Smart vacuum cleaners, made by Suzhou-based Ecovacs Robotics Co, on display at a recent exhibition in Shanghai. (Photo provided to China Daily)
In addition to shipping smart vacuum cleaners to various overseas destinations, Ecovacs produces window-cleaning and air-purifying robots. Besides, it makes home entertainment and security robots that read out or display news and weather bulletins, enable home patrols via live video streams and detect potential dangers such as smoke or suspicious movements. The company plans to export them sooner or later.
"As floor- and window-cleaning robots have already become everyday necessities, like washing machines in many developed countries, the future domestic robots will be more intelligent. Robots that just clean floors won't be enough," said Qian. "While making robots versatile, it's important to ensure they are easy to use."
Since 2016, the company has introduced or upgraded a number of its robot products that clean floors, control home appliances, monitor households and purify air.
Qian said China's consumer base, fast-growing internet of things, or IoT, technologies, 4G and 5G networks will help the company to build a solid foundation for more innovation.
That would mark a long journey that started in 1998 when Ecovacs started as an OEM of traditional vacuum cleaners. But the Chinese company always aspired for higher things. For seven years, it researched and experimented with home robotics, and its first floor-cleaning robot debuted in 2007, and proved to be a runaway success in the China market.
In 2012, the robot-maker decided to venture beyond China and established three international subsidies in San Francisco, Dusseldorf in Germany and Tokyo.
Supported by over 6,000 employees, the company currently operates four plants in Suzhou and Shenzhen, and several branches around the globe, including Spain, France, the United Kingdom, and Hong Kong.
That kind of global footprint is in line with worldwide sales of privately used service robots, which are estimated to reach 35 million units by this year-end. Household robots will be right at the top of the future shopping lists of consumers, according to data from the Germany-based International Federation of Robotics.
"The commercial market for household robots will be attractive in the long run, especially for small businesses working in the catering industry, which is facing labor shortage as well as wage rise in both China and abroad," said Sun Fuquan, a researcher at the Beijing-based Chinese Academy of Science and Technology for Development.
Given global market demand, many Chinese companies have gradually shifted their focus to high-end industrial research and development. This has led to strong technical breakthroughs in high-tech sectors such as robotics, computers, telecommunication and in upgraded consumer electronics products, Sun said.
