When the concept of whole-house intelligence is very popular, countless bosses are daunted by it: a system often requires tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of upfront investments, complex installation and debugging, rapid iteration of technical risks, and users’ doubts about whether it will become a furnishing when they take it home, making this seemingly sexy business hit a wall at every turn.
However, just when the traditional sales model has reached a deadlock, a group of pioneers have changed lanes and overtaken the competition. They no longer “sell hardware” but “rent services”. They have stuck in the asset-heavy track and developed an asset-light model with an annual income of over 100 million.
Data show that global smart home revenue will be approximately 939.93 billion yuan in 2025, but the market penetration rate is still low.
There is a gap between the huge market and high implementation costs.
The “leasing model” is the best bridge to bridge this gap.
1. Four difficulties in implementation: Why is whole-house intelligence popular but not popular?
- High cost threshold: A complete set of whole-house smart solutions, from smart door locks, lights, curtains to security, audio and video, the initial hardware investment is huge, which discourages many families and small and medium-sized businesses.
- Complex decision-making: Users face problems such as numerous brands, different protocols (such as Zigbee, Bluetooth, Matter), and unknown later scalability, making decision-making costs extremely high.
- Technology iteration anxiety: Intelligent hardware is updated rapidly, and users are worried that the equipment they spend a lot of money to buy today will become an “obsolete product” next year.
- Lack of service and maintenance: Complex installation and debugging, lack of stable and reliable service guarantee for subsequent system upgrades and equipment failure repairs, and broken user experience.
2. A game-breaking tool: How does the leasing model reconstruct the value chain?
The core of the leasing model is to convert users’ huge one-time purchase expenses into affordable periodic service fees.
It fundamentally changes the business logic:
- For users (tenants/owners): At a cost of a few hundred yuan per month, you can enjoy a ten thousand yuan smart life without having to worry about installation, maintenance, and upgrades, and truly realize “move into a smart home with your bags.”
- For operators (apartments/properties/service providers): Convert heavy fixed asset investments into predictable operating revenue (ARR), bind users through continuous services, and tap the value of data.
- For brands/solution providers: Rapidly roll out products on a large scale, capture market share, and feed back product iterations through operational data to form a closed loop.
3. Case dismantling: See how growing companies play with leasing
Case 1: TCL smart rental solution – empowering the B-side and reshaping the rental experience
- Model: For B-side customers such as long-term rental apartments and affordable rental housing, it provides an integrated subscription-based solution of “intelligent hardware + SaaS platform + operational services”.
- How to play:: Integrate smart door locks, fresh air air conditioners, odor-free refrigerators and other whole-house smart products, and realize online management of housing listings, contracts, payments, and repair reports through self-developed SaaS systems.
Provide tenants with a full-process smart experience from online house viewing, electronic signing to one-click control. - Value: Help operators upgrade “livable” properties to “livable” smart properties, thereby obtaining rental premiums (more than 40% of tenants are willing to pay for smart facilities), while improving operational efficiency by more than 40% through digital tools.
This model makes TCL no longer just a hardware seller, but a “spatial intelligent service provider.”
Case 2: ZiRulingzhi
The two parties jointly launched the “Z-LINK whole-house intelligent solution”, which integrates smart door locks and water and electricity meters into the whole-house intelligent system to achieve “smartness upon entry into the home and more efficient operation.”
For Luke, it has obtained stable and huge shipping channels and real scene data for product optimization.
This is a typical B2B2C rental service model.
Case 3: JD.com’s self-operated robot rental – lowering the experience threshold and cultivating the future market
- Model : Launching rental services for C-end consumers for cutting-edge intelligent products (such as robots) with extremely high unit prices.
- How to play: Consumers can experience humanoid robots, robot dogs and other products at JD MALL at a lower monthly rent.
This solves the decision-making barriers for consumers caused by high selling prices (tens to hundreds of thousands of yuan). - Value: JD.com has transformed from a “retailer” to a “smart hardware service operator”.
Lower the experience threshold through leasing, accelerate market education, collect user feedback, and pave the way for future large-scale sales.
This is an innovative leasing exploration for high net worth, high unit price smart products.
Case 4: “Shared Home Appliances” in Wowo House Search – A flexible approach to scenario-based single product leasing
- Model : In long-term rental apartments and other scenarios, provide rental services of shared home appliances (such as sweepers and floor washers) that can be used by scanning the code.
- How to play: Build a network based on AIoT technology and monitor the status of equipment in real time. Users can complete the entire process of renting, paying, and repairing by scanning QR codes through the mini program.
It has been tested in high-end apartment projects such as “Zhuimi Home”. - Value: It satisfies tenants’ demands of “light assets, heavy on experience”, creates new value-added service income points for apartment operators, and enhances the competitiveness of housing supply.
This is a lighter and more flexible “Hardware as a Service” (HaaS) model.
Case 5: Country Garden Service “RaaS Rental” – Robot Service Subscription for Property
- Model : For small and medium-sized property companies, “Robot as a Service” (RaaS) is launched, including all-inclusive leasing of robots, cloud scheduling, operation and maintenance, and insurance.
- How to play: Customers can rent cleaning, security and other robots at a price of 3,800 to 4,200 yuan/unit per month with zero down payment to quickly achieve intelligent upgrades.
- Value: It has greatly lowered the financial and technical threshold for property companies to try robot applications. Country Garden Services can obtain stable cash flow and accumulate scene data by charging continuous service fees.
4. Profit Code: Three Major Revenue Engines of the Leasing Model
- Hardware Leasing Income
: Collect equipment usage fees on a monthly or annual basis, which is the most basic cash flow. - Software Service Fee (SaaS): Provides software services such as intelligent central control platform, data analysis, operation and maintenance management, etc., and charges an annual fee based on the area of the house or the number of equipment.
This is high gross profit and highly sticky revenue. - Value-added services and data value: Based on equipment usage data, it provides value-added services such as accurate energy management, insurance recommendations, and community e-commerce.
The data itself has also become a valuable asset for optimizing products and predicting demand.
5. Action guide for bosses: Four steps to enter the smart home leasing track
If you are a smart home integrator, home appliance brand, or a real estate operator, and want to get a share of the pie, you can follow the following path:
Step 1: Clarify your role and partners
- If you are a hardware brand
: Look for B-side giants like Ziroom and Country Garden Services with a large number of scenarios to become “rental service providers” in their supply chain. - If you are a system integrator/service provider: You can be an agent for overall solutions like TCL Smart Rental, and promote and implement them for local apartments, hotels, and office buildings.
- If you are a real estate operator: Directly introduce mature smart rental solutions, or cooperate with hardware brands to use intelligence as a core means to increase asset value and obtain rental premiums.
Step 2: Design your rental product package
- Lightweight starter package: Includes a basic set of smart door locks, smart lights, and smart curtains. The monthly rent is controlled at a low level to quickly acquire customers.
- Whole-house exclusive package: Covers a complete set of systems such as security, audio and video, and environmental monitoring, and provides full managed services of “design-installation-debugging-maintenance”, charging a higher service fee.
- Scene customization package: Provide differentiated services for specific scenarios, such as “smart health care package”, “SOHO office package”, and “energy-saving management package”.
Step 3: Build a sustainable service and operation system
The core of the leasing model is service, not a one-time sale.
Must establish:
- Quick response team: Ensure that equipment failures can be resolved within 24 hours.
- Remote operation and maintenance platform: Able to monitor equipment status online and perform OTA upgrades.
- User Success System: Regular return visits to guide users in using new features to increase activity and lease renewal rates.
Step 4: Move from “rental” to “subscription” and tap lifetime value
The ultimate goal is to convert users into long-term subscribers.
By continuously providing software updates, new hardware upgrade options, exclusive scene content (such as customized music, lighting scenes), etc., users are willing to continue to pay for the “evolving smart life”.
Written at the end
The end of smart home may not be that every household owns a bunch of expensive hardware, but that it is like paying a monthly fee for “smart” services like water and electricity.
The rental model is transforming whole-house intelligence from a hesitant “luxury” into an accessible “daily necessity”.
It breaks the industry’s biggest growth bottleneck—the initial investment threshold—and opens the real gate to the trillion-level market.
