Release AI Headphones, ByteDance Battle Hardware.

Economic Observer reporter Ren Xiaoning On October 17th, ByteDance (hereinafter referred to as "Byte") released its first AI headset OlaFriend (hereinafter referred to as Bean Pack AI headset) at a price of 1199 yuan. As of 11: 00 am on October 18th, OlaFriend Tmall flagship store showed that more than 1,000 people had paid for the product. In O-Lafriend’s flagship store in JD.COM, the product has four color schemes, two of which show that it is out of stock, and the other two show that there are only two pieces left.

Previously, mainly startups were making AI headsets, and Byte was the first Internet giant in China to enter the track. The action of bytes is not surprising. For hardware, this company has shown great interest in recent years. When carrying out education business before, Byte introduced a powerful intelligent learning desk lamp. When preparing to make virtual reality (VR) hardware, Byte acquired PICO, a VR enterprise. These areas have not been entered by other big Internet companies.

However, compared with the previous two high-profile press conferences and generous subsidies to users, the strategy of bytes on AI headphones is relatively low-key. This time, the byte released AI headphones, which were only released on social channels, and no press conference was held, and the relevant teams were not interviewed.

What is the color of byte AI headphones? Can this headset with a price of more than 1,000 yuan carry the dream of bytes in the AI ​ ​ era?

How is the color?

Bean bag AI earphone is an ear-less open earphone that can be hung on the ear, which is a popular earphone type at present. Frost&Sullivan, a third-party consulting firm, published the Independent Market Research Report of the Global Ear-less Open Headphones Industry, which shows that from 2019 to 2023, the overall market size of the global ear-less Open Headphones has almost doubled, with a compound annual growth rate of 75.5%.

In the platform of JD.COM, the price of big-name open headphones is more than 1,000 yuan, Huawei’s FreeClip headphones cost 1,149 yuan, and American audio equipment company BOSE’s Ultra headphones cost 1,999 yuan. Open headphones also have cheap products. The small S108 headphones cost 368 yuan, and Philips’ ear clip headphones cost 197 yuan. In addition, there are a number of "white brand" open headphones, the price is below 10 yuan.

The main function of bean bag AI earphone is companionship, and it mainly introduces five scenes: carrying knowledgeable person, English sparring, travel guide, music DJ and emotional gas station. After experiencing the product, an AI evaluator said that this headset looks good and has good sound quality, but she didn’t find the reason why she had to buy it. Users can choose many headphones at the price of 1199 yuan.

Why make AI headphones?

After Byte launched the AI business bean bag, the outside world speculated that it would do AI hardware in the next step.

In April this year, Byte acquired Oladance, a headset startup, with a purchase amount of 300 million to 500 million yuan. This is a rare wholly-owned acquisition in the context of Byte’s "slimming and slimming", abolition of the team and reduction of business in the past two years.

Li Hao, the founder of Oladance, was a BOSE executive before. Oladance’s core technical team members are also from BOSE. At present, Oladance team has been integrated into the byte system.

On October 11th, the Economic Observer asked Bytes why headphones were chosen as the first AI hardware, but no response was received as of press time. People in the industry interviewed by this newspaper generally believe that headphones are hardware that makes it easier to realize companionship. "There are some technical products that are actually far from life. But headphones are devices that people touch every day and are very close to our lives. " Liu Da, chief product officer of Future Intelligence, said. Future Intelligence was born in Iflytek, and it is a manufacturer of AI headphones in iFLYTEK. The first AI hardware of the company also chose headphones.

JD.COM released the "Double Eleven" AI Headphones Sales Ranking on October 14th, and three brands of headphones, namely Bean Bag, Samsung and iFLYTEK, were selected. Among the top 10 products in sales volume, iFLYTEK AI headphones account for 7.

Liu Da said that AI headphones are still a niche market, but they are growing rapidly. For two years in a row, the sales of AI headphones in iFLYTEK increased by more than 300%.

Another reason for smart AI headsets in the future is that the headset technology is very mature and the startup cost is relatively low, which is a more suitable road for startups.

At present, iFLYTEK AI Headphones mainly focus on conference scenes, and their main functions are voice transcription, translation, AI summarization, AI question and answer, etc. Liu Da believes that in the future, AI headphones may break the boundaries between people and devices. Headphones can not only be used for listening to songs and meetings, but also become interactive partners of human beings, accompanying human beings at all times like mobile phones now.

Bytes as AI headphones, this track has a big factory to enter. Liu Da believes that for future intelligence, this incident not only means competition, but also expands the AI headset market.

Re-war hardware

Before making AI headphones, Byte had made two pieces of hardware, namely, the powerful intelligent learning desk lamp in 2020 and the VR device PICO in 2021.

The first two bytes of hardware are very popular. When the desk lamp for intelligent learning was released, Byte held a special press conference in Beijing, announcing the launch of a brand-new education brand for education. At that event, Chen Lin, then CEO of Dali Education, also left a sentence that was widely quoted by the media-"In the next three years, we will spend a huge amount of money every year, and there is no profit expectation".

Bytes for the second time as hardware is even more eye-catching. In 2021, when the VR industry was the hottest, Byte acquired Pi-Co, the largest VR company in China at that time, and became the first company in the Internet giant to enter VR hardware. At that time, Byte also introduced a large subsidy policy. Every time a user buys a PICO and punches in the system for half a year, Byte will return half of the purchase price.

However, Byte’s two hardware tests were not successful. After the introduction of the "double reduction" policy in 2021, Byte abolished vigorously education and no longer introduced new vigorously intelligent learning desk lamps. In 2023, PICO laid off employees, and the team size and business contracted.

Will there be a different story when bytes fight hardware again this time? Chen Zemin, former chief analyst of Internet Media of Guojin Securities, agrees with the strategy of using bytes as AI headphones. He believes that headphones are already relatively high-frequency traffic portals at the moment, and some scenes have been verified. Bytes entering this track are unlikely to fail.

Compared with Tencent and other big manufacturers, Byte has always been persistent in hardware strategy. Chen Zemin told the Economic Observer that this is because the main product of Byte is Tik Tok, and its connection density with users is not as close as Tencent’s WeChat. "In the AI era, people still need to socialize, but they don’t necessarily need short videos". Therefore, bytes will be more active in the layout of the next generation hardware than other big manufacturers. Moreover, in the AI era, hardware itself is a new computing infrastructure. If bytes can occupy the infrastructure of the next generation as soon as possible, it will be a very good choice.

A hardware entrepreneur believes that whether the bean bag AI headset can be successful still needs to wait for the market test. According to his observation, when Internet manufacturers make hardware, they will naturally take software thinking, and conflicts will easily occur in the process of integration of software teams and hardware teams. In the process of starting a business, he has seen a large number of Internet teams that are not short of resources and funds, but these teams rarely make successful hardware products.