The precise and thoughtful air conditioning and temperature control, the extended arm of the sweeping machine that can sweep and grab, and the robots that do household chores have a model and style... Recently, the 2026 China Home Appliance and Consumer Electronics Expo (AWE2026) held in Shanghai gathered more than 1200 domestic and foreign enterprises, focusing on the exploration and application of AI technology, comprehensively demonstrating the new landscape of smart life driven by artificial intelligence, and outlining a clear path for the upgrading of the home appliance industry. We are standing at the critical point of home transformation driven by AI as the core. As one of the fields that is most closely integrated with AI and has the richest application scenarios, home appliances are upgrading from passive response intelligence to active perception intelligence, promoting the upgrade of home life from functional intelligence to a more understanding and temperature sensitive intelligent experience. ”Tao Xiaonian, Chairman of the China Household Electrical Appliances Association, stated that this transformation relies not only on AI technology's deep understanding of human behavior and accurate analysis of environmental data, but also on the breaking down of barriers and collaborative evolution among all parties in the industry chain. The upgrade of intelligent experience is advancing, and the trend of smart home development is surging. AI home appliances, with stronger perception technology and computing power, automatically recognize the environment and actively judge user needs in high-frequency scenarios such as preservation, cleaning, cooking, water purification, and air management. Through innovative functions that are closer to real pain points and multi device linkage, they bring consumers a comfortable and convenient user experience. At the exhibition, Haier Smart Home launched the Seeker, an intelligent home appliance set equipped with AI Eye 2.0 technology, advancing towards "unmanned household chores". Seeker refrigerator can recognize the types of ingredients, intelligently match the best preservation mode for the entire compartment, and proactively remind when ingredients are due; One four cylinder washing machine "Seeker washer" can actively monitor the whole process of washing, and excessive foam will automatically increase the number of rinsing times. This is currently the highest intelligent level L4 smart home appliance system in the industry, which can make independent decisions and has multimodal perception capabilities that can be understood and thought about. ”Zhang Han, General Manager of Haier Brand in Haier Smart Home China, stated that the Seeker series is equipped with 788 original technologies, including 106 AI patents. Television is the protagonist of the living room and has great potential to become the control center of smart homes. The RGB Mini LED TV UX2026 launched by Hisense Vision features pure and transparent colors with deep dark fields. It is equipped with the "four core co control" Xinxin AI image quality chip H7 Pro, which has the highest color control accuracy in the industry at 134 bits, combined with AI anti cross color technology and AI natural halo algorithm, to melt the halo at the light dark boundary of Mini LED TV to a degree that is difficult for the human eye to perceive. This super flagship TV is also equipped with AI panoramic World Cup function, covering the entire process of pre match preview, in match immersive viewing, and post match exciting replay, creating an exclusive immersive viewing experience for the World Cup. ”Introduction by Li Wei, President of Hisense Video Technology. As a leader in AI TV, Hisense has built five universal capabilities covering full customization of audio and image, multimodal natural interaction, generative AI desktop, small gathering super intelligent agent, and geek audio and video center, constructing an integrated AI capability system of "end cloud core" to better serve quality life with intelligent technology. AI smartphones, AI glasses, and other products are accelerating to become the entry point for the new generation of personal intelligence. Qianwen AI glasses attract viewers to queue up for the experience, starting with voice activated AI assistants and sequentially trying functions such as photography, translation, and music. We hope to extend the Qianwen AI assistant from mobile applications to the glasses worn by users, allowing AI to integrate more naturally into daily life and become a portable intelligent assistant. ”Alibaba Qianwen C-end Business Group AI Hardware Product Manager Wu Jianjun said. Service robots have great potential. In the context of the deepening implementation of the "Artificial Intelligence+" initiative, the trend of "robot home electrification" and "home appliance robotization" has become an industry development trend. Home service robots are regarded by the industry as a new blue ocean with great potential in the field of home consumption. China is the world's largest robot market. Zhang Chonghe, President of the China Light Industry Federation, introduced that by 2025, the production of service robots will reach 18.58 million sets, a year-on-year increase of 16.1%; Products in segmented scenarios such as elderly care, cleaning, and companionship are rapidly developing. Several large leading home appliance companies have taken the lead in deploying comprehensive service robots around home scenarios, promoting the upgrade of home appliances from a single intelligent terminal to a smart service carrier. The family scene is complex and diverse, and the landing of service robots cannot be separated from the needs of the scene. At the exhibition, Haier Smart Home released three categories of home service robots: cleaning, companionship, and household chores; Hisense releases three products: the butler robot Savvy, the companion robot Moii, and the humanoid robot Harley; FOTILE publicly showcases its first cooking robot kitchen, which achieves unmanned cooking through the close cooperation of high-precision robotic arms and humanoid robots. Many robot companies are also conducting in-depth research and development, exploring and launching related products and solutions based on the needs of household scenarios. Li Yuanqing, innovation business partner of LeXiang Technology, said, "Robots can be born in the laboratory, but robot products must grow from the needs of users." LeXiang Technology's collaborative robot N1 adopts a lightweight design and is suitable for various home spaces. This robot can simulate the division of labor mode between human left and right arms, achieving efficient cooperation of "one stability and one skill": the left hand is a stable telescopic structure, mainly used for routine tasks such as gripping; The right arm is a dexterous arm, equipped with a three finger gripper, which can achieve precise operations such as gripping, grasping, pinching, twisting bottle caps, and opening drawers. The home appliance industry and the robotics industry are working together to transform household service robots from conceptual concepts into practical applications. However, while robot technology is deeply coupled with household appliances, there are still many challenges to the implementation of home service robots at this stage. Sun Fuchun, a professor in the Department of Computer Science and Technology at Tsinghua University and Vice Chairman of the Chinese Association for Artificial Intelligence, analyzed that general artificial intelligence has not yet been achieved. The actions that humans are accustomed to, such as pouring water and tying shoelaces, are extremely complex for robots, involving multiple technologies such as high-dimensional joint control, force feedback, and visual reasoning. At the same time, issues of safety, ethics, and cost awareness are prominent. By 2025, the robotics industry is thriving, and more and more companies are investing significant resources in the layout of home scenes, leading the way in the development of full chain co construction standards. But we also see that the complexity of home scenarios poses many common problems for the industry, such as duplicate data collection, inconsistent technological paths, and lack of standards. There are also many challenges to be overcome in the collaboration between home appliance companies and robot companies. ”Wan Chunhui, Deputy Secretary General of the China Household Electrical Appliances Association, stated. On March 12th, the Household Service Robot Special Committee of the China Household Appliances Association was established, dedicated to creating a robot industry ecosystem platform for home scenarios. This marks the home appliances AI、 Cross track enterprises such as robots, core components, and new materials have officially entered a new stage of ecological co construction. The high-quality development of the home appliance industry empowered by AI cannot be achieved without the coordinated development of the entire industry chain. Yu Hao, Deputy Editor in Chief of Electrical Appliances magazine, stated that the robotics industry has a huge and highly homologous industrial chain to the home appliance industry, from joint modules and vision modules to AI side chips, as well as components such as new materials and dexterous hands. Mainstream home appliance companies are laying out the robot industry, and home appliance products are becoming AI and robotic. This is also a rare window of cooperation for upstream enterprises that have formed strategic partnerships with home appliance companies for a long time. At the same time, the investment return cycle in the field of robotics is long, technological uncertainty is high, and there is a lack of large-scale reliability verification in industrial chain cooperation. This requires upstream enterprises to focus on their core advantages, increase research and development investment, strengthen long-term strategic cooperation with downstream robot giants, and achieve complementary advantages and win-win development. Currently, the smart home appliance industry is accelerating towards the development stage of "brand leadership and standard leadership". With the empowerment of technologies such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, the development of smart homes is also moving towards whole house intelligence and scenario based services. In this process, breaking down barriers between brands and ecosystems, promoting interconnectivity between devices, has become a key step for the industry to move towards scale and collaborative development. At the recently held GIIC Alliance Smart Home Industry Innovation and Development Forum, the Smart Home Working Committee of the Global Smart Internet of Things Alliance (GIIC) led the development of the "Smart Home Unified Interconnection Series Standards" jointly developed by leading companies such as Haier, Midea, Huawei, and China Mobile. This standard directly addresses the long-standing pain points in the industry, providing key technical specifications for devices from different manufacturers to achieve 'understanding and collaboration' through unified access and control interfaces, physical models, and security requirements. ”Qu Zongfeng, Vice President of the China Household Appliances Research Institute, believes that the gradual promotion and implementation of standards will significantly enhance the interoperability of products, truly bringing consumers a seamless, convenient, and safe smart living experience. It is reported that in October 2025, the GIIC Alliance established the Smart Home Working Committee. The release of the first version of the four sets of standard specifications for smart home interconnection is the first milestone achievement of the working committee, which covers access and control interfaces, object models, security and testing specifications, laying the foundation for cross ecological collaboration of smart home appliances. Gao Tongqing, Chairman of the Global Smart IoT Alliance, stated that in the future, the alliance will focus on three major directions: "accelerating the implementation of standards", "embracing AI agent innovation", and "leading the development of the next generation of smart spaces", further consolidating industrial strength and promoting the construction of an open and collaborative smart home ecosystem. (New Society)