Smart speakers that cannot be humidified are not good air purifiers
The aromatherapy machine that cannot move to avoid obstacles is not a good smart camera
Covance is one of the earliest manufacturers to overcome the problem of intelligent obstacle avoidance, and it started to attack the goal of "all-around robot" last year. If the first sweeping robot, Dibao X1 OMNI, with automatic dust collection and mop cleaning, is a milestone for Kevos in mopping machines, then Qinbao Z1, launched in March this year, is Kevos' attempt to make a real "home robot".
Qinbao Z1, a real "new species", has stepped into the robot field closer to public awareness this time. Here, Kovos is a complete leader, because it is a composite category that no one has explored, and the category name is very long - the first all-around mobile air purification robot integrating intelligent voice and AI video butler.
What is a robot? What is a robot?
The International Federation of Robots (IFR) gives a preliminary definition of service robot as a semi autonomous or fully autonomous robot that can complete service work beneficial to human beings. It's really "listen to what you say, listen to what you say".
Robots are a very broad concept, including military robots, industrial robots, commercial and consumer robots and other categories. However, because the home robots have various uses and are aimed at users of all ages, their technology integration threshold and requirements are higher.
Robotstart, the authoritative list of robots in Japan, has done category inventory and atlas of robots. In short, home service robots are special robots designed to complete home work instead of humans. They may include mobile devices, environment aware transceivers, executive devices that operate on the home environment, and I/O devices that interact with users.
The household service robots we are most familiar with are actually the most mature sweeping robots and window cleaning robots. In addition, there are also unheard of categories such as weeding robots, cooking robots, and even clothes folding robots. Intelligent speakers, educational robots and other devices that are familiar to everyone were also included in the category of entertainment robots in 2017.
However, such a definition is too broad, and is still far from the robot in users' minds. Robots in public awareness, even if not the AI with real thoughts and humanoid forms like Doraemon and Terminator, should also have multiple universal functions. In addition, the final form of the home service robot should be able to cover a variety of work such as sanitation, home entertainment, home appliance control and linkage, anti-theft monitoring, security inspection, goods handling, and even home care.
Why Qinbao Z1 is a robot
Z1 can be called a new species and can be closer to the "robot" in the public awareness because it already has the initiative, connectivity and sense of life required by robots, which are not available in previous products. The sense of life, in the final analysis, is the user experience brought by intelligence and interaction ability.
The common characteristics of robots, or to be recognized by the public, the technical and functional thresholds that need to be overcome include:
Mobility. No matter what kind of mobility mode, bipedal and quadruped mimicry, or wheeled, robots need to move safely in the home environment;
Environment perception, including machine vision, indoor positioning, navigation, obstacle avoidance and other functions, while the original sweeper, Kovos, has a natural home advantage;
Human computer interaction, from low-level mechanics and touch, to high-level voice, and even emotional interaction. The goal is to let users interact naturally and conveniently. It covers many steps such as speech recognition (ASR), natural language processing (NLP) and instruction conversion execution.
Because it is a "new species", this experience of Z1 mainly focuses on the evaluation of several core capabilities of robots.
Mobile ability of robot: stable and safe
No matter how it is realized, the mobile ability of the robot and the perception ability mentioned later complement each other. At this stage, mobile ability allows robots to better explore the home environment and better complete the task of sweeping the floor or air purification. In the future, robots need to help users get remote controls, kitchen cups, and small devices left in the corner.
The whole mobile system of Qinbao Z1 is derived from the sweeping robot in Coworth, but it has a more load-bearing direct drive silent drive wheel. The guide wheel is not only increased to three sets, but also has its own auxiliary wheel to increase the obstacle crossing ability and safety. The front and rear of the fuselage and 3/4 of the surrounding area are covered by buffer anti-collision plates, and the anti drop sensor configuration of the "front 4 and rear 3" at the bottom is also higher than the normal value.
The actual moving speed of Qinbao Z1 is close to that of the sweeper. The minimum working noise of the machine is 20dB. There is only a slight sound in the dead of night, which can let you know, but you won't care about it.
Although it is "tall", its center of gravity is lower. With its own weight and the support of the bottom wheels, it will feel like a tumbler when pushed up. Even playing with cats and dogs, it is not afraid of being overturned, and it can even carry "masters" everywhere. Kevos also provides the function of locking the driving wheel, which can make Qinbao Z1 stay in place when necessary, while ensuring safety.
Intelligent environment perception achieves excellent navigation and obstacle avoidance
In the family scene, the most basic requirement of environmental awareness is obstacle avoidance, followed by mobile route planning. Only when these two foundations are well prepared can we talk about various family services such as anti-theft monitoring, security inspection and home care in the future.
The whole environmental awareness system of Qinbao Z1 is the same model as Dibao X1. The same AI chip of Horizon Sunrise 3 has RGB camera, dToF and visual+depth information. However, due to the size of Qinbao Z1, the top dToF module has an unprecedented 50cm "height" advantage, and the range of distance perception is larger. The AIVI recognition sensor in front of it also gets a higher and farther perspective, making Qinbao Z1 the robot with the best obstacle avoidance effect in the history of Keworth.
Avoid the wire on the ground ↑
Keep away from small objects on the ground ↑
Qinbao Z1 also has TrueMapping 2.0 global planning, better SLAM algorithm and mapping logic. The sensor has a closed design and uses a longer wavelength modulated optical signal, with a signal amplifier. The direct effect is that the ability to resist the interference of external light sources is stronger, and the black furniture can be better identified. The official "starlight level" 960P camera provides basic visual recognition image data of weak light scenes.
It may be because the object detection accuracy of Qinbao Z1 is 4 times higher than that of LDS, or because of the consideration of its own weight, the obstacle avoidance setting of Qinbao Z1 is more conservative than that of the sweeper. "Tall" tables and chairs are no problem. Small potted plants, toys and dusters on the ground can be avoided. Coworth even claims that it can do pet detection and obstacle avoidance after OTA.
By the way, because there is no suction of the exhaust fan below, those small objects that have been successfully avoided will not be sucked into the stomach by Z1.
Natural language interaction: understand and do
Human computer interaction is an important indicator to determine whether a device belongs to a robot, and is also the core attempt and selling point of Qinbao Z1. The earliest household appliances were buttons and remote controls. In the era of smart home, the sweeper was triggered by a smart speaker or mobile phone to clean the air. But Qinbao Z1 integrated YIKO voice assistant itself.
The importance of voice interaction can be seen from the rise of smart speakers. Apple Siri Voice Assistant was released in 2011, Amazon launched its first smart speaker Echo in 2014, the domestic Dingdong speaker only appeared in 2015, and Little Love speakers and Tmall Genie were released in 2017. However, as early as 2017, smart speakers became an important subcategory of home robots with their huge potential volume.
Coworth's "ambition" can be seen from its self built voice assistant. Instead of choosing the ready-made Siri, Little Love, Tmall Genie or other home voice assistants, Kovos has made its own "YIKO", which also has the functions of common smart speakers such as authentic music and audio content, weather, news, drama, etc.
The seemingly simple smart speaker function is not easy to place on Qinbao Z1, which can move and is its own sound source. The movement will cause the change of the relative direction of the sound, and the microphone is near the sound source, which will test the speech recognition and noise reduction algorithm.
Qinbao Z1's solution is to use a visual camera in combination with a six microphone array (in pairs, four in the front and two in the back) to identify the human figure and locate the sound source. Z1 will adjust the direction according to the user's voice. In addition to the environment awareness that has been completed previously and the map that has been established in advance, it can hear the user's call and run to the user's side to achieve the effect of "where the voice comes from, where it goes", and compound the initiative and sense of life that the previous product cannot achieve.
This sense of life, which is unique to robots, will be more obvious when Qinbao Z1 moves to purify. You can interrupt it with your voice and respond to your voice immediately, so you can really listen and respond to you like a person.
The only thing that plays is that the voice of the real person is made from a single point, but Qinbao Z1 is stereo. With the dual 7W and larger body, the stereo sound of Z1 is far more obvious than that of normal smart speakers (especially when it turns according to the user's voice). When it plays music while moving and purifying, it really looks like a thousand yuan stereo speakers walking near you.
Z1 ↑ running back after hearing the master's voice
Qinbao Z1 can complete speech recognition (ASR) and natural language processing (NLP) by itself, Translate the user's spoken language into operation instructions. You can use the single-layer instructions such as "what is the room temperature, increase humidity, start purification, and quickly build maps" to query or trigger work. You can also overlay areas and use the multi-layer instructions such as "check the air quality in the kitchen, and go to the guest room to purify", just like communicating with people.
Air management ability: superior ability and more efficiency
The default requirement for robots is versatility and versatility. However, the current technology, even the multi axis mechanical arm of the industrial robot and the mechanical dog of Boston Power, cannot imitate human hands to do multi-functional bionics.
At this time, we should think about what is the bottom value of robots? This question should be answered from the user demand side, not the product supply side. The scheme given by Qinbao Z1 is based on the air purification of Qinbao series itself. Through functional design, the household functions required by users are increased as much as possible.
In terms of product definition, there have been three iterations of the air purifier, which needs to constantly put forward new requirements for the purifier module from the haze in the first 14 or 15 years, to the decoration formaldehyde in the previous years, to the removal of allergens such as pollen, cat, dog and animal hair in Qinbao Z1.
For cats and dogs, which are prone to hair removal, such as "allergens", kitchens with serious oil smoke, and living rooms with concentrated smoke smell, the single point purification of air purifiers on the market is effective, but the efficiency is not high, and the effect is slow, and they can not handle corners. Qinbao Z1 can make a breakthrough in one time through its mobility: 5 times of the normal model, covering the purification capacity of 200 square meters villa, more accurate regional purification, higher purification speed and efficiency.
The basic air purification function is actually stacking. The central part of Qinbao Z1 is H13 HEPA filter screen, with formaldehyde removal rate of 98.87%, particulate matter removal rate of 99.97%, and bacteria removal rate of 99.9%. Its formaldehyde removal module is the fifth generation polymer polyamine technology that is inactivated after adsorption.
The official nominal CADR values of particulate matter and formaldehyde are 600 and 300m ³/h respectively. If the humidification components are removed, the values can reach 643.3 and 310.6 m ³/h. Qinbao Z1 is also the first mobile formaldehyde removal certification product, which reaches the level of CCM formaldehyde F4 (measured 1500-2000mg) and the level of CCM particulate matter P4, twice higher than the national standard (particle purification energy efficiency class II, class 2, measured>32280mg).
Versatile service: all functions you think and don't think of
At this point, Qinbao Z1 only performs the function of empty and clean. However, after pulling and ejecting the filter element assembly, you will find that Qinbao Z1 is like an onion "layer by layer of heart". The outermost air cleaning filter element, the inner mist free humidification module, the middle UV sterilization module, and the middle of the aromatherapy module are also set. There is no waste of space. The four layers of dolls belong to:
The evaporative humidifier in the inner layer is free of fog and water stains, and the water source is not selected. The strong humidification capacity tested by three parties is 402mL/h (why didn't you think of combining air purifier and humidifier before?)
The ultraviolet UV sterilization module in the center is the "lamp post" of three ultraviolet LEDs, which is responsible for the secondary sterilization of the internal filter screen.
At the core, Covance has not forgotten to add its own unique aromatherapy module, which may also be the most high-tech aromatherapy module. This time, because of the empty air flow and higher fuselage, the fragrance effect is more obvious. It is still the previous "Blue Wind Chime" fragrance capsule, but now it is upgraded to an electric control capsule. There are contacts at the bottom, which can set the fragrance level, and there is a fragrance locking switch.
Not only guard family safety, but also pay attention to your privacy
In addition to the air related functions, Qinbao Z1 also has a video butler and intercom function that pay great attention to privacy. Mobile and intelligent obstacle avoidance enable the camera not only to turn the angle, but also to voice control Qinbao Z1 to run where you want. "Did I turn off the oven? Did cats and dogs have a good meal?" You can check it directly at any time and anywhere. This is the sports ability that smart camera enterprises dream of.
Extremely rare ground camera lifting baffle ↑
In addition, Covance also pays more attention to user privacy protection than normal manufacturers. Qinbao Z1 is one of the few smart products with Rhine privacy certification. In addition to the working indicator light of the camera, it also purposely adds an automatic lifting camera physical blank, which can directly judge the working status of the camera through the indicator light and blank. It is also a good guy.
The future of "owning a robot" in every family
At this stage, robots are unnecessary and unable to form human figures. Like BB8 and R2D2 in Star Wars, barrel or even ball shaped robots are not a problem. However, in terms of height and shape, the air purification robot is closer to everyone's perception of robots than the sweeper. It's just like that no matter how many functions and intelligence a mobile phone has, it's still difficult for people to agree that a piece of "glass" held in their hands will be a robot.
Just like before, a lot of early education machines failed to become robots, but the intelligent audio became robots. Kovos is standing on the user demand side, naturally becoming a robot enterprise.
As mentioned at the beginning, "an intelligent speaker that cannot be humidified is not a good air purifier, and an aromatherapy machine that cannot move to avoid obstacles is not a good intelligent camera." Qinbao Z1 integrates five functions, namely, a purifier, a humidifier, an aromatherapy machine, an intelligent camera, and an intelligent speaker, which can meet N household needs at one time.
With its own strong mechanical control, intelligent obstacle avoidance and map planning functions as springboard, Covance and YIKO voice assistant have chemical reactions, voice control, direction adjustment according to user voice, natural language multi-layer instructions and other settings, which generate the initiative and sense of life that robots should have. In addition to several complex functions such as purification, humidification and aromatherapy, Let Qinbao Z1 take a big step towards a real robot.
It is difficult for people in the tide to see the dynamics of the times. In 1977, the founder of DEC, a digital equipment company, said that "there is no reason for anyone to want a computer at home." But in the following decades, PC (Personal Computer) really became the computer in everyone's hands and completely reshaped the world. Now may be the eve of the outbreak of home robots, which may be the deep meaning of "Z" name used by Coworth in Qinbao series.
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