Domestic smart speaker access comparison

The Internet of Things, where everything is connected, has long been touted as the next big thing, and the growing number of smart appliances seems to prove it. The emergence of Amazon Alexa also let us find the entrance of smart home appliances — smart speakers. The product access to intelligent speaker, has also become one of the standard intelligent products.

Recently there is a relevant demand, so the main domestic intelligent speaker platform to do a survey. With foreign Alexa “unified” situation is different, the domestic is mainly divided into “Xiaomi, Ali, Baidu, Huawei” four factories. Do access, naturally is the same function to do “4” times.

The following compares five aspects closely related to access: platform access conditions, product support, access mode (mainly cloud-cloud connection), function realization, and technical support. Hope to bring reference to the small partners with access requirements. (If you don’t want to read the article, you can read the summary.)

“Millet MIoT“

Mention intelligent home appliance commonly, the product that the first reaction can be millet. The ecological chain of Mijia covers many life scenes. In addition to the increasing number of smart home appliances, it can also be used naturally with Xiaomi mobile phones and Xiaoai students.

1. Access conditions

   Xiaomi’s access platform is “MIoT”. Registration is currently “closed” to individuals, only to businesses. Development can only be carried out after approval.

2. Product support

   The official documentation supports “50” or so types, from lights, switches and air purifiers to refrigerators, washing machines and robot sweepers. Category focuses on household appliances. The number of accessible devices will be increased in the future.

3. access

   There are two modes: direct access and cloud connection.

   • Direct access is mainly divided into module embedding (WIFI, BLE, ZigBee). Support module embedding and SDK compatible development. However, the project does not involve direct access and is not familiar with hardware development, so this section is skipped.

   • Yunyun access is the connection between Xiaomi’s server and the server of the device provider. Xiaomi server is only responsible for forwarding commands, and the actual operation of smart devices is carried out by the server of the device provider (see the following figure). OAuth2.0 Authorization Code is used for authentication between servers. If you are not familiar with OAuth2.0, you can find an opportunity to learn it. It is a common third-party authorization scheme.

4. Function implementation

   Xiaomi’s restrictions on the operation of smart devices are largely due to the fact that it does not “support” custom skills (or, more likely, not open to the outside world). The operations that a Device connected to Xiaomi can perform are strongly bound to the device type. In other words, the language that xiao Ai receives is stipulated, and beyond the prescribed scope, Xiao Ai can do nothing.

   The problem is that xiaomi can’t access the device without supporting it. In addition to applying similar device types, we can only negotiate cooperation with Xiaomi or wait for support.

   For the development of the server side, there is no corresponding official SDK, you need to refer to the official document to encapsulate the request processing. This is not very friendly for developers (pure physical work).

5. Technical support

   Mainly official documents. Documentation is more detailed, the whole product development to the online cycle has been covered. There is very little sample code except where necessary. Debugging may require some work.

   When meeting a problem, I mainly put forward the form of work order. My colleagues have mentioned some reply speed is quite fast. Official forums, communities or QQ groups have not been found.

“Ali AliGenie“

As Alibaba’s smart speaker, Tmall Genie has been integrated into the IoT open platform. Since Ali does not have its own intelligent ecology, Tmall Genie is basically a cooperation with several large domestic home appliance manufacturers, which can be controlled through Tmall Genie.

1. Access conditions

   Alibaba’s access platform is “IoT Open platform”, supporting individual and enterprise development.

2. Product support

   The official document supports 109 devices. The basic category is also similar to millet, with more health-related bracelets, blood glucose meters and blood pressure meters.

3. access

   There are two access modes: direct access and cloud connection. Ali also has advice on which approach to use.

   • Direct access: Bluetooth Mesh and WIFI are directly connected, and only available to enterprise users. You need to apply for the SDK from the platform.

   • Yunyun access is similar to Xiaomi, but this time the server is changed to Ali. Similarly, OAuth 2.0 Authorization Code is used for authentication between servers.

4. Function implementation

   Alibaba has fewer restrictions on how smart devices operate. Because it has Lambda service similar to AWS, Ali supports custom skills, which can be directly written by “FaaS service of Ali Cloud”, saving the environment of building custom skills (Ali Cloud also has a web version of VSCode, which can be deployed with one click after the code is written). Ali does not support Node and async/await is “unsupported”.

   Developers can define their own intentions (commands that users can speak). Alibaba’s server will parse the voice and transmit it to the corresponding skill, which will then call the developer’s server to complete the operation of the device. For example, when controlling a light, you can define statements such as “is the light on/off?” or even unrelated statements to perform the operation. Because it’s in the hands of the developer, there’s a lot of freedom.

   That’s why custom skills can be used not only to connect smart devices “regardless of device type,” but also as a “voice-controlled applet.” Developers are also free to define all sorts of weird semantics to control devices or operations. However, skills still need to be approved by Ali.

5. Technical support

   As a large producer of many open source libraries, documentation support is quite detailed. But in the smart audio area, because of the integration, you will see different versions of the old and new documents (in terms of the number of supported devices). When viewing documents, try to enter through the front page entrance.

   In addition to providing a sheet when encountering problems, there are corresponding nail groups. In terms of technical support, more than millet.

“Baidu DuerOS“

Baidu’s smart speaker is called Xiaodu. Like Ali, development can be done in Baidu’s DuerOS. As software is given priority to similarly big factory, Baidu is in intelligent household respect also main and home appliance big factory cooperation is given priority to.

1. Access conditions

   Baidu’s access platform is the **DuerOS open platform, which supports individual and enterprise development.

2. Product support

   Official documents support 59 devices. The basic range is the same as Xiaomi and Ali, and also includes most home appliances.

3. Access mode,

   The access mode can be divided into direct access and cloud docking as the previous two.

   • The direct connection is a low-degree flash connection, supporting bluetooth Mesh and WIFI direct connection. The same device needs to use chips that support small degree, and then use SDK development.
   • Yunyun docking and Ali, but the infrastructure for Baidu cloud. OAuth 2.0 Authorization Code is also adopted for authentication between servers.

4. Function implementation

   Baidu, which is dominated by AI, “supports both custom skills and a smart home category”. Smart home category skills cannot be customized semantics, but Baidu defines the corresponding semantics for general operations. It is up to the developer to define what operations (and semantics) a smart home has. This reduces the amount of development and does not bind to the device type.

   The customization skills are similar to Alibaba, which can be directly deployed by one-click using “Baidu FaaS service” (Baidu does not have a web page VSCode, which requires manual ZIP code uploading), and can also be connected to Baidu Cloud or its own server. In addition, Baidu Node supports 12, “all kinds of ES6 syntax can be trusted to use”.

5. Technical support

   Baidu’s documentation is the most clear (personal feeling) of the big four, and the documentation is very detailed. In addition to the code examples, there are also open source SDKS and sample on GitHub, which make development a lot easier. The development experience in comparison is the best.

   DuerOS didn’t have a work order system when it ran into problems, but had an official QQ group. It’s just that the group is a little slow to respond to questions.

“Huawei HLink“

Huawei’s smart speakers are xiaoyi. As a hardware manufacturer, Huawei also has its own intelligent ecosystem. However, the project was eventually dominated by Baidu and Ali, so Huawei did not continue the in-depth investigation. Comparisons can only be made based on information from official documents.

1. Access conditions

   Huawei’s access platform is listed in Huawei Developer Alliance. The access project is HLink. Currently only available to “enterprise users” ** **

2. Product support

   The official document supports 15 types of devices, including common home appliances such as air conditioners, lighting, and switches.

3. access

   Access modes include direct access and cloud – cloud connection.

   • Direct access is divided into WIFI access and BLE access. Similar to Xiaomi, module can be embedded, but also support SDK compatible development.
   • Yunyun access is the same as other manufacturers. OAuth 2.0 certification.

4. Function implementation

   Huawei’s implementation is similar to Xiaomi’s in that it “does not support” custom skills and product categories are strongly bound to semantics. For products that are not supported, contact Huawei or wait for support. In addition, unlike other big manufacturers, Huawei also needs to develop the front-end H5 interface in addition to the realization of equipment skills. The design platform provided by Huawei is required for development.

   In addition, since no SDK is provided, the request body and logic need to be implemented by the developers themselves. It’s a lot harder to develop.

5. Technical support

   The main process of documentation is documented, but there is not much detail. There is also no corresponding SDK (server) that requires developers to build their own wheels.

   In the case of problems can be put forward work order, work order reply speed is very fast.

“Summary and outlook“

The gene of birth determines the attitude towards the product. From the above comparison, two different attitudes can be clearly sensed.

Hardware of the millet of one’s previous experience and Huawei, to the limitation of developer is more, to the positioning of intelligent sound box is in the sound remote control that controls intelligent household. Having their own hardware architecture, they prefer to have others follow their architecture rather than open it up. This is especially evident in Xiaomi, which has a variety of “meters”.

Alibaba and Baidu, both software companies, have opened the door to developers, positioning smart speakers not just as voice remote controls, but as “voice-activated mini-programs.” They take advantage of cloud resources to make it easier for developers to participate in their systems.

Neither attitude is superior or inferior. From a development point of view, I recommend starting with Baidu. In addition to the clarity of the documentation, GitHub’s Sample code makes it easier to get started.

This article was first published on the public account: “this side of the ledger”, a public account to share technology and life sentiment, welcome to play.

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