Smart Home Open Platform

ABB: in China, for China and the world

Over the past two decades, ABB has successfully developed a series of high-quality and well-functioning electrical products for the Chinese market by sharing its century-old electrical manufacturing experience, relying on advanced technology, adhering to a long-standing spirit of innovation, and focusing on localization needs, which are widely used. In the fields of urban and rural construction, industry, transportation and infrastructure.

Looking back on ABB's development in the Chinese market, ABB's electrical business unit has achieved a comprehensive coverage of all-round business from R&D, manufacturing and sales to engineering services, and has continuously pursued in terms of quality, technology, production efficiency and new product development. Zou Enchang introduced that ABB hopes to launch more intelligent building control products that meet the needs of the Chinese market in accordance with China's consumption habits and aesthetic needs. For ABB, after years of investment, the localization of production and technology has been achieved, and it will further increase investment in technology in the future. China has become one of the important bases for global R&D and manufacturing of ABB's smart building electrical products.

Accelerate integration and build an open platform for smart home

For a long time, ABB's electrical business has focused on power and automation, focusing on technology and solution innovation in the field of digitalization, and continuously promoting the upgrading of smart buildings and municipal infrastructure. In the application of top luxury homes in domestic smart homes, many classic cases of applying ABB i-Bus system have become models of domestic luxury home smart homes.


ABB Home Intelligent Solutions

At the IFA exhibition in Germany not long ago, ABB launched an open API platform for the professional smart home field. Under the trend of interconnected ecology of smart home, Zou Enchang believes that the current smart home market in China is very impressive and will continue to grow rapidly in the next few years. At the same time, the development of IoT technology and 5G technology provides greater opportunities for digital transformation in the smart home field.

Smart home is an industry direction that ABB is focusing on. It is reported that ABB's Free@Home has been on the market for just a few years and now has 5 million interconnected components or modules in more than 40 countries around the world.

Based on a comprehensive open platform, the majority of ecological partners can integrate hundreds of third-party application solutions into the ABB smart home platform through APIs. On this basis, industry participants and partners can jointly create a living space that meets the needs of users.

Safety first, embrace the smart home interconnection ecosystem

In recent years, domestic and foreign platform companies in the field of smart home have developed rapidly, and there are many ecological camps. Zou Enchang said that ABB takes a very open attitude towards the docking and cooperation between major interconnection platforms and technology platforms at home and abroad, and will choose specific platforms for cooperation based on user needs. In addition, ABB will further improve its own ecosystem and reflect its own advantages in terms of stability and security. For ABB, safety always comes first, and quality needs to be guaranteed. On this basis, further consider the comfort, convenience and aesthetic requirements.


ABB smart hotel integrated ecosystem

In addition, in the face of the vast C-end market, ABB has also been thinking about how to make the C-end business better based on the successful operation of the B-end and provide a better user experience for the C-end users. ABB connects all smart networks in the home in a digital form through an open cooperation platform. Zou Enchang emphasized that ABB also attaches great importance to network security, especially privacy protection. It is understood that ABB has already cooperated with many large enterprises at the cloud level. In foreign markets, it cooperates with Microsoft on platform, and in China, it promotes cloud cooperation with Huawei. For ABB, the strength of the enterprise is power distribution, further needs of integrated power distribution terminals, and continuous improvement of the building of ABB's overall ecosystem.

Realize smart electricity consumption and promote digital transformation

With the digital transformation of real estate, promoting the implementation of smart homes based on real estate projects and large-scale applications are the current hot spots in the domestic smart home industry. Focusing on the development of smart communities under the trend of real estate digitization, ABB will further integrate its building intercom and smart home businesses, so as to provide better support and services for B-end and C-end users. Zou Enchang pointed out that in order for real estate developers to improve the quality of the real estate industry, the first step is to build smart communities, including outdoor public areas and indoor smart homes. For ABB, the first and foremost is its video intercom products. On the basis of in-depth communication with major real estate developers, products are developed according to needs. At the same time, while meeting the needs of domestic users, it can also push products to foreign markets.


ABB all-digital HB series building intercom system

It is understood that the face recognition video intercom system launched by ABB is the first among all foreign brands to pass the mandatory certification of the Ministry of Public Security, and has been introduced to the market. ABB has a unified resource advantage in energy consumption management. In terms of cooperation with developers, ABB can provide a package of solutions from the power distribution system to the final smart home end products, so as to integrate the goal of smart power consumption into the same ecosystem In the system, this is also the direction ABB has been striving for, and makes it correspondingly combined in different dimensions.

In recent years, the real estate supporting market has been directly affected by policy regulation. Due to the intensification of market competition, many real estate developers must improve the quality of real estate. This drives the quality upgrade of supporting facilities, including power distribution infrastructure, smart homes, etc., thereby enhancing the added value of the project and gaining a premium. In this regard, brand companies like ABB are more capable of cooperating with developers and have quality advantages. At the same time, from the perspective of the country's industrial development and the needs of consumers, ABB will always strive for high quality, thereby promoting the transformation and upgrading of the industry.

It is worth mentioning that the domestic new energy vehicle market has grown rapidly in the past two years, and the trend of innovative applications based on electric vehicles and the Internet of Vehicles is very obvious. Especially the charging pile product, it is not only a charging device, but also crucial in terms of safety. ABB is currently in the leading position in the global market in terms of technology, user experience, and safety control in the smart charging pile segment.

Open innovation to respond to new opportunities in the AIoT market

It is reported that in the face of the ever-changing development trend of artificial intelligence and Internet of Things technology, ABB will open a new open innovation center in Shenzhen. In the future, the main research directions of ABB Shenzhen Open Innovation Center will focus on industrial digitalization, big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence.

Zou Enchang pointed out that the core value of ABB Shenzhen Open Innovation Center lies in two aspects: openness and innovation. First and foremost is innovation. ABB will combine the latest IoT technology and AI technology into related product applications to provide customers with convenient and safer solutions. At the same time, it also includes innovations in product development and cooperation models. The second is openness. ABB's previous product research and development focused on closed-loop realization of internal enterprises, but the Shenzhen Open Innovation Center will cooperate more with third parties, and introduce more scientific research institutions, universities and partners, so that everyone can come together. Make the solution more complete and perfect, and create a high-level solution at a faster speed.

Focus on local needs and diversify products to meet differentiated needs

ABB has always been concerned about the development of the domestic smart home market. The i-Bus system was introduced to the domestic market more than 20 years ago, and this system is used in many large venues, such as the Beijing Capital Airport T3 terminal. This powerful system is mainly used in high-end real estate in the civilian field. Its advantages lie in stability and high reliability of the system, and the price is relatively high. With the development of the domestic market, ABB's Free@home and i-home product lines have successively entered the domestic market to continuously meet the differentiated needs of the domestic market.

Facing the direction demand of ordinary smart home, ABB specially launched the i-home wireless product line for the Chinese market. Compared with i-home, Free@home in the imported product line is more suitable for larger residential types. As an imported product, ABB is constantly improving from the European market to the Chinese market.


ABB switch panel product line

It is worth mentioning that the new smart products designed and produced by the local Chinese team - ABB i-bus PEONIA series smart panels won the "2019 Red Dot Design Award" not long ago, fully reflecting the ultimate design aesthetics integrating smart elements. This is the second time that ABB's smart panel products won the world's highest design award after the ABB Xuanzhi series of switch and socket products won the Red Dot Award in 2018, which is undoubtedly another high recognition of China's local design and development level. Zou Enchang further pointed out that ABB hopes to create a healthier, better and more comfortable living life for Chinese consumers through efforts, and at the same time help the transformation and upgrading of China's intelligent building field from traditional to emerging, from quantity to quality, and from consumption to service.

In the face of some fast-developing sub-categories such as smart locks in the past two years. Mr. Zou Enchang said that ABB will always take an open attitude towards emerging markets. People's understanding of the smart home will continue to deepen over time. In this process, people's needs are also constantly changing. If market demand helps ABB to further improve its own ecosystem, then ABB will adopt an open attitude to embrace changes. ABB will adhere to the direction of digitalization, insist on innovation in technology, and more importantly, always guarantee safety and quality.

With the intensive cultivation in the domestic market over the past two decades, ABB has actively embraced the emerging local market demands on the basis of inheriting its consistently safe and reliable brand DNA, and has launched a series of innovative products and solutions that meet the needs of local users. At the same time, under the wave of digitalization, ABB began to build a new open platform, and through the integration of high-quality ecological resources, took practical measures to promote the transformation and upgrading needs under the new situation. Looking forward to the future, we are looking forward to ABB bringing more high-quality smart products and consistent security and stability guarantees to global users in the field of smart life applications.

As one of the four major divisions of ABB Group, ABB Electrical Division has a very broad business scope in terms of business scale, covering the entire electrical value chain and providing a more reliable power supply guarantee. Among them, ABB has integrated a series of digital products and innovative interconnection technologies around low-voltage products and systems that are closely related to smart homes.

It is understood that ABB products and solutions are currently widely used. From the power generation end to the power consumption end, it provides a complete medium and low voltage distribution control system and corresponding infrastructure. One of ABB Electric's manufacturing bases in China, Beijing ABB Low Voltage Electric Co., Ltd., recently held its 25th anniversary celebration. Over the past two decades, a large number of ABB products have been used in a large number of domestic infrastructure and landmark buildings, including Beijing Daxing International Airport, which was put into use not long ago, as well as the Great Hall of the People, Beijing-Shanghai High-speed Railway, Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao There are more than 3,000 key projects such as bridges and Winter Olympic venues.