In 2026, the whole-house intelligence industry is undergoing a profound reshuffle.
At present, most smart home integrators are facing survival difficulties such as long project cycles, declining unit prices, compressed profit margins, and fierce low-price competition.
The downturn in real estate, fluctuations in state subsidy policies, and shrinking new housing market have caused the underlying logic of industry growth to be reconstructed.
In this context, the integrator group has accelerated its differentiation. Some are struggling in the low-price red ocean, while others are jumping to the high-value track.
Zhu Jilong, founder & CEO of MyLink Smart Home, has a sharp judgment on the current industry dilemma. He pointed out that the industry has entered a downward involution stage, and the general environment is forcing everyone to compete in low dimensions. The entire industry chain is unhealthy. This is a necessary process for industry reshuffle.
Although the number of users in the smart home market continues to expand, practitioners have surged, competition has shifted from “low-dimensional” to “high-dimensional”, and integrators that rely on traditional sales models are gradually being marginalized.
Zhu Jilong summarized the three core points to break the situation: First, clear positioning, choose the right track, abandon the purely low-price and volume strategy, and turn to products and brands with quality, brand, differentiation, and adapt to the main medium and long-term consumers; second, clearly understand the nature of the market, although the total volume has increased, the competition intensity has increased, integrators must jump out of the old thinking and establish higher-dimensional competitiveness; third, make up for the shortcomings in capabilities, from products, technology, services, customer acquisition to management, and enhance corporate competitiveness in all dimensions.
The industry is shifting from “opportunity-driven” to “capability-driven”, and players who lack systemic competitiveness will eventually be eliminated.
In terms of ecology and product line layout, Mailianzhijia has continued to expand its ecological cooperation matrix in the past year, with leading brands such as Lutron, Zhumi, Deschmann, and Sonos successively joining in. At the same time, it has launched its own product lines such as Thread wireless lighting and curtains.
Zhu Jilong summarized the domestic smart home market trends into three key words: Super single products + large ecology are rigid needs, which can improve user experience and customer price, and get rid of pure hardware price competition; wired + wireless integration is the mainstream in the future, and Mailian will create a unified platform for wired and wireless integration solutions to reduce the cost and pressure of integrators; the aftermarket and add-on market are new growth poles, and integrators can lock in old customers and turn one-time business into long-term business.
So far, 64 training sessions have been held, serving more than 1,000 customers. After the training, the purchase volume and transaction rate of trainees have increased significantly.
The courses cover the entire link, and the teaching materials are dynamically iterated.
In the AI era, Zhu Jilong believes that dealers must use it first, embrace new traffic, and keep up with the AI + home furnishing trend. “Technology + sales integration capabilities” are the core capabilities.
The Magellan platform is one of the core differences of MyLink Smart Home. Its original intention is to solve the two core problems in the popularization of smart homes, namely, product ease-of-use and integrator cost controllability.
The platform directly addresses the three major pain points of integrators: low efficiency of solutions, easy leakage of plans, and chaotic project management.
In the future, the Magellan platform will launch AI functions and building management platforms, opening up a high-profit commercial track for integrators.
Zhu Jilong believes that super single products are the key weapon for integrators to escape price involution.
The advantages of post-installation scenarios are obvious. Single products such as smart beds and smart locks can increase project output value, and the linkage scenarios are of great value.
Mailian focuses on major appliances, whole-house customization, bathroom health care and other directions. The core logic is “electrification first, then networking, and then system integration.”
In terms of commercial scenarios, Mailian expands in an orderly and selective manner, giving priority to partners with commercial resources and large project capabilities.
In terms of overseas layout, Mailian adopts the strategy of “attacking Europe first”, starting with Matter single products, simultaneously promoting system-level overseas expansion, establishing a high-end image of Chinese brands, and not engaging in low-price wars.
When it comes to the future of the industry, Zhu Jilong believes that the three changes of software and hardware value reversal, AI reconstruction of the entire link, and competition and capability model reconstruction are irreversible, and Mailian is fully deployed.
The industry is constantly changing, and action is more important than waiting and watching.
Zhu Jilong said not to wait for the perfect solution, but to get started first and then optimize, so as to maintain and amplify core competitiveness in the AI era.
On May 28, the 2026 Smart Home Service Power (Shanghai) Summit will focus on the operating pain points of front-line service providers to help partners escape from involution and achieve global growth.
