Enterprises Eye on Electric Water-heating Blanket, Beware Chaos When Market Grows

"Once winter begins,even water chills down." With the warning of cold waves in many places, heating appliances have also entered the peak season. With the development of technology, heating appliances options are no longer limited to traditional one like electric blankets and electric heaters. Now new heating appliances such as electric water-heating blankets, heating tables, dish-heating tables, and toe-kick heater gain popularity among young people. Taking electric water-heating blankets and mattresses as examples, this latest bed heating device that transmits heat through water, which industry people believe will very likely replace the traditional electric blanket and go mainstream.

Loved by users for its comfort, may go mainstream in future.



Electric Water-heating Blanket

The electric water-heating blanket is an electric water circulation heating blanket. It adopts the design of separating water and electricity, and follow the principle of heating water outside by electricity and circulate warm water and conduct heat inside the blanket. Compared with traditional electric heating blankets, Xu Bowu, a researcher, believes that "traditional electric blankets have better heating performance, but they are not safe enough, easy to dry, and have strong radiation; while electric water-heating blanket are safer and more comfortable, though with higher price and heating main body takes up some space.”



According to market sales data, electric water-heating blanket sales increase year by year. The sales data of Double 12 shopiing festival released by Suning last year shows that since the start of winter in November, sales of electric water-heating blanket on the platform have increased as much as 495.06%. While JD.com data shows, the sales this year has increased by almost 100%.

The reason why electric water-heating blanket is loved by users is largely related to the safer and more comfortable performance.

Guo Xinping, from Kyungdong Nabian R&D Institute, believes that "young people pays more and more attention on health needs,which the traditional electric heating blankets can no longer meet, issues such as electrical radiation and dryness is obvious. In the future, the new appliance trends develop towards health, and the presence proportion of electric water-heating blanket increase."

One comparison is that electric heating blankets have been a niche heating appliance for a long time. Although they have undergone many years of development, they have been in a situation where the demand is not great and the competition in the market is fierce, the price  is  cheap, even without the introduction of electric water-heating blanket, with the gradual popularization of air conditioners, heating furnaces, underfloor heater, etc., the market of electric blankets shows a downward trend. According to Consumer Daily, the sales of electric blankets in China in 2020 is around 60 million units with value of CNY 6 billion (USD857 million). In 2021, the number is around 50 million units with value of CNY 5 billion (USD714 million). In addition, in 2021 and 2022, the State Administration for Market Regulation and the market supervision bureaus in Henan, Qingdao and other areas have repeatedly reported the unqualified information of electric blanket products, and the quality varies dramatically.

Xu Bowu believes that "in the future, electric water-heating blanket are likely to gradually replace traditional electric blankets. After all, electric water-heating blanket is much safer and more comfortable"

Product prices vary widely, and future technology competition will center on intelligence and convenience.

At present, there are many brands of electric water-heating blanket, not only big appliance brands but also professional manufacturer, new brands, tech company and numerous medium and small enterprises, which cause the price range varies giganticly. Reporter find that on the e-commerce website, the prices of electric water-heating blanket, electric water-heating mattresses and other products range from around ¥100(USD14.50) to ¥3000(USD430), but in their descriptions, the functions are very similar, including the "multiple safety protection", "no Shanghuo", "separation design of water and electricity ", "Automatically stabilized temperature", etc.

In view of the fact that the prices of products on the market vary hugely, Guo explained, “our RD cost is very high and so the safety level is higher than the industry standard, and the parts reliability test is also higher than the regular standard. For example, we test the water pump for at least 300,000 hours, and other manufacturers may have 100,000 hours. Some other small and medium-sized enterprises or Manufacturers only pursuing low price will not emphasize on safety and the environment friendliness this way.”

In addition to stricter selection of materials in terms of safety and environmental friendliness, some high-end products may also have advantages in differentiated competition. For example, the waterproof connector on some products are patented, which is easy to install and disassemble, and convenient to drain water. Some  adopts aerospace material water tank, etc.

It is worth mentioning that as an emerging product,  electric water-heating blanket currently encounters issues such as inconsistent standards, fluctuating quality, and poor quality control, especially some "white label" products occupy the market at low prices, but with inferior quality. If the quality is not resilient, then there will be certain safety risks, which shall be paid attention to from industry companies.

In the current situation where users have higher and higher requirements for life quality, electric water-heating blanket can only occupy the market faster by constantly improving the user experience. Xu Bowu believes that "the future brand competition and technology trends of electric water-heating blanket will focus more on intelligence and comfort, intelligence requires more precision to make the human body more comfortable and convenient; in terms of comfort, the inner material is required to be more advanced to make the human body more comfortable, such as flexibility and massage function."

Guo Xinping believes: "In the future, we are confident about graphene heating technology, which will make the heater upgrade and iterate more safely, meanwhile more technological, environmentally friendly and healthy to use and the looks will be more in line with Chinese youth aesthetically, also overall cost will be reduced, so our products will be more popular in the market."

Source: http://news.cheaa.com/2022/1117/614319.shtml