China. Factory of devices for "Smart Home". Learn and learn
The Russian market of professional automation equipment for home and building (aka Smart Home ) has always been filled with European and American brands. European companies whose products can be found in construction stores - ABB, Schneider Electric, Legrand, Gira, JUNG - and American companies whose logos are displayed on touch panels in Class A offices - Crestron, AMX - have long been working in this market, equipping expensive homes “Smart” features. But the market is growing, there is a lot of equipment and production has to be transferred to China. Not surprisingly, some Chinese companies that previously specialized in OEM manufacturing used the money earned to create their own R&D division. And that means its own unique brand.
HDL plant whichinvited us to speak at his annual training for distributors and dealers (in Guangzhou), became the first Chinese brand to dilute US-European dominance in our market. In 2007, they began production of their own line of Smart Home equipment, in 2009 they entered the Russian market (for them it was the first foreign experience). In 2015, their equipment is sold in 82 countries of the world, and their R&D division of about 40 engineers produces new products more often than any competitor.
HDL is our good partner. The installers of this equipment are one of the fastest growing sections in our sales pivot table. Some of these satisfied individuals are directly involved in the process.
This post is for those who have anything to do with the phrase “smart home” and are interested in how seriously the Chinese approach the issue of manufacturing the corresponding equipment. This is not a news report or an advertisement for anything. If you want to see what this plant does, go to its website or to the sites of Russian distributors. And here is just a story about our trip in chronological order. Initially, we planned to place this only in social services. networks, but it occurred to someone that this might be of interest to a wider audience.
The first day was not easy for us. A long flight and a difference of 5 hours did the trick. The Russian delegation (17 people) was met on a separate bus that drove us to the hotel. There, as in other countries, a surprise for many was that, in addition to paying for the room, everyone needs to make a deposit of $ 400-500, but they quickly resolved all the issues. There was no training on Sunday, so we, accompanied by a sales manager in Eastern Europe (named Lawrence), were left to our own devices.
The Chinese immediately lead any tourist for their belongings. So we were taken into circulation and taken to the main attraction - shops.
According to experienced reviews, prices over the past couple of years have become less interesting (10 percent increased by themselves, another 80 percent for us personally - due to the current ruble rate). Nevertheless, I admit that we were pleased to wander among Chinese handbags and shoes, looking for gifts for wives and trying to find recognizable logos. Recognizable logos, as it turned out, are forbidden to be put on store shelves, but the sullen Chinese quietly pronouncing “Copy, copy ...” gladly took us to secret apartments located a couple of floors above the shopping center. On conditional knock and password cry the door opened, and inside all walls were occupied by Gucci, Dior, LV ...
With light shopping, we went for a walk in the center. 32 degrees, skyscrapers, wonderful pedestrian streets and a beautiful promenade made some of us recall us with a longing. Still, China is China, now the main economy of the world.
Here is a library, for example:
We sat in a bar and were told about the great Chinese firewall. It immediately became clear why Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Gmail, Google didn’t work for us ... Someone urgently started looking for a VPN service, and someone took a break and turned off the phone for a while.
Coincidentally, on the day of arrival, I had a birthday, and our colleague Edward the day before. Surprisingly, Lawrence did not forget about this and brought us a cake, which we, with a merry company, served together for traditional Chinese food and beer. Thank you, I haven’t had such a birthday yet.
Chinese beer - a fortress of only 3%, but in bottles of 0.6l.
Among us was Harry P., but at that moment I did not recognize him:
On Monday, training began. At 8 in the morning, a bus for 40 people came for us, in which we ran half-asleep, barely having time to grab a banana at breakfast. An hour to the factory in a suburb of Guangzhou, everyone was asleep.
In general, HDL is not a Chinese type of story, but rather an American one. The man who set his first dimmers in 1985 here:
Now owns a factory and annually collects dozens of distributors from around the world. It’s quite an American dream. Although, wait ... I'm not quite sure that the people in this room had nothing to do with this process.
Having approached the plant, we saw another bus of the same type and several smaller vanes that brought our colleagues from other hotels. The atmosphere of collective joy reigned here, no one expected that there would be so many people. The Indians met with the Dubai, who rubbed next to the girls from Mauritius, who had already managed to make friends with an aunt from Qatar. Oddly enough, the atmosphere of friendliness and a slight surprise remained until the last day of our visit.
The introductory part was led by Noah Barker, an employee of the Chinese office, whom we had not met before. Later we found out some unusual motives that made the Englishman move to China, they turned out to be very personal.
Before the presentation ended, I was caught by a very active Indian distributor, Sanjay. He stated that he had looked at all iRidium online courses and did not understand anything, his main goal in this training was me. Next, we devoted a couple of days of pause between classes to Sanjay's blitz training, which culminated in a triumphal independent project creation and a vigorously controlled light bulb. In the photo on the left - a representative from Dubai and Sanjay do not allow James Zeng, vice president of the company, to have a quiet dinner:
Near the conference room there was a very nice showroom. From translucent touch glass to controlled furniture - this is food for thought (about our own showroom) to any specialist in the home automation market.
Several partner companies called for HDL training and all of them turned out to be Russian-speaking. It just so happened that companies whose strengths are good hardware usually cannot make good software (with rare exceptions). Therefore, we were in a privileged position: we, iRidium mobile , Throne from Yaroslavl, are the authors of the world's first (and, it seems, the only) system of a three-dimensional visualization system for building management and Coolautomation(Israel, but through and through Russian) - the authors of the controller that allows you to control all kinds of air conditioning systems.
I turned out to be one of the rare specialists who had experience in real-world installations of Coolmaster with HDL and was asked to help, show how this is done. Of course, the first time nothing turned on, but after a couple of minutes of thought, all the air conditioners were controlled with a bang.
If anyone is interested in how to control air conditioners - from the site .
This evening we ordered almost everything that was in the restaurant not far from our hotel, including a rabbit and a frog. Having overeated nine times, we paid the bill - about 4000 rubles. with our money - and again saddened about the restaurants in the homeland, where you leave so much for two (and no frogs).
Frogs:
The fourth day, the organizers decided to start with a story about the nearest plans and innovations ...
HDMI / HDBaseT switch:
Weather station and a wireless dimmer for LEDs:
Installers from Moscow and Kazan even managed to disassemble the case from a pair of controllers:
More details about the wireless system. The strange thing is that HDL is a member of the Zigbee alliance, but uses its own (open) buspro protocol for wireless devices:
Next we went to see the factory. They
print SMD themselves:
They solder themselves too:
HDL has very good demo suitcases, so they make and sell a lot of them:
Test stands in the R&D department:
Further, those who wished went to the nearest, not built up by apartment buildings, attraction - Lotus Mountain. For the first time we saw at least some Chinese nature - a very calm and beautiful place.
The Dubai delegation dressed in Chinese historical costumes and shot all of the air balloons from Kalashnikov.
On the way back (like on any other) we sleep on the bus. Why can't I sleep on the bus like a baby at home ?!
Approaching the hotel found 2-story parking. Near my house in St. Petersburg I need just this:
Having slept in the bus, we decided not to fille at least one night and went to a night club. The guys from Kazakhstan, whom we met the day before, advised us to the Troe Color club and thank them very much for that. Artem was later told that in Guangzhou he also found a Moscow ICON, and in St. Petersburg I won’t immediately tell you where it is. I won’t be surprised if the effects in this club are controlled by HDL equipment - one of the famous DMX show equipment manufacturers in China.
It became even more interesting when it turned out that no matter how dressed, we were still very interesting to all the locals. They were ready to treat us with anything in any quantity, only because we were standing next to their table and you could take pictures with us. I managed to feel a little exotic.
Later we learned that there are fierce fights here and we ourselves have witnessed a little violent insanity because of a scolding Chinese couple. The Russian / Ukrainian team from the show told us that they didn’t have a quarrel with anyone. The offended Chinese will definitely return and lead a gang.
On the fifth day, we finally got to the hotel equipment, about which there were a lot of questions. We trained on suitcases with controllers and a WiFi router, which we then successfully stole with us to Russia.
This is the main thing that does almost everything in a hotel room (lighting, climate, curtains, etc.)
One of the common questions was - how do we use this equipment if the hotel has Fidelio PMS? It turned out that firstly it is now called Opera (uh, why not Firefox? But because Fidelio is Beethoven’s only opera). And secondly, integration is already right in the HDL software for hotel controllers, which made us very pleased.
Then they brought a flyer advertising the fun aquariums from HDL. We did not expect this and went to watch. Well, DMX, in general, is the same technology as in a nightclub. Interestingly, the fish do not get nervous?
Then Daniel Radcliffe talked about the Yaroslavl Throne, but it was not easy for him, since their whole development works on the basis of a web service, which the great Chinese firewall actively opposed.
(well, his name is Yura)
I started the sixth and last day. I was sure that in the early morning of the last day, and even on Saturday, there would be no one. But he was mistaken - everyone came and even a little more than usual. From someone I even heard that he came from another part of the world only to listen about iRidium, but, of course, did not believe it.
After that, we got on the bus and went for a big final dinner. While everyone was eating, they were entertained from the stage with stories about how HDL manages to win competitions for the supply of equipment for large facilities against large competitors.
Coincidentally, the owner of the restaurant where the dinner was held also has a yacht assembly plant. One of them was moored near the restaurant and filled with the automation equipment that we studied in the previous days. Lighting, climate and music control could be experienced while we were walking on the yacht.
We were told that this is the largest yacht manufactured in China:
And immediately a negative example. What happens if the Chinese do not use iRidium for touch control, but their own ILIFE software: The
panels near the bed control the lighting of the bedroom, the entire living space of the yacht, curtains, air conditioning, music and a TV. Everything could be tried and everything worked well:
After such a farewell, we were gripped by longing and unwillingness to leave. Having found a tincture on a snake in a nearby restaurant, we tried to rush into heavy alcoholic adventures.
But nothing came of it and everything ended in a decent institution on the river bank with beautiful music.
If someone reads to this place, he will probably be interested in how iRidium supports the automation equipment of this plant. All information about this is here .
Phew It seems to be all. Thanks to HDL for having an interesting time. I hope that all hotels, skyscrapers and entire cities promised by new partners will be truly equipped with iRidium. I also hope to get to this training next year.
My personal photos and videos, as well as Eduard Arakelov, Sergey Kostin and Artem Tseplyaev, for which many thanks to all of them
HDL plant whichinvited us to speak at his annual training for distributors and dealers (in Guangzhou), became the first Chinese brand to dilute US-European dominance in our market. In 2007, they began production of their own line of Smart Home equipment, in 2009 they entered the Russian market (for them it was the first foreign experience). In 2015, their equipment is sold in 82 countries of the world, and their R&D division of about 40 engineers produces new products more often than any competitor.
HDL is our good partner. The installers of this equipment are one of the fastest growing sections in our sales pivot table. Some of these satisfied individuals are directly involved in the process.
This post is for those who have anything to do with the phrase “smart home” and are interested in how seriously the Chinese approach the issue of manufacturing the corresponding equipment. This is not a news report or an advertisement for anything. If you want to see what this plant does, go to its website or to the sites of Russian distributors. And here is just a story about our trip in chronological order. Initially, we planned to place this only in social services. networks, but it occurred to someone that this might be of interest to a wider audience.
The first day was not easy for us. A long flight and a difference of 5 hours did the trick. The Russian delegation (17 people) was met on a separate bus that drove us to the hotel. There, as in other countries, a surprise for many was that, in addition to paying for the room, everyone needs to make a deposit of $ 400-500, but they quickly resolved all the issues. There was no training on Sunday, so we, accompanied by a sales manager in Eastern Europe (named Lawrence), were left to our own devices.
The Chinese immediately lead any tourist for their belongings. So we were taken into circulation and taken to the main attraction - shops.
According to experienced reviews, prices over the past couple of years have become less interesting (10 percent increased by themselves, another 80 percent for us personally - due to the current ruble rate). Nevertheless, I admit that we were pleased to wander among Chinese handbags and shoes, looking for gifts for wives and trying to find recognizable logos. Recognizable logos, as it turned out, are forbidden to be put on store shelves, but the sullen Chinese quietly pronouncing “Copy, copy ...” gladly took us to secret apartments located a couple of floors above the shopping center. On conditional knock and password cry the door opened, and inside all walls were occupied by Gucci, Dior, LV ...
With light shopping, we went for a walk in the center. 32 degrees, skyscrapers, wonderful pedestrian streets and a beautiful promenade made some of us recall us with a longing. Still, China is China, now the main economy of the world.
Here is a library, for example:
We sat in a bar and were told about the great Chinese firewall. It immediately became clear why Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Gmail, Google didn’t work for us ... Someone urgently started looking for a VPN service, and someone took a break and turned off the phone for a while.
Coincidentally, on the day of arrival, I had a birthday, and our colleague Edward the day before. Surprisingly, Lawrence did not forget about this and brought us a cake, which we, with a merry company, served together for traditional Chinese food and beer. Thank you, I haven’t had such a birthday yet.
Chinese beer - a fortress of only 3%, but in bottles of 0.6l.
Among us was Harry P., but at that moment I did not recognize him:
On Monday, training began. At 8 in the morning, a bus for 40 people came for us, in which we ran half-asleep, barely having time to grab a banana at breakfast. An hour to the factory in a suburb of Guangzhou, everyone was asleep.
In general, HDL is not a Chinese type of story, but rather an American one. The man who set his first dimmers in 1985 here:
Now owns a factory and annually collects dozens of distributors from around the world. It’s quite an American dream. Although, wait ... I'm not quite sure that the people in this room had nothing to do with this process.
Having approached the plant, we saw another bus of the same type and several smaller vanes that brought our colleagues from other hotels. The atmosphere of collective joy reigned here, no one expected that there would be so many people. The Indians met with the Dubai, who rubbed next to the girls from Mauritius, who had already managed to make friends with an aunt from Qatar. Oddly enough, the atmosphere of friendliness and a slight surprise remained until the last day of our visit.
The introductory part was led by Noah Barker, an employee of the Chinese office, whom we had not met before. Later we found out some unusual motives that made the Englishman move to China, they turned out to be very personal.
Before the presentation ended, I was caught by a very active Indian distributor, Sanjay. He stated that he had looked at all iRidium online courses and did not understand anything, his main goal in this training was me. Next, we devoted a couple of days of pause between classes to Sanjay's blitz training, which culminated in a triumphal independent project creation and a vigorously controlled light bulb. In the photo on the left - a representative from Dubai and Sanjay do not allow James Zeng, vice president of the company, to have a quiet dinner:
Near the conference room there was a very nice showroom. From translucent touch glass to controlled furniture - this is food for thought (about our own showroom) to any specialist in the home automation market.
Several partner companies called for HDL training and all of them turned out to be Russian-speaking. It just so happened that companies whose strengths are good hardware usually cannot make good software (with rare exceptions). Therefore, we were in a privileged position: we, iRidium mobile , Throne from Yaroslavl, are the authors of the world's first (and, it seems, the only) system of a three-dimensional visualization system for building management and Coolautomation(Israel, but through and through Russian) - the authors of the controller that allows you to control all kinds of air conditioning systems.
I turned out to be one of the rare specialists who had experience in real-world installations of Coolmaster with HDL and was asked to help, show how this is done. Of course, the first time nothing turned on, but after a couple of minutes of thought, all the air conditioners were controlled with a bang.
If anyone is interested in how to control air conditioners - from the site .
This evening we ordered almost everything that was in the restaurant not far from our hotel, including a rabbit and a frog. Having overeated nine times, we paid the bill - about 4000 rubles. with our money - and again saddened about the restaurants in the homeland, where you leave so much for two (and no frogs).
Frogs:
The fourth day, the organizers decided to start with a story about the nearest plans and innovations ...
HDMI / HDBaseT switch:
Weather station and a wireless dimmer for LEDs:
Installers from Moscow and Kazan even managed to disassemble the case from a pair of controllers:
More details about the wireless system. The strange thing is that HDL is a member of the Zigbee alliance, but uses its own (open) buspro protocol for wireless devices:
Next we went to see the factory. They
print SMD themselves:
They solder themselves too:
HDL has very good demo suitcases, so they make and sell a lot of them:
Test stands in the R&D department:
Further, those who wished went to the nearest, not built up by apartment buildings, attraction - Lotus Mountain. For the first time we saw at least some Chinese nature - a very calm and beautiful place.
The Dubai delegation dressed in Chinese historical costumes and shot all of the air balloons from Kalashnikov.
On the way back (like on any other) we sleep on the bus. Why can't I sleep on the bus like a baby at home ?!
Approaching the hotel found 2-story parking. Near my house in St. Petersburg I need just this:
Having slept in the bus, we decided not to fille at least one night and went to a night club. The guys from Kazakhstan, whom we met the day before, advised us to the Troe Color club and thank them very much for that. Artem was later told that in Guangzhou he also found a Moscow ICON, and in St. Petersburg I won’t immediately tell you where it is. I won’t be surprised if the effects in this club are controlled by HDL equipment - one of the famous DMX show equipment manufacturers in China.
It became even more interesting when it turned out that no matter how dressed, we were still very interesting to all the locals. They were ready to treat us with anything in any quantity, only because we were standing next to their table and you could take pictures with us. I managed to feel a little exotic.
Later we learned that there are fierce fights here and we ourselves have witnessed a little violent insanity because of a scolding Chinese couple. The Russian / Ukrainian team from the show told us that they didn’t have a quarrel with anyone. The offended Chinese will definitely return and lead a gang.
On the fifth day, we finally got to the hotel equipment, about which there were a lot of questions. We trained on suitcases with controllers and a WiFi router, which we then successfully stole with us to Russia.
This is the main thing that does almost everything in a hotel room (lighting, climate, curtains, etc.)
One of the common questions was - how do we use this equipment if the hotel has Fidelio PMS? It turned out that firstly it is now called Opera (uh, why not Firefox? But because Fidelio is Beethoven’s only opera). And secondly, integration is already right in the HDL software for hotel controllers, which made us very pleased.
Then they brought a flyer advertising the fun aquariums from HDL. We did not expect this and went to watch. Well, DMX, in general, is the same technology as in a nightclub. Interestingly, the fish do not get nervous?
Then Daniel Radcliffe talked about the Yaroslavl Throne, but it was not easy for him, since their whole development works on the basis of a web service, which the great Chinese firewall actively opposed.
(well, his name is Yura)
I started the sixth and last day. I was sure that in the early morning of the last day, and even on Saturday, there would be no one. But he was mistaken - everyone came and even a little more than usual. From someone I even heard that he came from another part of the world only to listen about iRidium, but, of course, did not believe it.
After that, we got on the bus and went for a big final dinner. While everyone was eating, they were entertained from the stage with stories about how HDL manages to win competitions for the supply of equipment for large facilities against large competitors.
Coincidentally, the owner of the restaurant where the dinner was held also has a yacht assembly plant. One of them was moored near the restaurant and filled with the automation equipment that we studied in the previous days. Lighting, climate and music control could be experienced while we were walking on the yacht.
We were told that this is the largest yacht manufactured in China:
And immediately a negative example. What happens if the Chinese do not use iRidium for touch control, but their own ILIFE software: The
panels near the bed control the lighting of the bedroom, the entire living space of the yacht, curtains, air conditioning, music and a TV. Everything could be tried and everything worked well:
After such a farewell, we were gripped by longing and unwillingness to leave. Having found a tincture on a snake in a nearby restaurant, we tried to rush into heavy alcoholic adventures.
But nothing came of it and everything ended in a decent institution on the river bank with beautiful music.
If someone reads to this place, he will probably be interested in how iRidium supports the automation equipment of this plant. All information about this is here .
Phew It seems to be all. Thanks to HDL for having an interesting time. I hope that all hotels, skyscrapers and entire cities promised by new partners will be truly equipped with iRidium. I also hope to get to this training next year.
My personal photos and videos, as well as Eduard Arakelov, Sergey Kostin and Artem Tseplyaev, for which many thanks to all of them
