During cooking, the oven autonomously adjusts baking programs by recognizing ingredients 'types, volume, and quantity. On the way home, your smartphone remotely turns on the air conditioner and adjusts it to the most comfortable temperature. When you fall asleep, a one-touch sleep mode automatically turns off the lights and activates the underfloor heating... With continuous breakthroughs in big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, smart homes are becoming deeply integrated into people's lives.

The smart home industry is currently experiencing rapid growth. According to data from the China Investment Industry Research Institute, China's smart home market is projected to reach approximately 784.8 billion yuan in 2024, with the market size expected to exceed 800 billion yuan by 2025.

To address diverse consumer demands and expand market growth, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and five other government agencies recently unveiled the "Implementation Plan for Enhancing Consumer Product Supply-Demand Alignment and Further Promoting Consumption". The plan identifies smart home technology as a new frontier, supporting leading enterprises to jointly develop comprehensive smart and eco-friendly solutions for entire homes.

He Yaqiong, Director of the Consumer Goods Industry Department at China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, announced plans to advance smart standalone devices toward full-house smart integration, creating an immersive, proactive, and interconnected smart living experience.

New demands drive new supply. The smart home appliance ecosystem, which is based on the perception, analysis and decision-making of user behavior data, has been applied in practice.

For example, Huawei's HarmonyOS Smart Home offers an active health air solution that monitors overall indoor air quality and connects with AI technology to track temperature, humidity, formaldehyde, and other air indicators around the clock. Once air quality declines, the system automatically takes optimization measures such as activating the fresh air system and coordinating with air purifiers to ensure the air at home remains comfortable. Whether it's the plum rain season in the south or the dry autumn and winter in the north, this solution provides personalized adjustments based on different environmental needs.

While smart standalone devices focus on 'control' —using smartphones or voice commands to operate lights, air conditioners, and other appliances—whole-home smart systems represent a new phase where home devices actively engage in 'thinking'.

"Smart home products are currently evolving towards autonomous control with 'perception + reasoning, decision-making + execution'. Under the reshaping of products and industrial chains, new technologies such as large models are fully integrated into the intelligentization process. Relying on cloud services, artificial intelligence, and smart hardware, the form of smart home products will be comprehensively renewed," said Qu Zongfeng, deputy director of the China Household Electrical Appliances Research Institute.

New supply creates new demand, and the smart home market holds vast potential.

From the production side, a complete industrial chain provides robust support. Qu Zongfeng noted that China's smart home industry features a comprehensive support system, covering upstream components, midstream device manufacturing, and downstream platform services, with production capacity fully meeting both domestic and global market demands.

From the consumer side, the smart home ecosystem will open up a new blue ocean of consumption. Yu Jun, President of Huawei's IoT Product Line in the Terminal BG, believes that although the whole-house smart industry has entered a phase of large-scale popularization, over 60% of users lack systematic understanding of whole-house smart technology, and 80% of users have not yet formed a clear decision-making path for purchase. "From this perspective, it not only indicates the enormous potential of the whole-house smart market, but also reveals that a large number of user needs remain unmet, requiring more attractive and tangible value experiences to spark their expectations."

Qu Zongfeng noted that with technological advancements, future smart homes will further enhance the seamless experience of proactive intelligence and service intelligence. By leveraging an integrated ecosystem of hardware, software, and services, these systems will extend beyond basic functionality to encompass family support and health management, such as continuous innovation in specialized scenarios like elderly care, personal care, and energy management.