5 Weird Xiaomi Products You May not Have Known Existed

Besides being a notable smartphone manufacturer, in many countries, Xiaomi is looked at as a valuable player in the consumer electronics market. What this results to is a variety of products that are not only interesting, but outright weird. Today we will look at 5 weird Xiaomi products you may not known existed.

Xiaomi Air Humidifiers

Coming at multiple shapes and sizes, as well as a range of price tags, Xiaomi seems really concerned with your air quality! But whereas the rest of this list will go down to some of Xiaomi’s weirdest creations, we think that its slew of air humidifiers fit well with the company’s mission to bring technology into more people’s lives.

Being often paired with a smartphone app, this is an appliance that leaves some thankful for the convenience and others confused as to how much tech is enough tech.

Xiaomi Oven

Who do you turn to when you need a nice lunch? No, not your mother, but Xiaomi! For 299 RMB, this oven is exactly like any other oven you could buy. With no distinct functionality, what does Xiaomi offer to sway us into trusting them with our culinary efforts? The answer lies in the clean, minimalist design language that Xiaomi has come to perfect over the years. I mean just look at it - now that’s an oven I can trust!

Xiaomi Laundry Machine

Let’s run through this scenario: You get home from a long day of work guided by the GPS on your K30 Pro, then you take off your jacket and turn on your air humidifier with your phone. After getting relaxed, a little hunger kicks in and you make a nice chicken on your Xiaomi oven, but when eating it, you get your favourite white shirt all dirty. What do you do now? Well, use your Xiaomi Laundry Machine of course.

Priced at 779 RMB, like many products in this list, the Xiaomi Laundry Machine doesn’t have much in its way that makes it stand out from the competition. This is of course not considering the product’s design language, which provides a clean, beautiful way to introduce an usually heavily industrial product into your home.

Xiaomi Suitcase

For a technology company, you’d never imagine Xiaomi would produce a suitcase. This isn’t one of those battery packed suitcases either, it’s just a normal suitcase! For approximately 199 RMB, you get exactly what you paid for, a stylish, small, usable suitcase. I suppose the only connection this product has to technology is its ability to carry it!

Xiaomi Fan

Now that quarantine has forced many of us to stay inside our homes, do you ever just get unbearably warm? Worry not, the same company that brought you the Redmi K30 Pro now brings you a cold breeze! At 219 RMB, slightly more than the suitcase, you’re able to sit back and enjoy life without a sweat!

But unlike the suitcase, this product packs a smartphone app, allowing you to fine tune the intensity of your fan to perfection - Thank you technology, this is just what we needed!

After taking a look at all these products, we can safely say that Xiaomi is a very impressive company. When they’re not delivering ground-breaking phones, they are bringing us beautiful home products that if not innovative, at least have enough uniqueness to be worth existing.

Enjoy this article? Read our impressions of the Xiaomi Toothbrush here

The Xiaomi Mi AirDots Pro Are Incomplete

Last year, Xiaomi became a new competitor in the ever growing business of truly-wireless headphones, as any first generation product however, the device had more a few flaws that we wished could be fixed with its sequel. With the sequel here, we are sad to report that after spending a few days with this device however, we’ve come to realize that it is oddly missing many features from its sales pitch - making it impossible for us to bring you our full review.

During its unveiling, Xiaomi discussed how amazingly their new pair of headphones would connect with their new software, showing pop ups and offering an always on-assistant just like Apple’s AirPods. Though this excited us, we have been greeted to the rude awakening that not only does the popup not currently show any visual of the earbuds, but that its always on AI is only available in mandarin, not offering any settings for English speakers to use an alternative such as Google Now.

On a more technical level, Xiaomi offered the ability to access a settings option for the earbuds, which would not only allow for users to setup control gestures as they see fit, but for the earbuds to enable a new audio codec, which should in theory sound a lot better than its previous generation. Despite running Xiaomi’s latest software, MIUI 11, we were not able to access either of these services, which Xiaomi’s promises will be fixed through a software update. 

Because that update has not yet arrived, the device also features less than optimum delays, making the viewing experience not as comfortable as was promised. Using the previous codec, the earbuds still sound as average as they used to, which at a price-tag of $60, makes for a unappealing purchase. 

For a device so readily advertised as Xiaomi’s answers to AirPods - a device that would bring a lower price, great audio, but most importantly convenience, the Xiaomi Mi AirDots Pro 2 are currently very lacking - and given Xiaomi’s track-record with updates, we are left with little hope that it may be what it was promised to be one day. 

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MIUI 11 Initial Impressions: A Refreshing New Step

It’s the holiday season for Xiaomi fans, with the company’s annual refresh of their MIUI, smartphone users all across the globe can finally get reasonably excited for something new. After spending a bit with Xiaomi’s latest MIUI 11, we are happy to say it is a refreshing new step.

New features first, MIUI 11 while not having any massive features that will completely change your phone experience, does contain enough small tweaks that when added up make this a worthwhile revision. Firstly, Xiaomi has greatly tweaked how notifications are shown both when the phone is in its always on display mode - which can now display quotes - to when the phone’s screen is on, by neatly lighting up the sides of your screen to warn you of incoming notifications.

Furthermore, Xiaomi has also implemented their version of “digital wellbeing” which conveniently let’s you know what apps are being most used, allowing users to be more in control of their digital experience.

On the visual front, MIUI 11 has kept many of the same elements that made last year’s version so visually appealing, all whilst making small adjustment that go a long way towards polishing your phone’s overall aesthetic. From the flat square design found within some options in your settings, to the many visual designs Xiaomi has used to replace simple toggles, MIUI 11 has a more materialistic design language that feels familiar yet different.

Where battery and performance are concerned, Xiaomi has built quite the reputation throughout the years in terms of ensuring noticeable upgrades with each software update - this is no different here. In our brief time testing MIUI 11, we have not only noticed that the K20 Pro’s battery life has maintained its amazing 8+ hours of SOT, but that the device’s RAM management has been slightly smarter - resulting in an ultimately more enjoyable user experiences.

Great things aside, MIUI 11 is not exactly bug free, with some of its new options such as the on-screen light for notifications often not working as well as it should. With that mentioned, this is simply the initial release of this software, and it is expected that Xiaomi will continue to work hard to ensure that their software is fleshed out with each version update.

All things considered, MIUI 11 isn’t an update that will entirely change how you use your phone, but with the righ set of improvements, it succeeds in ensuring that the user-experience is more enjoyable than year’s past, making it a worthwhile update to any Xiaomi user.

[Opinion] Xiaomi: The Company that Made an iPhone X Clone, Now With an OnePlus7 Pro Clone

After the recent legal issues involving Huawei in the US, many have started to ask themselves to what extent Chinese smartphone companies are copying not only from one another, but also from the western world. When taking a look into this conversation however, it’s impossible to leave one major company behind: Xiaomi.

With smartphones that range from the MI8 (A blatant attempt at bringing the best of the iPhone X into the budget market), and the more recent K20 Pro (The company’s take on the One Plus 7 Pro), it is fair to say that Xiaomi has had an extensive history implementing ideas from other manufacturers into their own products.

I must make it clear however, I am in now ways suggesting that the company only has derivative ideas up its sleeve, in fact, Xiaomi has proved time and time again that it can innovate before anyone else. With the Xiaomi Mi Mix, Xiaomi not only stepped up the standards for what was then considered a premium phone, but basically started the bezeless trend that we see today. As if that wasn’t enough, with the Xiaomi Mi A2, Xiaomi brought not only an unique design, but a slew of features ranging from the capable processor to the potent cameras that were simply not seen in the price-range before.

Yet in many other ways, the company has also proven time and time again that copying the competition can be a great strategy. With the company’s most recent flagship, the MI9, Xiaomi has brought many design features that merge both the latest iPhone and the Huawei P30 Pro into a singular device. The company also has had a history with implementing certain technologies way after the competition, yet still announce them as ground-breaking. A great example of this would be the tried and true wireless charger, a technology that by the time the company finally got around to it with the Mix 2s, it had already become standard with most manufacturers.

When answering whether or not this is a good or bad thing, one must first consider the one aspect that all Chinese companies share in common: Their mission to deliver higher quality devices year by year, all whilst slowly decreasing their entry price point.

If this is to be taken from a manufacturing standpoint, it is cheaper, and safer to manufacture a technique that has already been tested by someone else, than to develop a brand new one. It’s through this strategy that companies like Xiaomi start being slowly forced to handpick what features truly matter, making cuts on areas such as the device’s uniqueness in order to meet the already established expectation for lower costs set by the Southeast Asian market.

Furthermore, in a company so focused about reaching wider audiences, as is the case with almost all Chinese manufacturers, creating unique designs may be seen as a way to distance possible consumers. Whilst technology enthusiasts may enjoy a device that doesn’t look like every other in the shelf, the average consumer may find comfort knowing that their latest budget device is somewhat similar to the latest iPhone they have most likely heard something about.

It must be made clear however, that Xiaomi is far from the only smartphone brand bringing features of its rivals into its own devices. In some cases, one may argue that a lot of Apple’s technology, from the dual camera setup to the OLED screen, were all overdone on the Android side before finally being implemented by the Cupertino giant. Even in the Chinese market, with companies like Oppo and Vivo introducing extremely similarly specced fast chargers around the same time frame, one can see what many now refer to as “ripping off” being done first handedly.

There’s also a point to be made that the politics behind this phenomena are where the issue lies. With IP infringement, and other law-breaching conducts being found in the modern smartphone industry, it’s hard to say that it is a fair game. In fact, if proper international laws, and regulations are ever to be seen in this industry, consumers may start to see more unique phones as patented technologies become harder to gain access to. This is an issue that believe it or not, impacts most modern smartphone companies, as reports of Huawei spies in Apple’s headquarters were published during February of this year.

But despite what politics may sway, this just adds more interesting flame on the technological side of things. On one hand, the extremely fast advancement of the budget market can be mostly attributed to this copying phenomena, as previously premium-exclusive features get overdone to the point where they are simply not too unique, losing value not only in the consumer’s eye, but in a manufacturing standpoint as well. Yet just as much as this loss of value can benefit the consumer, it ultimately results in products that could have been unique losing their chance due to increasingly more fierce competition - leading the smartphone industry to slow lose the innovative flair it once had.

From Huawei to Xiaomi: My First Impressions

It was not long after the Huawei P20 Pro launched that its groundbreaking camera quality and solid spec list managed to not only leave me, but my wallet in deep awe. Roughly a year later, while the device was still solid, recent confrontations with the US government warranted me more than enough reason to sell a device that I deeply beloved. There I was, with a solid amount of money in my hands, yet feeling as if I was missing something, a device that for a while I was convinced was the best I could ever own - after all, a geek without a phone is much like a person without their limbs.

But as I was searching the market for a new device however, I came across the Xiaomi Mi 9, and with upgraded its triple camera setup, Snapdragon 855 processor and beautiful screen, it wasn’t long until I was convinced that this could potentially be my next favourite device. Today, I officially took that leap of faith, and after just a few hours of using it, here is what I think:

Glamour Coated in Glass

When I first unboxed this device, a smile quickly came to my face. Gone was the radiating - and mostly distracting - patterns of my Huawei P20 Pro and in came a more minimalist, outspoken design that despite not feeling as premium in weight as my previous device, still felt specially understated in its own unique way.

After a few hours of using it, I still find something to be said about the display: it’s gorgeous, and dare I say it, better than anything Huawei currently has on offer. Upon comparing it to my father’s Huawei P30 Pro, the Xiaomi Mi 9’s colours pop, and the lack of a curved display ensures that content isn’t distorted simply for the sake of fitting into 2019 standards.

Furthermore, I can also attest that Xiaomi’s triple camera solution has given me some amazing results. This is not only because of a better sensor than that on my Huawei P20 Pro, but also because the AI that Xiaomi uses does not over-saturate the colours as much as Huawei’s solution, creating more realistic and sharpened results.

But not all is rainbows and butterflies with this device, with my biggest problem being the fingerprint scanner: The in-display solution is futuristic and cool, but it will never be as fast as a physical option, making unlocks just a bit more tedious than they usually have to be.

Another aspect that hasn’t impressed me much is battery life, this is the first time in a while where I feel like I will have to charge my phone every single day. Maybe the Huawei P20 Pro has spoiled me, or maybe I simply haven’t used my phone enough for the battery to settle in, but Xiaomi has not packed enough juice in this bad boy so that I feel confident in it as of day 1.

Overall however, both companies have a very different design language, and I believe that Xiaomi cuts the right corners by making the phone thinner and focusing instead of the aspects that matter, creating a device that feels experience driven instead of over-focusing on the looks.

MIUI: An Ocean Full Of Mysteries

Then we come to MIUI, and that’s where my experience goes from mostly positive to a foggy mixed bag. MIUI is different, and after using it for a few hours, I am still unsure of whether I like it more than EMUI or not. On one hand, MIUI is extremely fluid, very snappy and looks very aesthetically pleasing as well. But on the other hand, the animations everywhere and lack of an app drawer really do drag the experience.

I’ve personally put Nova Launcher on my device for now, but I feel like going back to try stock MIUI may be a good idea, because its IOS looks do show potential.

The Road Ahead

As I’ve mentioned, this is just my impressions with the phone after a few hours of use. The idea of installing Gcam for better camera performance, switching the ROM to Xiaomi EU and even simply using this device on a non-intensive day all excite me, and I am sure that the little snippets of complaints I voiced today are sure to change.

Some things however, are just never going to change. I doubt that the in-display fingerprint scanner will ever be as fast as a physical option, I can assure you that the device won’t feel more substantial overnight, MIUI in itself won’t suddenly add an app drawer or lower its animations, and that the battery while surely getting better, just won’t ever compete with the insane two days that I got on my Huawei P20 Pro - yet although these are valid complaints, I feel as if the sheer amount of value offered by Xiaomi is unheard of, and for that I am extremely happy I made the switch.

How the Redmi Mi9T is proof that a Pocophone F2 Is Coming

In 2018, Xiaomi brought to the public the Pocophone F1, proving to the world that a solid spec-sheet, durable design and outstanding cameras are not entirely reserved for the flagship space. With the Pocophone F1 being as successful as it was however, many have started to wonder when they can expect a successor to Xiaomi’s flagship killer - and after recent release of the Mi9T, we may finally have the answer.

Is the brand that was made for India not coming back to India?

            For those who are unaware, earlier this month Redmi - Xiaomi’s sub-brand - released the China exclusive Redmi K20 Pro, the company’s first device powered by the all new Snapdragon 855 processor, alongside the Redmi K20, a less powerful yet still capable device powered by the Snapdragon 730 chip. Coming in at an attractively low price of $370 for the Pro variant, many Xiaomi fans outside of China started to wonder just when the device would make a global appearance. This all changed last week, when Redmi finally unveiled that it would be bringing the device to other markets in the form of the Redmi MI9T - this however, came with one caveat: the lack of a pro version.

            Without a Snapdragon 855 offering, many have started to wonder Redmi’s role in foreign markets, and it is here that the potential for a Pocophone successor shines through. According to the Economic Times of India, Xiaomi created Redmi with as a “budget” sub-brand, furthermore, on an interview posted to Chinese blogging site Weibo, Xiaomi’s Lei stated that “While the Redmi brand focused on value-for-money budget smartphones, the Mi brand is focused on high-end devices. Also, the Redmi devices are primarily sold through e-commerce platforms while Mi devices are not e-commerce focused”.

            Following Lei’s statement, it becomes easier to understand why the west will not be seeing a K20 Pro variant. By releasing a Snapdragon 855 powered device that calls itself a “flagship killer”, the company would potentially put at jeopardy Xiaomi’s high-end focus, not only confusing consumers, but potentially harming the appeal of devices such as the Xiaomi Mi 9 in foreign markets.

            This isn’t the first time that such a tactic has been introduced by Chinese companies when entering the foreign market. Huawei, which owns the Honor sub-brand, ensures that Honor sells less complete packages in comparison to the Mate and P series phones, thus positioning Honor as the budget division of Huawei’s flagship lineup. A similar tactic can be seen with Oppo, owner of both One Plus and the Real Me sub-brands. In their case, One Plus has recently taken a flagship stand with the likes of the One Plus 7 Pro, while the Real Me phones stay at the sub $300 price point, smoothly leaving Oppo’s main brand in a stable mid-range position. By following a similar strategy, Xiaomi can ensure that consumers of all products can assimilate to their brands, while also creating a cohesive ecosystem for consumers to follow.

Is One Plus Xiaomi’s biggest competitor?

            Ultimately, it is important to understand that while the Pocophone is considered a separate sub-brand, it is still - unlike Redmi - advertised as a Xiaomi designed and produced device, meaning that a Pocophone F1 successor, most likely also featuring the Snapdragon 855 found in the K20 Pro, would not only prevent customer confusion, but also successfully ensure that Xiaomi’s vision for the Redmi and Mi brands’ distinctive roles in the market could be fully realised.