Recently, a friend who has been following the "eSIM Internet of Things Workshop" for a long time reported that business is difficult and under great pressure. He is considering changing careers. In 2020, such voices are endless, but in fact, there are such voices every year, but the people are different every year. .
This friend is referred to as the e boss. The e boss has his own factory and a small R&D team, mainly doing OEM/ODM of car positioners, and also taking some other positioning-related projects. The car risk control market is a sunrise market, 2019 The annual auto finance retail loan vehicle volume reached 6.646 million, which is still growing rapidly. However, the locator market where e boss is located has undergone several reshuffles, and the profit is only enough to maintain the company's operation. The industry's leading companies are also actively exploring Transformation, the new crisis comes from mobile's 2G withdrawal from the network. Boss e clearly stated that there are about one hundred and ten days left. Let me explain with you why the transformation of Boss e is so painful!
Question 1.
There are two main choices faced by the e boss, one is NB-IOT or LTE CAT1, the other is chip or module.
NB-IOT or LTE CAT1
The advantage of NB-IOT is the price. At present, the price is much lower than that of CAT1, and it also has advantages in power consumption. The main problem is that the network coverage of
CAT1 is that the advantage of CAT1 is network coverage, product power is stronger, and more functions can be enriched. The main problem is
The question of price is not very good to give advice, because we still have to start from the industry trend and the recognition of end customers, so the final suggestion is that if you use the module, you can use all of them. One price should be extremely low, and one function should be sufficiently rich. , If you use a chip...
芯片 or 模组
The boss of e is more obsessed with using chips, because he believes that the industry chain is relatively more controllable, the price is more advantageous, and the size is also an important reason. Now I use the MTK 2G chip set solution. I am relatively familiar with R&D, but the upgrade cost of the product line It is too high, and it also faces the risk of choice. Whether it is NB-IOT or CAT1, both are faced with license costs, R&D personnel costs, and the cost of upgrading production line test equipment, which is a big investment. In terms of investment alone, NB-IOT is recommended.
The e boss is also obsessed with another thing, the rejection of the module, the feeling that the product power has decreased (the original word is a bit low), and his own value has also decreased, but the advantage is also obvious, the transition cost is the lowest, and the product power is only for the wise. Smarter, but it is still recommended to use the module transition first, and try to expand other industries or models at the same time.
Question 2: Cost
is a very critical point in the choice of chips and modules. According to the e boss’s algorithm, the module has more PCB/shielding cover/processing fees/manufacturer’s profit and other costs. There is nothing wrong with calculating the overall cost. , But not selective accounting. It increases the cost while reducing the cost of R&D, production, and testing. Moreover, based on the amount of e-boss, I can hardly believe that they do it themselves and the cost will be low.
At the same time, I recommended our latest AM21E V5 solution, which uses the Corewing XY1100 + Zhongke Micro AT6558R solution. The person in charge told him that the price is basically the same as their 2G solution, and it should be lower. In the eyes of e boss Shine...
Question 3. Volume
is also a point of e-boss’ thinking, that is, whether the existing casing can be put down. AM21E V5 has a volume of 23.7mm × 14.7mm × 2.8mm, which is small enough, and has a built-in eSIM, which saves the space of the card slot. The problem is that there may be problems with the high-level existing modules. You can consider removing the shielding cover. At the same time, the small-size CAT1 solution AM430E V4 can also meet.
Question 4. Power consumption
for the tracker is generally 2-3 years. AM21E V5 Deep sleep has been optimized to 1uA, GPS standby 8uA (@3.3V), if the power is off, the network and working status will work. Compared with 2G, it also has obvious advantages. CAT1 can basically be the same as 2G, so power consumption is not a problem.
Question 5: Development difficulty
The R&D team of the boss is still very familiar with MTK and Cellular, so the difficulty of development mainly focuses on product stability and technical support. AM21E V5 supports Bloom full-stack development, and is provided by embedded C language engineers. The secondary development platform can provide complete IDE tools, API interfaces and examples, and application tutorials. The basic functions should be realized within 1-2 days, and the CAT1 solution AM430E is also supported. If you still have difficulties, you can also choose Agile custom development services , Complete the Demo prototype in 8 hours.
Summary: The
above points are the main concerns of e-boss, e-boss has not made the final choice, but I believe this is not a problem that e-boss is facing alone, and many e-boss in the same industry or similar industries are also facing Similar problems, or more problems, making the right choice in a big environment is a problem that every business and boss has to face all the time!
If you have any questions, please leave a message!
If you and e boss have similar problems, you can apply for the AM21E V5 development board and leave a message "company, contact person, delivery information" in the official account
Promise e boss, if their product is made, our "eSIM solution library" will be launched. If you have locator OEM/ODM needs, please continue to pay attention!
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