Amazon’s Echo smart speaker, known as the most significant invention in the technology industry since Apple’s mobile phone was released, almost all major technology companies around the world have imitated Amazon’s introduction of smart speakers. According to foreign media’s latest news, Facebook’s privacy leak scandal affected the The company announced plans for smart smart speakers, and the product will be postponed until October.
Smart speakers relied on artificial intelligence and voice assistance to help families enter the era of voice and Internet, and some voice applications are considered to have a more user-friendly and simpler user experience than smart phones, which directly ignited the smart speaker market.
According to the April 23 report of the Taiwan Electronic Times website, the large-scale OEM manufacturing of Facebook smart speakers will follow the original plan, that is, the production will start from June. However, the time to market has been postponed from October to October.
According to industry sources, Facebook has reduced its smart speaker production plan for the first year by 20%, but the production target for the next year has not been adjusted.
It is reported that in the past few months, Facebook has experienced an unprecedented major corporate privacy leak scandal, Facebook and Zuckerberg have been criticized by the outside world, the social network launched a 'Uninstall Facebook' campaign, the outside world also asked Zucker Gage resigns as CEO or chairman.
Not long ago, Zuckerberg was questioned by lawmakers in the U.S. Congress. These arrangements affected the release of Facebook smart speakers and their timing.
According to sources, Facebook is preparing to launch two smart speakers, currently codenamed Fiona and Aloha. Unlike smart speakers on the market, Facebook's products will be equipped with a 15-inch screen, and products from LG Display.
The Aloha smart speaker's display can be adjusted for position, so the price is more expensive than Fiona. However, the pricing information of the two products is currently unknown.
According to the Electronic Times website, Heshuo Technology Co., Ltd. is the only one of Facebook's two smart speakers.
The core technology of smart speakers is the voice assistant, and Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant currently have obvious advantages in the industry, which leads to a monopolistic position in the smart speaker market. In the past, Facebook did not have voice assistant products that could compete with rivals. Calling the development in-house, Facebook's voice assistant will become a soft spot for its smart speakers.
Apple Speaker
Apple's smart home speaker HomePod, also made by Taiwan's OEM companies. According to sources, Apple's smart speaker sales are bleak, so Apple has significantly reduced the purchase of upstream orders and manufacturing, from the past 500,000 per month reduced to 200,000 units.
Recently, multimedia reports about the failure of the Apple speaker. The Apple HomePod is also a product imitated by Amazon. However, Apple has adopted a high-end, high-priced positioning similar to a smartphone. The price is as high as 350 US dollars, which is several times that of competitors. It is ten times and the price competitiveness is very weak.
In addition, it is well known that Apple's voice assistant, Siri, is accused of having a low IQ. The ability to understand or answer is far less than that of Google and Amazon. Siri's IQ also weighs on sales of smart speakers.
It is said that Apple has learned lessons from over-pricing and is ready to launch smart speakers with lower prices. However, it is still not clear whether it can set a price of more than 100 US dollars like Amazon.com.
In the market, Amazon and Google launched the mini smart speakers are welcomed, the price is only tens of dollars. Including millet and other companies have also begun to imitate Amazon to launch a mini version of the speaker.