Competing with traditional security doors for business, Xiaomi ecological chain company Yunlu tests the waters of smart doors

Reporter | Li Xinting

Passwords, fingerprints, finger veins, faces…data and biometric information are replacing keys and becoming the key to entering the home.

As the \”entrance\” to smart houses, the intelligence of door peepholes and door locks is gradually being accepted by consumers. According to the \”2021 China Smart Door Lock Industry White Paper\” by Huajing Industrial Research Institute, the penetration rate of China\’s smart door locks will exceed 10% in 2021 and is expected to reach 19.8% in 2022. South Korea and Japan, both Asian countries, have smart door lock penetration rates of 75% and 40% respectively, indicating that China\’s smart door lock market still has a lot of room for development.

In addition to the conventional route of \”traditional doors + smart locks\”, a company named Yunlu chose to directly produce smart doors with smart unlocking functions.

As a smart door brand in Xiaomi’s supply chain, Yunlu was established in January 2022 and has so far received two rounds of financing from Xiaomi Group, Shunwei Capital, Luke Technology, Chongqing Tongliang Industrial Fund, Shenzhen Qianhai Renzhi Capital is among the investors.

The company’s CEO, Yu Haibo, was the co-founder and CTO of Lucker Technology (formerly Yunding Technology). Lucker Technology is a smart lock brand on Xiaomi’s ecological chain, and its finger vein unlocking technology leads the industry. Yunlu\’s founding team members come from the smart lock, smart cat eye, traditional door and consumer electronics industries. Although it is a \”newcomer\” company in the smart home field, it has \”innate\” experience at the technical level.

According to reports, Yunlu smart door adopts the self-developed NovaDoor intelligent system and is equipped with Rockchip AI security chip. There are two core unlocking technologies: with Obizhong The 3D structured light face unlocking jointly developed by Guang, and the finger vein unlocking technology that is in line with Luke. Vein unlocking is not affected by fingerprint wear, peeling, etc., while 3D structured light face recognition can free your hands. It is also equipped with different unlocking technologies and has complementary functions, which can cater to consumers such as the elderly, parents with children, and children who are not tall enough.

The entire door adopts a \”distributed + modular\” design, with a total of 8 modules including door screen, video, lock control, lock body, 3D structured light, finger vein, communication, and security encryption. Each module Operate independently and collaborate with each other.

Data from the Qianzhan Industry Research Institute shows that China’s smart lock market grew rapidly in 2017 and 2020.It broke out in 2018, and the number of manufacturing companies exceeded 1,500. It was called the \”Thousand Locks War\” period. However, there will be only 300 manufacturing companies left in 2022, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to shake the status of leading brands.

While at LUK, Yu Haibo was mainly responsible for overseas and apartment business. He stayed there for about seven years and witnessed the overall maturity and stability of LUK. At the same time, he also sees opportunities to upgrade ordinary anti-theft doors to smart doors, and believes that resources and experience related to smart locks can be reused.

Yu Haibo believes that compared with smart door locks, smart doors are a competitive product form. In terms of appearance, the integrated design has a unified style, which is more beautiful than buying locks and cat eyes separately. In terms of performance, smart doors are always powered, which can support stronger chip computing power and better AI recognition functions. He also said that in theory, compared with purchasing doors and smart locks of the same quality, smart doors should be more cost-effective because the smart modules are built-in, which can save the cost of each part of the casing, installation, etc.

Smart locks are essentially consumer electronics products, but smart doors involve the hardware and building materials industries. From the lock span to the door, the combination of door body materials, hardware technology and electronic modules is difficult to cover with Yu Haibo\’s previous experience. Therefore, the company hired several chief engineers from traditional door factories, combined the experience of \”old masters\” and the R&D team to design, and handed over the production OEM to a door factory in Zhejiang.

Sales is another challenge. The offline sales of Yunlu smart doors are based on the approach of the building materials industry and are mainly based on the agent system. The company will also help agents negotiate activities and attract investment and traffic through new media such as Douyin and Toutiao. Online sales mainly rely on traditional e-commerce companies such as JD.com and Taobao, as well as interest-based e-commerce companies such as Xiaohongshu and Douyin. According to Yu Haibo\’s idea, this can not only promote the product, but also generate traffic that can be converted into transactions. According to Yunlu, in terms of sales, monthly sales through online channels currently exceed one million.

The e-commerce logic seems logical, but at this stage it is difficult to determine the online sales effect of smart doors. Yunlu has currently launched three series of smart doors: P, Y, and U, which are positioned in the mid-to-high end. According to the product information of JD.com, the lowest price of Yunlu smart door is 8,000 yuan and the highest price is 17,000 yuan. The price is not low, and consumers will be very cautious when purchasing high-priced products online.

In addition, Yunlu smart door is not a standard product, and the brand has not yet gained popularity. Unlocking technologies such as facial recognition and finger vein require offline experience, and consumers are more concerned about the \”follow-up service guarantee\” provided by physical stores. \”Feeling. Yu Haibo estimates that at least in the next two to three years, offline sales will still account for more than 70%.

In addition, Yunlu smart door is not a standard product, and the brand has not yet gained popularity. Unlocking technologies such as facial recognition and finger vein require offline experience, and consumers are more concerned about the \”follow-up service guarantee\” provided by physical stores. \”Feeling. Yu Haibo estimates that offline sales will account for more than 70% in at least the past two to three years.

In his view, smart doors are essentially cannibalizing the door market, attracting users who originally bought ordinary anti-theft doors to buy smart doors, while smart locks are aimed at the aftermarket, replacingExisting mechanical lock. In addition, given that smart doors currently offer few choices in materials, categories, and shapes, there are also users who buy ordinary doors with smart locks. This part of the market is the intersection of smart doors and smart locks. According to Aowei Cloud Real Estate Big Data, from January to July 2022, the matching rate of smart door locks in the fine decoration market has reached 80.9%. At this stage, the common choice of developers is also smart door locks.

Yu Haibo once said in an interview with 36 Krypton, “Smart locks and smart cat eyes required user education, but smart doors skipped this process because smart locks and cat eyes have already completed it for us. \”We have provided user education on the scenario of door intelligence.\” He is very optimistic about the prospects of smart doors.

Considering that smart doors are still in the early stages of development, whether it is a good product form remains to be verified by the market.