The advancement of a new round of AI technology is quietly changing the underlying logic of smart homes.
According to Deloitte’s latest survey, more than 65% of users believe that smart homes are not smart. The core reason is not the lack of functions, but the fragmented experience.
The device can execute instructions, but cannot understand the scene.
This means that smart homes are moving from “controllable” to “serviceable”.
At this turning point, some frequently used home categories began to change, especially sofas.
This furniture, which is in contact with the human body for a long time every day, has begun to enter the core of intelligence.
On April 20, La-Z-Boy global smart technology conference was held in Guangzhou.
With the theme of “Building the Extraordinary, Recreating the Extraordinary”, the brand officially released the IMAS Smart Master intelligent technology platform, and brought the flagship product “Interstellar Cruise – Smart Master Edition” equipped with the platform, and further released the new product matrix of the L series family.
For La-Z-Boy, this is not a simple new product release, but a key leap from the pioneer of functional sofas to the definer of smart sofas.
More and more functions, but the experience has never really upgraded
Smart sofas are not a new concept.
Electric adjustment, voice control, heated massage, these functions have already existed on the market.
But a common reality in the industry is that while functions are increasing, the experience has not evolved simultaneously.
This kind of fragmentation is prevalent in the entire smart home industry.
IDC data shows that global smart device shipments have exceeded 1.4 billion units, but user satisfaction has not increased simultaneously.
The reason behind this is not complicated.
On the one hand, the vast majority of products are still in the module splicing stage. Motors are motors, voice is voice, control is control, and they are isolated from each other. On the other hand, the lack of real system capabilities causes users to constantly switch entrances during use, and even need to memorize different operating logics.
This also constitutes one of the core contradictions of current smart homes: the structural conflict between functional overlay and experience separation.
The judgment given by La-Z-Boy at the press conference is to re-disassemble the problem: the smart sofa should not answer “what other functions can be added”, but should answer “how to form a complete capability system”.
The core logic of the IMAS Smart Master intelligent technology platform is to dismantle the sofa into four basic capability modules for the first time: perception, command, control and execution.
Correspondingly, there are super situational awareness systems, multi-modal command systems, wide-channel control systems and full-scenario comfort systems.
The significance of this structure is to transform the sofa from a passive execution device into a terminal with a closed loop of “perception-judgment-execution”.
In other words, it no longer just follows orders, but starts to understand people.
The real watershed is the system, not the parameters
If the first level of change is the restructuring of the system structure, then the second level of change occurs on the technical path.
The current competition in the smart home industry is shifting from single-point capabilities to system capabilities.
Huawei uses Hongmeng to build a distributed system, and Xiaomi uses the IoT platform to achieve device linkage. They are essentially the same thing: whoever controls the system controls the entrance.
In the sofa segment, similar logic begins to appear.
The “Big Dipper” technology system proposed by La-Z-Boy this time is essentially to complete the key nodes of system-level capabilities, including 6 patented technologies such as smart sofa voice position recognition, adaptive lumbar automatic adjustment, and command arbitration mechanism.
These technologies may seem scattered, but they point to the same goal: to form a unified schedule between different inputs (voice, NFC, hand control) and different executions (motor, support, temperature control).
For example, the voice position recognition of smart sofas solves “who is speaking”; the command arbitration mechanism solves “whose instructions take priority”; the three-motor iron frame linkage function solves “how to execute accurately”.
These capabilities are superimposed to form the prototype of system-level intelligence.
This is also the second contradiction in the current industry: the concept of intelligence is rampant, but products with real system capabilities are extremely scarce.
When technology becomes “insensitive”, experience is truly established
The meaning of technology is never parameters, but experience.
On the “Interstellar Cruise – Wisdom Master Edition”, the capabilities of the IMAS Wisdom Master intelligent technology platform are transformed into a series of specific scenarios.
For example, voice control for sound source positioning no longer requires the user to face the device, but automatically identifies and locates it based on the location of the sound; NFC identity recognition allows different users to call up personalized settings with one touch; adaptive lumbar support realizes dynamic support by sensing weight and posture changes in real time… What these functions have in common is that you operate the sofa, and the sofa actively adapts to you.
Looking further, these experiences are not single-point capabilities, but are completed collaboratively by the “Big Dipper” technology system: from the unified scheduling of Tianshu master control, to the command integration of voice, NFC and manual control multiple entrances, to the precise execution of support, heating and structural linkage, forming a complete closed loop.
It is precisely because of this system-level collaboration that the sofa truly has the ability to “identify people – understand needs – give feedback”.
Coupled with scene coordination such as zero-gravity mode, movie viewing mode, and reading mode, the sofa is no longer a single action executor, but becomes a scheduling node for life scenes.
Behind this is the third change that is taking place in smart homes: the core of the experience is no longer function, but “no sense”.
In the past, the competition for functional sofas was essentially a competition between structure and materials; but now, the boundaries of competition are being redrawn: who can define a “smart sofa”.
In this release, La-Z-Boy, on the one hand, launched the IMAS Smart Master intelligent technology platform, and on the other hand, participated in the formulation of the “Smart Sofa Intelligence Grade Evaluation Specification”, trying to occupy both the technical and standard dimensions.
This means that the dimension of competition is moving up: from selling products to defining categories.
La-Z-Boy’s press conference, on the surface, is a technology upgrade, but in essence it is an attempt to answer a lower-level question: Is the end point of smart home to control everything, or to understand everything?
When the answer gradually becomes clear, a watershed moment for the industry will emerge.
In the future, as China’s smart home market continues to expand, La-Z-Boy will continue to use its extraordinary efforts to deepen the integration of smart technology and user experience, continue to define the development direction of the smart sofa category, and promote the smart home industry to move towards a warmer and more practical direction.
