The pace of 5G commercialization is accelerating, and smart hardware is experiencing rapid development

As another technological concept after smartphones, smart hardware has attracted more and more attention in recent years. From wearable devices that monitor people's health to smart home products that bring a comfortable life experience; from robots and drones that are accelerating their integration into people's production and life to self-driving cars that are committed to bringing high-quality travel and transportation experience... At present, with the increasing variety of smart hardware categories, its development is also booming.

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However, due to the rapid development of smart hardware, competition has become fierce, and many problems in the industry have been exposed in the process. For example, poor user experience, many pain points in usage scenarios, and insufficient product application stickiness have always made smart devices criticized, and the development of the industry has also been hindered. In this context, only by starting from the perspectives of scenario mining, technology upgrades, user experience, and material selection can the situation be effectively improved.

5G commercialization brings changes

In the past two years, the launch of 5G commercial use has brought major opportunities for the upgrade of smart hardware.

In 2019, with South Korea as the pioneer, China, the United States, Europe and other countries followed suit, and the door to global 5G commercialization gradually opened. After accelerated development in 2020, 5G deployment in various countries has achieved good results. At present, Huawei, Nokia, Ericsson and others have won hundreds of 5G commercial contracts around the world. More and more countries have started 5G spectrum auctions, and more countries have also achieved results in 5G base station construction and network coverage.

Take my country as an example. By the end of 2020, my country has built more than 700,000 5G base stations, and the 5G network has basically achieved initial coverage in all towns and villages. At the same time, the number of 5G terminal connections is close to 200 million, and the number of 5G users exceeds 120 million. In this context, on the one hand, the construction and operation of 5G itself provides application needs and scenarios for many smart hardware; on the other hand, the commercial exploration of 5G also promotes and upgrades the development of smart devices.

Among them, 5G, through its own characteristics and advantages, brings upgrades to smart hardware products, and its role in bringing changes to the industry is undoubtedly huge. Due to the characteristics of high speed, low latency, and large capacity, 5G can effectively improve the communication capabilities of smart hardware. At the same time, through further optimization and construction of the network, it can also achieve interconnection and intercommunication between smart hardware, which is of great significance to the development of the industry.

Relevant industry organizations predict that driven by 5G, the smart hardware industry will surely usher in a booming development. In 2018, the global smart hardware market size was approximately US$210 billion, and by 2023, the market size is expected to grow to more than US$360 billion, or about RMB 2.5 trillion. In the future, with the continuous acceleration of 5G construction and commercial development, smart hardware is expected to replace mobile phones and become a new growth point in the field.

Four major products worth looking forward to

So, with so many smart hardware products, which products will be most affected by 5G and have more development to look forward to?

According to the analysis of Smart Manufacturing Network, the following four products are expected to gain greater 5G dividends:

Wearable devices and smart home devices. As people's consumption level continues to rise and the pursuit of high-quality life becomes more prominent, wearable devices and smart home devices that focus on physical health and living comfort have become increasingly popular. At present, the global shipments of these two products have exceeded 100 million. With the upgrade of networking and interaction brought by 5G, product performance and accuracy have been greatly improved, and subsequent development is expected to accelerate.

Virtual reality devices. VR/AR has been tepid for a long time. The main reason is that the device experience is not good. Users often feel dizzy or stuck. This is a problem caused by the inability of network communication technology to keep up. In this context, the emergence of 5G will effectively improve these problems of VR/AR devices, upgrade product application experience, and promote the future development of products. With the help of 5G, VR/AR is expected to be implemented in more fields from entertainment.

Driverless cars. The development of driverless cars is an important way to solve traffic congestion and optimize people's traffic experience. However, the commercialization of driverless cars requires solving both technical and safety issues. Based on this, the integration of 5G can not only build a complete Internet of Vehicles, promote breakthroughs in autonomous driving technology and related supporting software and hardware applications, but also provide real-time and accurate supervision to ensure application safety.

Robots and drones. With the accelerated explosion of demand for unmanned operations, robots and drones have become the new favorites and tools in all aspects of people's production and life. The development of 5G can not only promote the communication and network upgrades of robots and drones, but also further enhance the interactivity and intelligence of products through the Internet of Everything. At the same time, 5G can also further amplify the platform integration of robots and drones, and release future development space.