Release date: 2014-07-07
WeChat, which aims to "connect everything", has reached out to the wearable market this time.
On July 1st, iHealth, Huawei glory, music and enthusiasm began to sell their WeChat bracelets on platforms such as Jingdong. Prior to this, these vendors and the WeChat team had been in secret contact for nearly half a year, and now the first products are finally launched.
The so-called WeChat version of the bracelet, not by WeChat itself to come out of the hardware. Instead, hardware vendors use WeChat to synchronize and manage the data of different brands of bracelets through the form of public service numbers, and open up the social relationship between these data and WeChat, providing users with similar circle of friends, “sports leaderboardsâ€, etc. Features.
For this attempt to intervene in wearable devices, WeChat is extremely low-key. Tencent said: "WeChat has always maintained an open rhythm. We provide the ability to connect everything, and hardware is an integral part of it."
According to the reporter, the four bracelet manufacturers announced this time are only initial attempts. WeChat is still planning to cooperate with more wearable manufacturers. "We provide an interface for connecting hardware, and we are still trying and more excellent manufacturers. Cooperation, I hope to bring more and better experience to users."
Guo Yang, the parent company of iHealth Bracelet and head of the user experience department of Jiu'an Medical (002432), told 21st Century Business Reporter that their contact with WeChat actually started from the beginning of this year. WeChat is very cautious about this. Long time to collide research is the best way to cut into WeChat.
The wearable device market represented by sports bracelets has been targeted by many manufacturers. Whether it is foreign or domestic, countless bracelets and watches have emerged in the past year. From the perspective of users, each different device needs to install its own APP, and the data between them cannot be opened. This brings about fragmentation.
Who can be the platform to get through all the data? In June of this year, Apple and Google both started from the system level, hoping to "manage" this market, Apple released Healthkit, and Google released AndroidWare. Now, WeChat also cuts in from a social point of view. Which is the best way for users?
When the bracelet meets WeChat
During the CES in January of this year, many wearable devices were unveiled. According to Guo Yang's recollection, WeChat probably focused on iHealth at that time and began to follow up.
According to the reporter's understanding, the WeChat team has been very cautious about this, and it is also kept as low-key as possible when it comes into contact with various types of bracelet manufacturers, because Tencent is afraid of being interpreted as they also need to do hardware.
"In the beginning, in fact, everyone does not know how to cooperate." Guo Yang said that the biggest requirement of WeChat for the partners is "do not move anything." Do not change the interactive experience of the original product, do not change the product logic, and do not change the product definition. The two sides spent several months trying to figure out where the joints are.
Ultimately, the connection point found is to activate the relationship between the user and the health data. In fact, in addition to the relatively more professional applications such as remote diagnosis and treatment, just the need, the need to touch users to pay attention to their health data is not strong. This is actually the reason why all kinds of bracelets, such as Jawbone, have been put aside by the user for a while.
Although each hardware vendor has its own app, the user base of a single product is relatively small, and there are fewer friends who can interact with each other, and APP users of a single brand will not open every day. The result is that the application open rate is getting lower and lower, and the slow products are being shelved.
Due to the natural social platform attributes of WeChat, the headaches of these hardware vendors may be solved.
Guo Yang told the 21st Century Economic Reporter that he believes that the WeChat version of the bracelet has two biggest advantages compared to the previous products: First, opening WeChat every day is the user's habit, using the form of the service number to interact with the user than using the APP. The threshold is lower. Second, social attributes can lead to a lot of interactions, such as being able to put them directly into a circle of friends, and also providing a "sports leaderboard" similar to a WeChat game based on a friend relationship.
After the idea is determined, the time taken for product development is not long. According to the reporter's understanding, WeChat puts two mandatory requirements for the hardware manufacturers to access: The first is to open the leaderboard data, because the amount of users of a single brand is too small, only through the movement data between different bracelets, can more The user's participation comes in to generate interaction.
The second mandatory requirement is to add an activist center. Users who use iHealth, Huawei glory, music, and products can directly report complaints if they are dissatisfied during use. The reason given by WeChat is that it is not expected that these newly added functions will force or disturb the user in any form.
After two or three months of research and development, the four WeChat bracelets that meet the above requirements were officially released on July 1. Take Huawei's glory bracelet as an example. Users do not need to download the “Glory Bracelet†APP. You only need to scan the WeChat QR code card in the package and pay attention to the WeChat public account “Huawei Sports Health†to realize the sports statistics of the bracelet. Friends sharing, sports ranking, settings management and other functions.
The other three products are similar, after the user pays attention to the product's public number, bind the bracelet product and the user's WeChat, and open the background data. Users can see the sports data rankings of all their friends, regardless of the public number, regardless of which of the four products the friend uses.
According to the reporter, Tencent is also in contact with more hardware manufacturers, hoping to intervene their data in their own platforms.
Who is the entrance?
With a variety of wearable devices blown out, there are more and more people who want to be the portal to "manage" this market. Before WeChat, there were already giants such as Apple Google.
At the beginning of June this year, Apple released health-related Healthkit tools at the annual WWDC conference. It is hoped that health-related manufacturers will design products according to Apple's standards and achieve background data.
Apple's goal in the future is that A company's bracelet, B company's blood pressure meter, C company's weight scale and other products can be managed in Apple's health management center.
At the end of June this year, Google’s Google I/O conference in San Francisco also released the AndroidWare system for wearable devices and the health management platform GoogleFit. The latter is similar to Apple's Healthkit, which manages health data across devices through a unified API. GoogleFit has partnered with brands such as Nike, Adidas, LG, Motorola, Intel, and HTC.
In China, there are also local players, such as virtual operators, who are also fascinated by this business opportunity. The practice of music is to use the virtual operator's number as a value-added service to users who purchase wearable devices, and to open data between different devices through their own cloud platform. At present, Music has reached cooperation with popular wearable device companies such as Fitbit and MisfitShine.
WeChat's approach is different from the above platforms, and currently only the sports health products of the bracelet are connected horizontally, and there is no data such as weight, blood pressure and so on. Which model of the future can be a new entry? Faced with this problem, some insiders gave reporters a different interpretation.
"They are geared to different people." The above-mentioned insiders said that for the "patient" population, health management is just needed, and it is necessary to test all aspects of data. In the future, the background can also be directly connected with the diagnosis and treatment to provide support for treatment and rehabilitation. This type of demand for Apple's Healthkit is easier to satisfy.
And some simple health data on a daily basis, such as how many steps are taken every day and how many kilometers are run, a platform like WeChat is more suitable. After incorporating social attributes, boring health data can reach a wider audience and stimulate user activity through a similar game leaderboard.
Source: Bio Valley
Mesotherapy Lipolytic Solution/PPC Solution
Jiangsu Tiera Biotechnology Co., Ltd , https://www.tierabio.com