Huami Specimen: The Evolution Of Intelligent Wearable Devices

At the next beat 2021 conference held recently, huami technology released four latest technological achievements, including the new generation of intelligent wearable chip "Huangshan 2S", the original smart watch operating system Zepp OS, the pump beats blood pressure engine and portable MRI (nuclear magnetic resonance) technology.

Founded in 2013, huami technology has established its foothold in the field of intelligent wearable devices after eight years of development from the initial Xiaomi bracelet to the launch of its own brand. According to IDC data, in the first quarter of this year, huami's own brands amazfit and Zepp smart watches ranked among the top four in the world. As of March 31, 2021, the total global shipment of huami intelligent devices has exceeded 170 million.

However, with more and more new players joining, huami will face more competition in the field of intelligent wearable devices. As for how to go in the future, huami's press conference has actually given the answer to the outside world: on the one hand, huami should focus on the strategy of "core end cloud" and constantly promote the self-study of the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain; on the other hand, it should deeply cultivate the health field.

Of course, to achieve these goals, we need real investment. Huang Wang, founder, chairman and CEO of huami technology, said at the conference that the investment in R & D of huami technology in the past three years has reached 410 million yuan per year on average. Last year, it reached 538 million yuan, accounting for 8.4% of the total revenue.

High R & D investment has also helped huami achieve some results in the field of technology. According to Huang Wang, huami technology has applied for more than 1000 patents in recent years, of which nearly half are invention patents.

Self developed chip and system

In September 2018, huami officially released the self-developed wearable chip "Huangshan 1". More than 450 days later, the "Huangshan 2" came out.

As the third generation of huami intelligent wearable chip, the "Huangshan 2S" released this time is significantly different from the previous two generations. First of all, "Huangshan 2S" is huami's first chip with dual core risc-v architecture, which can achieve the perfect combination of super computing power and ultra-low power consumption.

It is reported that the "Huangshan 2S" can carry out high load calculations such as graphics and UI operations. The large core system also integrates FPU and supports floating-point operations. Compared with "Huangshan 2", the operation efficiency of "Huangshan 2S" is improved by 18%, the power consumption of operation is reduced by 56%, and the sleep power consumption is reduced by 93%. It can process sensor data in 24 hours.

In addition, "Huangshan 2S" also integrates a 2.5D GPU, which improves its graphics acceleration performance by 67% compared with the previous generation. At the same time, the convolution neural network acceleration processing unit carried by "Huangshan 2S" can quickly identify disease types. Taking atrial fibrillation as an example, its recognition speed is 26 times higher than that of pure software calculation.

In addition to the new generation of chips, the original smart watch operating system Zepp OS developed by huami technology also made its debut. According to reports, Zepp OS system bottom layer is based on FreeRTOS micro kernel open source code, which takes up very little space compared with other general-purpose OS. The system package is only 55mb, about 1 / 28 of Apple watch OS and 1 / 10 of amazfit OS used by huami technology before.

In terms of compatibility, Zepp OS is compatible from low configuration microcontroller to high-performance SOC, which is suitable for all types of wearable products.

In view of huami's self research layout on chips and systems, Huang Wang admitted in an interview with the 21st century economic report that there is a huge risk for huami to do self-study, because no matter the operating system or chip, as well as the algorithm of artificial intelligence, these all require an extraordinary high investment in research and development. For the current volume of huami, the research and development of huami is very high, The pressure of these R & D costs should not be underestimated.

However, these risks are what huami must face. Huang Wang said that in the past eight years, huami has had a very deep feeling in the process of developing intelligent wearable devices. That is, if you want to make the user experience of a smart watch or even a more simple smart Bracelet very good, it is difficult to find a suitable chip first, then find a suitable system, and then combine them to develop the functions they want.

"So we also realized that if we want to make the best products, we have to make our own chips and polish our own operating systems." Huang Wang said.

So in 2015, huami began to lay out the upstream and downstream chip industry. In 2018, huami, Intel and Western mathematics jointly invested in sifive, the most remarkable company in risc-v ecology. The founder of the company is UC Berkeley teachers and students who invented risc-v open source instruction set.

In addition, huami has invested in greenwave, the first commercial eight core processor in risc-v ecology.

Huang Wang said that the production cycle of a chip should be calculated in years. If the definition of functions is not clear and some functions are missing, it may take one or two years for the next chip to be made. As for huami, there are tens of millions of equipment shipped each year, so huami is closer to users and has clearer demand for users. This makes huami's cognition of chip making higher than that of companies only making chips or operating systems.

It is reported that "Huangshan 2S" was successfully filmed in March this year, and will become one of the core chips of the third generation amazfit smart watch.

Deep cultivation of healthy track

If we want to label huami technology with two labels, one is "smart wearable device", the other must be "health". In recent years, the layout of huami technology in the field of health is gradually deepening. From the initial measurement of heart rate to the later measurement of blood oxygen, huami's intelligent devices will be able to measure blood pressure.

According to Huang Wang, after more than five years of tackling key problems, huami has successfully developed the pumpbeats blood pressure monitoring engine. The smart watch equipped with the engine can measure blood pressure with one button in 30 seconds.

In order to verify the accuracy of the engine, huami and the first hospital of Peking University have jointly launched clinical trials since April this year. In the first phase of the experiment, a total of 354 data were analyzed for 27 cases of hypertension. It should be noted that most of these cases are severe patients such as cardiac bypass, and blood pressure fluctuation can be as high as 60 mmHg in the same day.

Finally, compared with the standard electronic sphygmomanometer, the average absolute deviation of the pump beats blood pressure monitoring engine is lower than 5.14 mmHg and the DBP is lower than 4.88 mmHg, which fully verifies the reliability of the technology.

Wang Kongqiao, vice president of huami technology algorithm technology and President of Artificial Intelligence Research Institute, revealed that the pumpbeats blood pressure monitoring engine will be officially launched in the fourth quarter of this year. In addition, huami technology will continue to promote 24-hour continuous blood pressure monitoring, hoping to explore a new way to screen for hidden hypertension through long-term monitoring of smart watches.

According to reports, huami has also carried out a number of cooperation with top hospitals and scientific research institutes at home and abroad, including "using intelligent wearable devices for follow-up management after radiofrequency ablation of atrial fibrillation" with the first hospital of Peking University "Application of wearable devices in chronic obstructive pulmonary management" and "Application of wearable devices in rehabilitation of stroke patients" by Zhong Nanshan, academician team of the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, and "Application of wearable devices in the rehabilitation of stroke patients" by Norwegian University of science and technology are all in steady progress.

In addition, huami also disclosed its latest exploration in the field of medical technology portable MRI (nuclear magnetic resonance) technology at the conference.

In order to realize this technology, huami has successively invested in two top new generation MRI companies, hyperfine and promaxo, and has specially invested an independent team in China to meet the needs of Chinese users.

As for why we want to invest in this technology which seems not related to huami's main business, Huang Wang told reporters, "our starting point is that MRI equipment can help users better grasp their physical condition. If one day, the nuclear magnetic resonance equipment can go to thousands of households like the PC in those years, then many diseases, such as cancer, will be found in our hospital, It has always been our dream that we can discover and treat in time. "

For a long time, the traditional large-scale medical MRI is a high cost behemoth, and its weight is generally as high as 10-13 tons. However, the portable MRI is only 1.5 meters high, covers less than 2 square meters, weighs less than 0.8 tons, and consumes less than 1 kW on average.

"Once portable MRI can be popularized, we will no longer need a computer room with strict control of temperature, humidity and magnetic field. It can be used in general outpatient clinics, even in urban hospitals and rural clinics. It can even be combined with surgery for visual guidance, which can effectively alleviate the problem of shortage of MRI resources and limited use scenarios," Huang said

According to its disclosure, compared with the cost of traditional large-scale MRI equipment as high as tens of millions, the cost of portable MRI is limited to one million yuan, which is one tenth or even lower of the cost of traditional large-scale equipment.

Huang Wang said that what huami wants to do in the future is to focus on the field of health and do it thoroughly. The specific implementation path includes self-developed chips, systems and algorithms. Of course, the purpose of products like portable MRI is to help users put the screening of health risks in front, which is consistent with the concept of huami smart watch for early monitoring and protection.

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