloud Whale also provides a 4999 yuan light dust collection version of Cloud Whale Xiaoyao 001.
But if you go back a little bit to four or five years ago, taking iRobot as an example, if you need to solve both sweeping and mopping things at the same time, you need to buy their sweeping robot and mopping robot at the same time, and the price of the two together can easily break through five figures.
In addition to the brand's own R&D strength and people-friendly prices, Made in China also gives enough confidence to China's clean home appliance companies, including Yunjing. Especially at the moment when intelligence is fully mentioned, from the mapping and obstacle avoidance capabilities of sweeping robots to the intelligent driving capabilities of today's cars, all of them are a demonstration of China's manufacturing strength.
This time, Cloud Whale spent a lot of space to explain the performance of Cloud Whale 001 in terms of intelligence. Binocular vision sensors and AI models seem to give robots eyes and brains, and the robot has become smarter in identifying stains and choosing cleaning methods. The instructions for the robot become more vague, you only need to tell the cloud whale to "come and clean it", as for where to go, what to clean, and how to clean, it will know for itself. And this should also be the choice of many cleaning home appliance brands in the future, and we also look forward to the emergence of more related products, and we will work together to bring a more efficient and worry-free cleaning experience to Chinese family users.
Nowadays, in the field of automobiles, with excellent intelligence, Chinese automobiles have achieved quite good results in the international market. Going back to the field of cleaning appliances, the result is actually the same. At present, China's clean home appliance brands have achieved quite good results in overseas markets, such as Cloud Whale has now laid out more than 20 countries and regions in North America, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Southeast Asia, etc., serving nearly 2 million user families around the world, and Cloud Whale has also been selected as the "2023 Forbes China Global Brand TOP30". With the addition of intelligent capabilities such as binocular vision and AI large models, with the crushing technical generation gap, it is believed that Yunjing can further expand the overseas market and achieve a better market. Of course, we also expect that Chinese companies represented by Yunjing will also be able to fully lead the clean home appliance market at home and abroad.