Attack on Ayla, the US Internet of Things platform has conquered Chinese manufacturers?

The Internet of Things is undoubtedly the most concerned area for hardware practitioners in recent years, but frankly speaking, many IoT devices are just products that traditional manufacturers or new entrepreneurs are self-proclaimed, and the usual practice is to increase the number of devices. A wireless module, and then install an application on the mobile phone, so that consumers can control the device through the mobile terminal. But is this really the Internet of Things we are looking forward to?

One thing to be sure of is that although there are many kinds of IoT devices in the industry, they have found the focus, that is, they are connected to the network, because the "net" is the essence of the Internet of Things.

However, this "net" is not so simple, we need to connect all the devices to the Internet, we need to solve the communication between the device and the control terminal, we need to ensure the security of the communication, and we need to process the data returned from the device to the cloud. These complicated Work is not negligible in the entire Internet of Things. And this is not something that hardware vendors can solve on their own. So a cloud platform that specifically addresses these issues becomes very necessary, and Ayla is one of the best.

Zhang Nanxiong, co-founder of Ayla Networks

Recently, at the "Shenzhen Bay Hardware Ecology Conference", the electronic enthusiast network reporter had the opportunity to interview Zhang Nanxiong, co-founder of Ayla Networks Ayla (hereinafter referred to as Ayla), and listened to his views on the intelligent hardware cloud platform under the Internet of Things. .

Professional people do professional things

In the past three decades, the semiconductor field has developed rapidly. I think it is not unrelated to the division of fabless and fab. Let the professional people do professional things before they can develop the whole industry. Zhang Nanxiong also agrees with me.

"In terms of the Internet of Things, many traditional vendors are basically doing the IoT cloud platform in the early days of entering the Internet of Things. This is no problem in small-volume products, but as long as the sales volume of the products rises, the sales location also When there are all over the world, the defects of such platforms will be revealed." Zhang Nanxiong said. "So Ayla came into being." Zhang Nanxiong stressed.

According to Zhang Nanxiong, Ayla was founded in 2010 and is the world's leading provider of enterprise-class IoT cloud platform services, focusing on IoT solutions in smart homes, smart buildings, consumer electronics, retail and service providers. Ayla has partnered with leading brands in various industries around the world to use Ayla's IoT technology to transform these hardware manufacturers' traditional products into smart products, extract valuable data information, and let hardware manufacturers in the Internet of Things. Take advantage of the situation.

Ayla's platform architecture

The reason why Ayla is very professional in the Internet of Things, we can see from the founder team of Ayla.

Ayla was founded by David Friedman, Adrian Cáceres, Phillip and Tom Lee. Before starting a business, they were all in the wireless chip business. Working for many years, this has provided a wealth of experience for Ayla to solve the chip networking.

In particular, both Phillip and David have jointly developed the WIFI module business in Ayla's current co-founder Tom Lee (Stanford University professor, IoT field instructor, Professor Stanford IoT for more than 20 years). They wanted to be able to connect hardware products by wifi connection, but in the end, because the market was not mature at the time, and the hardware cost was too large, they had to sell the company to Microchip for $200 million.

All of the above reflect Ayla's strengths in the Internet of Things.

In order to explain more deeply the importance of professional people doing professional things, Zhang Nanxiong also shared a previous entrepreneurial story:

"Everyone knows that Apple is a very good company. Many of its products have been popular in the world, but in fact they have also done some failed products. Jobs's Hockey Puck mouse in 1998 is a representative. Although this product is branded with Apple's logo, it is difficult to operate because of its small size, so the product has a poor user experience and is not good in the market. I (Philip) accumulated a lot of work in the manufacturing industry. With considerable experience, I designed an accessory that turned the Hockey Puck into an ergonomically designed product (such as an attached picture). Once the product was launched, it caused a strong reaction in the market, and the sales were extremely hot. At that time, Jobs even Find out that I want to acquire this patent."

From this story we have seen the importance of "professionalism". Apple undoubtedly has deep knowledge in industrial and product design, but after all, the mouse is not its specialty. Just like if we call Ayla a terminal product, it might not be as good as Apple's mouse.

High quality products and services are fundamental

Since its establishment in 2010, Ayla has achieved good results all over the world. The company has successively cooperated with Kidde Kaide, the largest fire safety manufacturer in the United States, Hunter Fan, the largest ceiling fan brand in the United States, AO Smith, the largest water heater manufacturer in the United States, and the smart wearable innovation leader in the United States. Owlet, Germany's Berlin smart coffee machine innovation brand Bonaverde, Dutch smart home lighting innovation brand Innr lighTIng, Ireland's world-renowned fireplace brand Dimplex and other companies signed.

Since entering China in 2014, it has achieved remarkable results in just over a year. At present, it has established cooperative relations with leading brands such as China Changhong, TCL and Haoze Water Purification.

"The ability to achieve such results is inseparable from Ayla's high quality products and services." Zhang Nanxiong said.

Zhang Nanxiong believes that the strengths and weaknesses of an IoT cloud intelligent hardware cloud platform can focus on three aspects of security, stability and scalability, which is exactly the advantage of Ayla.

“Ayla currently deploys IoT cloud platforms in Europe, the United States, China and other regions around the world, which provides strong support for the internationalization of manufacturers' networked smart products in the intelligent era. The era of hardware networking is different from the traditional manufacturing era. Different countries and regions have different data privacy and protection policies related to cloud smart products. This brings unprecedented challenges to traditional enterprises that transform to cloud intelligence, such as cloud product security, standard certification, and privacy. Policies and regulations, etc. Ayla provides a platform for full compliance in all regions of the world, and there is no need for secondary certification for cross-border sales of enterprise intelligence products,” said Zhang Nanxiong.

In our conversation with Zhang Nanxiong, we learned that Ayla's globally successful standards for security/privacy and other related standards are as follows:

The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA)'s IT certification and information security management authority certification SOC 2, and SOC 3 public audit report; the globally recognized independent security standard ISO 27001; American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and the International Federation of Accountants The International Review and Assurance Standards Board's audit standards SSAE 16 (Assurance Business Standards Bulletin No. 16) and ISAE 3402 (Assurance Business International Standard No. 3402) for service organizations; Internet Content Provider (ICP) licenses are the only ones in the United States. A platform company that obtained the license in China.

In addition, as mentioned earlier, the big data processing of the Internet of Things platform is also a key part of the entire ecosystem. Ayla also has outstanding solutions in this regard. This is Ayla's Ayla Insights big data platform.

From Zhang Nanxiong's introduction, we can know that Ayla Insights is a full-featured business intelligence and big data analysis platform that can help manufacturers analyze the real use of products. More and more manufacturers are beginning to realize that the true value of the Internet of Things exists in the data. To extract value from the "raw" data generated by IoT products requires a lot of technology and experience.

“Ayla Insights provides manufacturers with a convenient way to quickly visualize data and analyze and explore data to discover the value of it. Ayla Insights provides industry analytics that help manufacturers quickly interpret valuable Data, complete the product improvement feedback loop, thereby increasing user satisfaction and increasing revenue." Zhang Nanxiong added.

Zhang Nanxiong used a practical example to describe the Ayla big data platform to create value for customers.

He mentioned that Ayla has a coffee machine manufacturer customer who connects traditional coffee machines and builds their own coffee cloud ecosystem based on networking. The specific method is to obtain the coffee bean data that the user of the smart coffee machine likes through the Internet of Things cloud, and then push the preferential information of these coffee beans on the e-commerce platform/offline department store to the user, so that the user can obtain the information at the first time. And buy the order directly.

This is the power of data in the age of information networking and the support that Ayla provides.

The charm of diverse services

In fact, the Internet of Things cloud platform service providers are not just Ayla, there are many same types of service providers at home and abroad, which can stand out among so many competitors, which is inseparable from Ayla's own business strategy.

When Ayla was founded, it set the goal of a reliable global connectivity platform for traditional hardware manufacturers around the world. In order to achieve this goal, Ayla also provides different services for different markets.

For example, in the US and European markets, because the differentiation of product standards is not so serious, Ayla provides a black box solution (the company can not change).

In the Chinese market, due to the different needs of local Chinese companies, many companies need differentiated white-box solutions (that is, enterprises can choose their own services, Ayla is also providing users with white-box solutions according to the characteristics of the Chinese market, which can provide customized Functional service).

Ayla can provide these diversified services. In addition to its own strong investment in software, it is also inseparable from the cooperation with upper chip manufacturers, standard developers and channel vendors.

According to reports, Ayla has established ecological partnerships with top global chip manufacturers and module manufacturers such as Qualcomm, Broadcom and ST STMicroelectronics. It also established partnerships with US retailers such as Sears Department Store and Best Buy Group to achieve cloud docking. In addition, the implementation of interoperability with different protocol standards such as Apple HomeKit and Google Thread also enhances the competitiveness of the Ayla platform.

Through unremitting efforts, Ayla has established a reputation among manufacturers, and the company's business is also booming, and more and more customers are serving. The accumulated experience has also risen. So the author asked Zhang Nanxiong, when there is any suggestion for the future development of the Internet of Things and the developers of the Internet of Things, Zhang Nanxiong said:

"German Industry 4.0? Made in China 2025? US Industrial Internet.. . . .. Regardless of policy-driven or market trends, the Internet of Things is the trend of the times. Ayla is the most growing representative of the global Internet of Things, from the very beginning It is aimed at the global traditional hardware manufacturing industry and is committed to promoting the intelligent networking upgrade of traditional manufacturing products around the world.

And the Internet of Things entrepreneurs should be based on their own reality, to find a correct positioning, not to be blind.

In the process of traditional industry transformation, turning to the new technology field that is unfamiliar, we should hand over the professional things to the professional team. After all, the industry has a specialization, just like Ayla has always stressed: do what you are good at, and give it to Ayla. . ”

In recent years, in large-scale shopping malls or activities, we always see the figure of "LED fan". Its appearance is similar to the fan, but it can display various patterns when rotating, and some can display dynamic 3D patterns, which is very cool. Every time we see it, we can always make people stop and watch it, which plays a very good role in publicity and promotion. So how do LED fans display patterns?

Strictly speaking, this so-called "fan" is just a vivid way to call it. In fact, it is a kind of "rotating LED light bar", and its professional name is holographic 3D smart glare screen. After power on, the "fan blade" starts to rotate, which can present a 3D image at the same time, cool and lifelike. At the same time, according to the size and color of the pattern, the LED fan can well hide its leaves, because there is no frame and no fixed screen, so the dynamic picture is like floating in the air, very realistic.

The 3D smart screen not only uses the hardware of rotating LED, but also uses the visual persistence of human eyes. For the hardware equipment of rotating LED, simply speaking, it is to calculate the change frequency of LED light according to the rotation speed of "fan blade". When different LED lights are lit at different times, different patterns will appear. The so-called visual persistence refers to that when the human eye is observing the scene, the light signal is transmitted to the brain nerve, which takes a short period of time. After the end of the role of light, the visual image does not disappear immediately, and the human eye can still maintain its image for about 0.1-0.4 seconds. This kind of residual vision is called "afterimage". The visual phenomenon is called "visual persistence", and the single product can be unique. Vertical display effect can also display the overall effect in combination.

3D holographic fan screen application: shopping malls, brand stores, stores, airports, etc. A good choice to reflect brand effect and brand grade

Principle of 3D holographic screen: Generally speaking, one or more strings of LED lights are arranged on the fan blades. Here, it is assumed that there are 20 LED lights, which are numbered 1-20 at a time from the axis to the edge of the fan blades. In order to explain the principle briefly, we assume that when the fan speed is 60 laps per minute (in reality, the speed is much higher), the human eye will have visual persistence. Let's assume that the LED light is 0 degrees above the fan in 0 seconds. If you want to display the effect of 6:00 on the fan, the minute hand needs to point to the top and the hour hand needs to point to the bottom. It is necessary to turn on the number 1-20 to display minute hand in 0 second, turn on the number 1-10 to display hour hand in 0.5 second, turn on the number 1-20 to display minute hand in 1 second, turn on the number 1-10 to display hour hand in 1.5 second, and so on, so that the human eye will receive a complete picture of the clock at 6:00. For complex patterns, LED fans will have more complex structure and programming equipment. Through the combination of LED light bar rotation and visual persistence, people will see a dynamic 3D picture of the rotating LED fan.

3D holographic fan screen structure: the screen body mainly has light bars and, according to different ones, some have two. Add rotary motor, built-in 3D holographic system and information receiving system.

At present, the main application of 3D smart screen is advertising. Because of its editability and realistic display effect, it is believed that in the near future, it will be applied in more fields.

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