Since the Spring Festival in 2025, the technology circle has been collectively fascinated by robots, and this trend has gradually spread to the cleaning home appliance track. At the 2025 International Consumer Electronics Show, which just ended some time ago, sweeping robot giants such as Dreame and Roborock Technology launched new products with mechanical arms.
Looking back on the past few years, the flat body and monotonous cleaning path of sweeping robots seem to have destined them to only be able to do some simple “two-dimensional movements” on the ground, which has also caused a lot of complaints from consumers. When will sweeping robots become more intelligent? The answer seems to be emerging.
In fact, as early as 2023, Dreame brought a robot that can make coffee by hand at a floor washing machine launch conference. In 2025, when the entire robot track was boiling, sweeping robots finally showed signs of evolution.
In 2024, the sales of China’s cleaning appliance industry reached 42.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 24.4%, and the retail volume was 30.35 million units, a year-on-year increase of 22.8%, belonging to the first growth echelon in the entire home appliance market. Those with “mechanical arms” can not only sweep and mop the floor, but also identify and grab obstacles, and even organize items autonomously.
Are the rules of competition for smart cleaning appliances going to be rewritten again? This is worth exploring in depth.
Does the cleaning appliance track need an “arm”?
In 1996, a Swedish home appliance company produced the world’s first sweeping robot “Trilobite”. At that time, its price was once half of the monthly income of a middle-class American family, as high as $2,000. But even so, Trilobite still set off the first smart cleaning “storm”.
Unfortunately, it was later rejected by consumers because its body was too heavy, it could not clean dead corners, and its reaction speed was too slow. Perhaps the manufacturer of Trilobite would not have thought that nearly thirty years later, sweeping robots have not completely jumped out of their technical shortcomings. On social platforms, posts about complaining about sweeping robots are always new, but every time the industry’s technological evolution can stimulate consumers’ enthusiasm.
In the past two years, laser navigation, AI obstacle avoidance, automatic dust collection, pet applications, hot air drying, etc. have all become the core driving force for the growth of the sweeping robot market. But at the same time, a problem has also emerged: the sweeping robots on the market are similar. According to data from Aowei Cloud Network, by 2023, the penetration rate of all-around sweeping robots with self-cleaning and automatic dust collection functions on the market has reached 73.3%.
In future product launches, the space for functional innovation is basically getting smaller and smaller. In 2025, the selling points of mainstream manufacturers will still focus on suction upgrades (such as the 3700Pa ground pressure of Ecovacs T80) and mop shape changes (drums instead of discs). Of course, the sweeping robot market is also replicating the common problem of the entire technology circle: when technology updates stagnate, the “sea of machines” strategy will begin.
According to incomplete statistics, since 2024, Ecovacs, Xiaomi, Yunjing, Roborock Technology, etc. have launched new products at a faster rate than in previous years. Roborock Technology launched 8 new sweeping robots and 4 floor scrubber products in the first three quarters alone. Before Double 11, it also released a number of new products including smart floor scrubbers and sweeping and mopping robots.
Or simply and crudely pile materials on new products. Looking closely at the current major brands of sweeping robots, camera installation and AI voice have become basic operations, and this seems to be the consistent style of this industry. Take a sweeping robot under Dyson as an example. Its lineup was once comparable to car manufacturing, with a total of 90 sensors, 60 batteries, and 3 processors on the fuselage.
Today, does a sweeping robot need to grow an arm?
Maybe it does. According to Statista data, the global cleaning robot market size will reach US$15 billion in 2024, and it is expected to continue to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 12% by 2030. Sweeping robot companies are in urgent need of a new product with arms to highlight their “muscles” for the future.
But on the other hand, does the consumer market need it? At present, the requirements of most consumers for sweeping robots are not as complicated as companies imagine. In terms of product form alone, the market sales of base station models are far less than that of stand-alone models. AVC data shows that in 2023, the sales of stand-alone cleaning appliances will still account for more than 80%, the composite model will account for 12.7%, and the base station model will account for 3.4%.
Furthermore, in the minds of many consumers, the basic technology of sweeping robots has not been perfected, such as collision accidents. The survey shows that about 40% of sweeping robot collision accidents are caused by the failure of sensors to perceive specific objects. Perhaps, the upgrade of sensor technology and the innovation of cleaning systems are what consumers are more concerned about.
Whether the arm will be a useless function, no one can determine at present.
In addition, sweeping robots have begun to sink in the past few years. According to data from Aowei Cloud Network, in the first quarter of 2024, the average price of online floor washing machines was 2,092 yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 19.5%, and the average price of offline was 3,084 yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 7.3%. The “2024 China Cleaning Appliance Industry and Consumer Insight White Paper” shows that one of the channel opportunities for cleaning appliances in the future is sinking.
Can consumers afford a sweeping robot with arms? This is a question worth thinking about. But no matter what the consumer market thinks, sweeping robot manufacturers seem to have regarded “arms” as the next outlet for the industry.
When “technology premium” hits the consumer winter
An interesting trend is that although this generation of consumers instinctively consumes sinking, sweeping robots are still getting more and more expensive.
According to data from Aowei Cloud Network, the proportion of low-end machines below 2,000 yuan in the sweeping robot industry has once shrunk from 79% to 45%, while the proportion of high-end machines above 3,000 yuan has risen from 2% to 29%. Today, the price of some leading brands can even be as high as nearly 6,000 yuan.
At the same time, this is also a common feature of the entire AI home appliance track. Currently, the combination with AI has become the main “self-rescue” means for almost all home appliance companies when the industry is in recession. As of February 2025, many home appliance companies such as Haier, Hisense, TCL, Changhong, Robam Electric, Midea, Dreame Technology, and Skyworth have all connected to the Deepseek big model.
A drama of high-end upgrade of home appliances is being staged.
Of course, the corresponding to AI upgrade is the price. A survey by Jimu News shows that smart home appliances with gorgeous functions are at least 30% more expensive than ordinary home appliances, which directly discourages a large number of young people who originally pursued quality life. At present, AI home appliances are very far away from the sinking market, and more appear in families within the Fifth Ring Road.
Data shows that families with a monthly income of more than 30,000 yuan have the strongest willingness to pay for the technology behind quality life, which was as high as 93.8% at one time. And smart home appliances themselves have extremely high requirements for space. In the smart home market, large-sized consumers with a living area of more than 160 square meters have a particularly significant demand for AI home appliances, among which 81.8% are household appliances, 77.3% are home control, and 50.0% are security monitoring.
As for the sinking market, the seemingly beautiful “technology changes life” is shattered by reality in front of the wallet. It should be noted that young people’s resistance to AI home appliances, in addition to price, actually has another essential reason that cannot be ignored: most home appliances are deeply trapped in the “pseudo-intelligence” trap, which invisibly aggravates young people’s consumption anxiety.
It is undeniable that AI home appliances are in danger of becoming the bitter fruit of consumerism.
Data shows that the scale of the smart home appliance market will exceed one trillion in 2024, but more than 60% of users said that “AI functions are flashy and impractical.” A survey launched by the Red Net Home Channel on smart home products showed that as many as 87.5% of netizens said that they had encountered functions that felt impractical or redundant when using smart home products.
What is even more unacceptable to young people in the sinking market is that some small home appliances are also following AI, and even complicating basic functions. For example, chips are added to ovens, and a coffee machine brand has launched a coffee machine equipped with a camera. Its intelligent function is to identify coffee bean varieties, but this is not as practical as a breakfast machine that can steam, cook, fry and roast.
To be honest, some home appliances seem to sacrifice intelligence, but they accurately cater to the core demands of young people in the sinking market to spend less money, save space, and be easy to store. Actual measurements show that the purchase intention of integrated small home appliances among users aged 25-35 is 47% higher than that of smart single products.
When the “technology premium” hits the consumer winter, it may not be entirely the responsibility of the consumer market. After all, the entire market is obsessed with embedding screens in refrigerators and imposing voice commands on speakers, but turns a blind eye to sweeping robots with chaotic path planning and smart kitchens with chaotic logic.
Once the so-called “intelligence” overdraws consumers’ trust in technology, if this is true, the home appliance giants who want to use AI to make a comeback will have to sigh in despair.
AI home appliances, how to get rid of gimmicks?
In 2025, the entire artificial intelligence track is busy with scene landing, and the home appliance market is no exception. Looking around the major home appliance giants, it almost makes people think that science fiction movies are finally coming into reality: refrigerators can generate menus, air conditioners can sense cold and heat, and the arms of sweeping robots can not only pick up garbage, but also clean up the room…
It is obvious that the giants have both fame and fortune.
According to statistics from the Securities Times, among the A-share home appliance industry listed companies, there are 25 stocks with smart home layouts, which have generally risen since March, with an average increase of 2.1%; Ecovacs, Feike Electric Appliances, and Opple Lighting have accumulated the highest increases, at 11.66%, 7.67%, and 7.14%, respectively.
Looking at the consumer market, compared with the previous two years, AI home appliances have not seen a better consumer reputation due to the increasingly mature large models, and are even continuing the previous “old habits”. In March, when AWE 2025 opened, Blue Whale Finance also reported that a certain brand of 4K TV increased its price by 2,000 yuan due to the installation of AI imaging chips, but professional evaluations showed that the picture quality improved by less than 10%.
It’s already 2025, how can AI home appliances get rid of the technology gimmick? Perhaps, referring to the entire AI market can get some clues.
First of all, consumers don’t dislike smart life. As early as the era of new energy vehicle development, the acceptance of AI by this generation of young people should not be underestimated. However, the current AI home appliance companies seem to have lost the real needs of users. Frankly speaking, what are the requirements of consumers for future AI homes?
According to data from Aowei Cloud Network, there will be about 19.4 million houses in China that need to be renovated in 2024, among which improvement-oriented needs account for the mainstream, and health and energy saving will become the core direction of home appliance upgrades. GfK’s report also shows that the fastest-growing sales in 2025 are AI products with upgraded basic functions, such as energy-saving air conditioners and odor-free refrigerators.
In fact, it is not difficult to see that energy saving and health are still the two major mainstream demands of young people’s smart life. Instead of being keen on producing those “new species” with complicated functions, companies should calm down and think about the market.
Secondly, AI home appliances need to return to the essence of the product. Since the beginning of this year, AI mattresses priced at 30,000 yuan, smart ovens containing chips… have emerged in the market. If you look at the details, the unit cost of De Rucci shares behind the AI mattress in 2024 is only 872 yuan, but the price in the direct sales channel is 5,803 yuan, and the gross profit margin has soared to 57.23%, far exceeding Xilinmen (32%) and Gujia Home Furnishing (28%).
How much gold is behind the AI mattress? This question seems to be self-evident.
The technology bubble conceals the essence of the product, which is a collective disqualification of home appliance companies in the pursuit of AI. Of course, not all AI home appliances have lost their product essence. At this year’s home appliance exhibition, Haier, Samsung, Hisense, TCL, Changhong and other manufacturers exhibited smart TVs equipped with self-developed AI technology, which have improved image processing and picture quality display.
Finally, AI home appliances should reduce the technical premium and make intelligence accessible to the public.
At this stage, “expensive” has always been the biggest feature of AI home appliances. It is reported that the price of Casarte AI refrigerator is 69,999 yuan, and there is another one priced at 100,000 yuan. Sohu Finance reported that the price of refrigerators of the same type is about 20,000 to 30,000 yuan. Based on this calculation, the premium of AI refrigerators can reach about 2 to 5 times.
In short, scenario-based demand, product strength improvement, cost-effectiveness… These are indispensable in the future market of AI home appliances. At least before the real value era comes, the survival rules of this industry must have the above premise.
The front line of consumption provides you with professional and extremely neutral business observations. This article is an original article, and any form of reprinting with the author’s relevant information is not allowed.
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