The factory cost is only a dozen pieces. How dirty is the smart speaker that is “stacked” with waste?

(The picture has nothing to do with the text) Wenshu understands the notes (dongdong_note) Muzi, Knife 3526 words, about 10 minutes to read - "Now the products on the market, the function is almost no breakthrough, they desperately cut prices, the squeeze is us The profit margin.” In the nearly five years of setting up a factory in Longgang Industrial Zone, Hu Borun has become accustomed to the ups and downs in the supply chain. The "workshop" of less than 100 assembly workers is currently working on the OEM and assembly of two branded smart speakers.

Hu Borun said that in order to grab the market at a low price, the brand manufacturers have already pressed the factory cost of smart speakers very much. Therefore, many foundries in the production process will try to find ways to reduce the cost of production, to meet the needs of customers (and also for their own living space), "I know that people who assemble the insider, basically do not dare to buy such smart speakers, more I dare not bring it to someone."

Then, behind the hot-speaking smart speakers, what exactly is “catty”, so that Hu Borun and the insiders who understand the smart speaker industry are discouraged?

Brand refresh price lower limit, factory refresh cost lower limit

At 7 o'clock in the morning, Hu Borun drove to the factory. After simply counting the accessories on the production line, he took the assistant and understood the notes and drove for more than an hour to come to another small workshop in Huiyang to "see the goods." In this small bungalow of less than 100 square meters, woven bags filled with things pile up like mountains. He told me to understand the notes, the "goods" inside is one of the materials he assembled smart speakers.

"These are the products of Huaqiangbei trial and error, second-hand." He said that Huizhou Huiyang and Dongguan Fenggang area have more or less small dismantling workshops hidden in private houses. The motherboards and speakers installed in the woven bag are all dismantled from the many stocks recovered. "In general, I only need speakers. After all, these motherboards are too low-end and can't be used."

After the order was placed, Hu Borun hurried back to Longgang, which was already noon. Almost every two or three days, he will go to the surrounding dismantling workshops to look for "wild fields" (good goods) worth recycling.

These recycled second-hand speaker units will be assembled into some smart speakers from the next day.

Hu Borun revealed that because the smart speaker cabinet is small, the required speaker size can not be too large. In order to balance the sound quality, from the beginning to the present, the second-hand speaker units that can be assembled on the smart speakers are almost all long-stroke designs. The sound quality and dynamic response are unmatched by the speakers that are disassembled on ordinary speakers.

"These goods are good for low-end products, and the inventory is new in a certain sense." He took a product and told me how to understand the notes. The drum-like design resembling a cylinder style is currently on the market. The most common one.

A mold, sometimes will be labeled with the LOGO of several brands. Today, this batch of OEM orders is from a digital manufacturer named "Some Magic" in Shanghai. The ex-factory price is about 27.5 yuan.

"If you use second-hand motherboards and chip assembly, the cost can be reduced by 20%." Hu Borun introduced that in Longgang District, he knows that there are more than 60 factories that can be engaged in intelligent speaker assembly. Although the smart speaker market is hot, the orders of brand OEMs cannot “feed” all the assembly plants. Therefore, the competition between the foundries is also very fierce. Sometimes, for an order, the foundry will constantly refresh their respective cost ceilings. “Before I was fighting for a Jiangsu brand dealer’s OEM order, there was a foundry that reported 12.7. The ex-factory price of Yuan/Taiwan has made us all stunned."

Like most foundry managers, he was very curious to analyze the price of 12.7 yuan. Discovery is a price that is completely impossible to achieve. Unless it is sold at a loss, it is to grab the order. And such a thing has not happened.

“In addition to some well-known big brands, ordinary small brands have almost no requirements for the quality of the products, as long as the price is low.” Hu Borun told us that even if the price is low, the brand’s requirements for after-sales are also Very demanding. Not only need unconditional warranty replacement, but also a certain proportion of unsalable inventory recycling on behalf of the factory, "plus the payment is not the end, this is too torturous."

Even after talking about the total package price, there are dozens more than 100 brands that don’t produce free gifts. Therefore, Hu Borun, who also needs to survive, and the surrounding foundries, can only continue to save on cost, and save a little.

Some people may say that some of the smart speaker parts are only used in the second-hand demolition of the stock, but there is nothing. As long as it can be used, there is a warranty, full-featured, and cost-effective. But in fact, it is so simple to produce a smart speaker with an ex-factory price of only 20 or 30 yuan.

"It's far more dirty than you can imagine." Hu Borun said with a smile.

With the aim of saving provinces and provinces, we use the waste to “stack” smart speakers.

Under Hu Borun's introduction, I learned to take notes and came to another smart speaker assembly factory nearby. Before entering the workshop, I have already seen a lot of plastic parts for assembling the speakers outside the factory. Li Teng, the person in charge, said that these yellow-white and gray plastic parts are the brackets for the internal assembly parts of the speakers, and the colorful ones next to them are the outer casings of the speakers.

“Plastics is generally produced in downstream factories. We don’t participate in this.” He said that because the production of plastics will produce certain air pollution, most of the downstream suppliers they purchase are small workshops in remote areas. As for why he chose the workshop-produced products, Li Teng bluntly said: "Cheap."

According to him, whether it is the dozens of speaker factories in the nearby industry, or the small workshops that produce smart equipment in the surrounding cities and counties, most of them are recycled plastic products from the workshop production in the central and western regions, similar brackets. Accessories, one for only RMB 6 cents. Looks like a glamorous, colorful speaker enclosure, the price is also controlled within 1 yuan.

"As for the electric wires, they are all second-hand disassembled products that have been poured from the east of Guangdong. They will be able to use them." Li Teng told me to understand the notes. The whole set of smart speakers that seem to be tall is actually the most valuable, but instead The brain's chip assembly.

For some of the most demanding OEMs, they all require the foundry to adopt the latest version of the chip assembly to improve the competitiveness of the product in the market. "But to be fair, no matter what version of the assembly in the past two years, there are not many highlights on the hardware, the function is a simple matching operation, and smart home control is also a problem to be solved by the later software instructions," he said disdainfully.

In another corner of the plant, a large amount of cotton-like materials were piled up, and two workers were cutting at a certain size. Li Teng pointed out that this is a smart speaker that is partially designed with cotton and linen covering, and the fabric to be used. Next to those gray and black, there are occasionally a few colored cotton ends in the middle, suitable for the internal energy absorption of the speaker.

“It’s all recycled materials. It’s impossible to get new.” He stressed that because of the serious pressure on brands, most manufacturers will choose similar recycled fabrics and cotton to cover the speakers and fill the sound chamber. One kilogram of such recycled fabrics is not worth three yuan. As for cotton, it is cheaper. "Some of the smart speakers that are too low in price, sometimes the sound chamber is too lazy to give a little stuff."

He pointed to a smart speaker on the table that had been labeled "some beauty" to tell the notes, so that the ex-factory price is more than 25, the whole machine is new except the solution chip, the rest are second-hand accessories. And recycled materials.

"It doesn't matter if you take it for a short time, but the assembly workers have much contact every day. Sometimes the hands will be itchy." In this small factory, the workers on the assembly line are wearing masks and gloves. Seemingly formal, but in fact helpless.

In order to survive, the practice of the foundry is certainly embarrassing. And these are distributed to the market, only a few hundred and a hundred can buy smart speakers, whether it is harmful to the human body, the answer is obvious.

The solution is hard to be new, smart speakers lack "smart"

“Almost all brand owners don’t care about the implementation of the function when they are looking for a foundry.”

Ma Bin, who is responsible for a variety of intelligent speaker integration modules, told me that notes, Li Teng, Hu Borun and 60% of the entire industry's foundry, the smart speaker chip modules used are from the products he represented.

Most of the cores on the module are from IC design vendors such as MediaTek. On the basis of the core chip, a professional manufacturer puts on the originals such as Bluetooth, WIFI receiver, microphone, amplifier, etc., and becomes a "motherboard" full of lines, green or blue. Can be directly assembled on smart speakers, the industry is collectively referred to as "solutions."

"The price is high and low, some of the low-end chips are used in the block, and the high-end ones are close to one hundred." Ma Bin said that although the performance of the core chip has greatly improved in the two years of development of the smart speaker industry, The main hardware package, but not much innovation, "is nothing more than microphones, speakers, Bluetooth, WIFI, amplifiers, some brands are based on this, adding an interactive display."

Most of the software functions are also playing music, encyclopedia question and answer, alarm reminder and other functions. He stressed that in the early period, some brands emphasized that smart speakers are the entrance to smart homes in the future, and they use voice commands to manipulate every smart device in the home. But nowadays few vendors have so publicized and are returning to the single device itself.

“The smart home appliance ecology is not perfect, and it is better to emphasize the use of life assistants, resource services, child housekeepers, etc.”

Li Teng feels that smart speakers from the initial emphasis on applications, functions, and now the pursuit of low prices, may be to bring such an adult "toy" to the market through a more competitive market price, quickly seize the user's home One of the entrances to entertainment.

Today's smart speakers seem to be beautiful, and the price is low at your fingertips, but the functions are basically the same, nothing more than just "moving" the application of a similar mobile phone assistant to the speaker. It can be said that the smart speaker is only the most basic form of expression in the field of artificial intelligence, and even just a pseudo-intelligent product with the name of "smart".

Unable to break through innovation, it is doomed that the field of smart speakers can only be reduced to a price war. Behind the low price, it is at the expense of the factory to cut corners, use inferior parts, and harmful recycled products. While smart speakers can't bring new ideas to the market, they are constantly bringing unimaginable potential harm to users.

As for the "secret" of the low price of the head brand products, Hu Borun and others are only very cautious to tell the notes: "Don't ask, really can't."

This article was first published on the WeChat public account: Hunting Cloud. The content of the article belongs to the author's personal opinion and does not represent the position of Hexun.com. Investors should act accordingly, at their own risk.

(Editor: Qiu Guanglong HF056)

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