Enabot, founded in Shenzhen, is one of the most concerned home robot companies in the industry. It was established in June 2018 and focuses on the research and production of consumer-grade robots for home scenarios; The brand name is Enabot, which is a combination of the English words "enable + robot".
In 2024, one of the focal points of the global technology industry is home robots.
Not long ago, a team of Chinese scientists from Stanford University developed the Mobile ALOHA robot, which is not only proficient in cooking, but can also quickly make a table full of dishes such as fried shrimps with scrambled eggs, and roasted chicken with scallops. It can also perform complex actions such as cleaning a frying pan, wiping glass, and sweeping the floor with a broom.
Tesla CEO Musk followed closely and showcased a video of the "Optimus" humanoid robot folding shirts, announcing that delivery would begin in 2025. The robot butler, which used to only exist in science fiction movies, is expected to become a reality next year.
However, humanoid robots are expensive and there are still many technical challenges to be overcome. Before the advent of the era of humanoid robots, most robotics companies still focused on non-humanoid robots, attempting to enter the market at a more reasonable cost while achieving specific functions and meeting specific needs.
Enabot, founded in Shenzhen, is one of the most concerned home robot companies in the industry. It was established in June 2018 and focuses on the research and production of consumer-grade robots for home scenarios; The brand name is Enabot, which is a combination of the English words "enable + robot".
In December 2019, Enabot's first generation product EBO S was released; Six months later, EBO Pro was launched. As a home guardian robot that can move around the house, EBO is equipped with high-definition (HD) cameras and WiFi modules. Users can control the robot's movement and shooting in real-time through the mobile App, and interact with children, elderly people, pets, and more in real-time.
EBO S & Pro
At that time, there were no products similar to EBO in the global consumer-grade robot market. EBO has received a lot of attention and praise as soon as it was unveiled, and its exterior design has also won the well-known design award Red Dot Award. This gives Enabot more confidence to launch more successive generations of products.
In May 2021, Enabot launched its second-generation products, EBO SE and Air. After the release on the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter, the two products received support from thousands of overseas users and were also rated as "Users' Favorite Products" by the platform.
In January 2023, Enabot unveiled its flagship product EBO X Home Guarding Robot at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES 2023) in the U.S., winning innovation awards in the robotics and smart home categories at the exhibition; Subsequently, it also won the German iF Design Award. It is reported that as of the end of 2023, Enabot products have been sold to 164 countries and regions worldwide, with users exceeding 350,000.
Jason, the head of the marketing department of Enabot, said that in 2024, in addition to releasing multiple new products, Enabot will continue to "cultivate internal strength" and make sufficient preparations for future explosion of the business.
Jason said that the number of Enabot's users is constantly increasing, and how to serve them well is more important than ever. This is also the work that Enabot plans to increase investment this year. The company hopes to achieve significant growth in user base this year. These users can become both proponents of product optimization and disseminators of product word-of-mouth; At the same time, the company also hopes to recruit more outstanding talents and create more and better products.
01
Solid technology and products are the foundation of Enabot.
At present, Enabot has three main products: EBO X, Air, and SE, which correspond to different people's needs and usage scenarios.
EBO Series Products
As the flagship model, EBO X is positioned as a "home guardian robot", serving every family member, including adults, elderly, children, and pets, etc. Its three core functions are safety and health guarding, remote companionship, and entertainment and leisure.
EBO X can recognize different abnormal scenarios such as the elderly falling down and babies crying, and can also remind family members to take medication. Remote control of the machine allows for communication with family members and allows for playing music through the built-in Harman stereo, covering all aspects of family life.
EBO X also has the ability to act as a smart home mobile control center. In overseas markets, EBO X fully supports Amazon Alexa intelligent voice assistant; All Alexa-compatible smart home devices can be connected to EBO X and controlled uniformly by the latter.
EBO Air is mainly aimed at pet owners, mainly meeting the needs of photographing and teasing pets. For example, owners who are away from home and want to see their pets can achieve this by remotely controlling the EBO Air.
"This product can be moved throughout the house, even if pets burrow under the sofa or bed, they can be quickly found, basically solving the problem of camera blind spots." Jason said.
Compared to traditional fixed cameras, EBO Air is able to take pet photos from an angle close to the ground. In order to highlight this feature, Enabot set up the topic of "Cats' Big Face Photo" in Tiktok. Many users participated in it and spontaneously labeled it "mouse perspective", "rat perspective" and other interesting tags.
In addition, EBO Air also supports two-way voice and one-way video, coupled with low angle shooting, as well as the machine's built-in laser red dot, cat feather, etc., allowing owners to have richer interactions with their pets. "You can pet your cat remotely anytime, anywhere." Jason said.
EBO SE is the base model of the Enabot product matrix and also the company's earliest released and best-selling product. Jason believes that this product, priced at less than 700 yuan, lowers the consumption threshold and helps build user minds. After using it for a period of time, many users have gained a deeper understanding of home robots and more trust in Enabot. They choose to upgrade to mid-to-high-end products such as EBO Air or EBO X to meet a wider range of needs.
02
The HD camera that can be moved, networked, and remotely controlled, is currently the basic selling point of Enabot products.
Compared to traditional home security cameras, Enabot products have many advantages. In particular, the ability to autonomously avoid obstacles and move around the entire house greatly eliminates the blind spots of fixed cameras, making it suitable for pet owners.
EBO SE and Air can work for about 4 hours when fully charged; When the battery level drops below 50%, the robot will automatically return to the charging station to replenish energy.
Jason introduced that currently, the autonomous obstacle avoidance technology of home robots is relatively mature, but it was previously mainly used in high-end sweeping robots and other large and medium-sized equipment. Through research and development, Enabot has integrated autonomous obstacle avoidance technology into the volleyball-sized EBO X, possessing a certain level of technical content. In addition, among home robots of the same category and form, EBO X is the first product to achieve large-scale mass production and large-scale commercialized application of V-SLAM technology.
However, Enabot's "black technology" is not limited to this.
On the one hand, in response to the core scenario of pet raising, Enabot has conducted in-depth analysis of user needs and added rich functions beyond the camera.
For example, EBO SE and Air can physically interact with pets. "Some cats are lazy and inactive, and their owners may worry about their health. At this time, Enabot can use physical interaction methods such as laser red dots and body feathers to make cats move and live a healthier life." Jason said, "These are functions that traditional fixed cameras do not have."
On the other hand, EBO X can also serve as a smart home control center, which is expected to control smart devices throughout the entire house with one device.
EBO X Can Serve as the Smart Home Mobile Control Center
At present, the central control devices of domestic smart homes are either central control screens, smart switches, etc., or mobile apps, which essentially require "people looking for machines". In contrast, EBO X can achieve "machines looking for people", thus revolutionizing the way of interaction.
In addition, EBO X can also achieve on-site "double verification" to minimize the problem of misreporting of information by smart home devices. For example, when a user receives an alarm from a smart home device/sensor, the user can move the EBO X to the vicinity of the device, further examine the issue through the camera, and make the correct decision.
Jason said that EBO X has made hardware and algorithm margins at the beginning of its design, leaving room for future OTA upgrades and updates, especially in connecting smart homes. In addition to Amazon Alexa, Enabot is currently exploring cooperation with multiple manufacturers, and some have entered the initial stage of product adaptation. This also increases the potential for EBO X's mobile control center capability to cover more related brands and products in the future.
03
In the past two to three years, Enabot has built a global sales network, with the main markets being China and the United States, as well as expanding into regions such as Europe, Japan, and Australia.
In terms of online channels, in addition to the official independent website, the company has also settled on major domestic e-commerce platforms, as well as overseas platforms such as Amazon. Offline, Enabot has established cooperation with mainstream offline channels in Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, Southeast Asia, Europe and America, Japan, South Korea, and Australia and other markets.
Enabot's Offline Channels
Jason introduced that the consumer group of Enabot is concentrated between the ages of 18 and 35, with over 90% being pet owners, which is consistent with the original intention of Enabot's birth.
The target customers in the domestic market are mainly pet owners, and it shows a younger trend. Therefore, Enabot tends to carry out brand publicity and market education through new media, and the main positions include Tiktok, Xiaohongshu, etc.
By publishing original, co-created, or influencer content, Enabot shows the functional points of EBO in a fun and interesting way, making consumers aware that EBO can make themselves or their pets happier at a certain moment or scene. As this type of content continues to precipitate and accumulate, the Enabot brand and products have reached an increasing number of potential consumers and transformed into sales.
For example, Enabot has created two topics in Tiktok, "Cats' Big Face Photo" and "EBO Yibao Robot", with a cumulative views of nearly 500 million; On Xiaohongshu, there are also nearly 5,000 notes related to the brand and products.
Overseas, Enabot also focuses on operating new media, including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, etc. Among them, the number of video views related to brand and product topics on TikTok is close to 200 million; The number of posts on Instagram exceeds 5,000; The cumulative views of various long videos exceeds 10 million.
At the same time, considering the information acquisition habits of overseas consumers, Enabot is also collaborating with influential websites, magazines, etc. to spread information in more dimensions.
In addition, Enabot is attempting various collaborations with third-party brands, including social media interactions, joint distribution of fan benefits, etc., and is also discussing the possibility of cooperation in channels.
04
In addition to Jason, the core management team of Enabot also includes co-founders Hong and others. Among them, after obtaining a doctoral degree from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong served as the rotating CEO of the XbotPark Robot Industry Base, and has many years of experience in the robot industry.
After starting the business, Hong discussed product plans with colleagues, and everyone hoped to apply increasingly advanced robots and artificial intelligence technology to daily life, so they settled on home robots as the start-up direction. Home robots must serve people and help them take better care of family members, including pets. After some polishing, this young team combined their own and market needs, and chose the new trend of serving "pets" as their first focus to bring the product to thousands of households.
Jason said that Enabot entered this field in the early stages of the industry and has accumulated some experience in various aspects, which is currently on a positive development track. "We are a self-driven company and will not rely on past achievements. We will continue to innovate and develop."
At present, about 75% of personnel in Enabot are engaged in research and development work, most of whom have industry backgrounds related to robotics. A team configuration focused on research and development helps the company maintain certain advantages in user research planning, technical solution integration, and large-scale production in product development, so as to make products that are truly "enjoyable to use" for users.
Before joining Enabot, Jason held a management position in a large technology company and had entrepreneurial experience. After starting his own business, he found that obtaining internal and external resources that used to be easily accessible has now become much more difficult. Even the willingness of partners to cooperate is vastly different from before.
"When the company is not yet well-known and recognized, you need to adjust your mindset and make corresponding adjustments to your playing style." Jason said, "When you have a clear understanding, the next actions are not easy to deviate."
"In addition, startups' ability to attract outstanding talents is far inferior to that of large companies, and we adhere to the attitude of 'put quality before quantity', insisting on not lowering the requirements of engineers. Even if a lot of energy and resources have been invested in talent recruitment, human resources are still limited, and the pace of product development will be affected. All of these require the startup to make corresponding adjustments and responses."
"For example, in the past, the development cycle for a new product was about 12 months; Now, making a product of the same level may require more time for the manpower of the startup, and it is easy to miss global exhibitions such as CES and IFA for the first launch." He said, "In this situation, what tactics should be adopted and how to deploy resources are all the challenges we need to face. Fortunately, so far we have solved these problems quite well."
At present, Enabot has received endorsement from multiple well-known investment institutions. According to the introduction, at the beginning of its establishment, Enabot received investments from Unity Ventures and Hong Kong Innovation and Technology Fund; At the beginning of 2021, it got the favor from Sequoia Capital and LFC.
At the same time, the global home robot track is heating up, with more and more large companies getting involved.
At the beginning of this year's CES 2024, companies such as Samsung and LG released home robot products. Jason admitted that in the future, more and more participants will enter the home robot track to jointly educate and expand the market.
Enabot also participated in this year's CES. Jason noticed at the exhibition that the combination of AI technology and robots will be the general trend. But the accompanying problem is that the iteration cycle of AI software and robot hardware is not synchronized; How to better plan products and achieve software-hardware integration iteration is a question that Enabot is deeply considering.
Jason believes that whether the company can truly create products that meet market and user needs will determine its future direction. Enabot has always maintained continuous in-depth communication with users and continuously improved their research capabilities to polish products, launch new products, and develop and grow in this process.
Jason said that the company believes in long-termism and is willing to do difficult things with technical accumulation, adhering to the principle of putting users first and pursuing the ultimate. The company is moving forward at its own pace and developing the most suitable strategies for different markets. "At present, our growth trajectory is still very good and we are maintaining healthy development."
He said that Enabot's vision is to become a technology enterprise with warmth and serve millions of households. "Family is our primary service goal. We hope to use advanced robot technology and products to help manage families, promote family communication, thus enhancing family happiness."
(The pictures in the article are all from Enabot)
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