The increasing traction which the IoT space is receiving has lured in a lot of brands. Starting with Amazon which rolled out its own Echo range of smart speakers providing smart home features, Xiaomi has no plans to be left behind in this space. With a lot of Xiaomi products coming with embedded AI based features, Xiaomi has finally come up with its Echo Dot Rival and is calling it the Mi AI Speaker Mini. Although the close followers of the brand will know that this is not the first step that Xiaomi has taken to compete with the Amazon’s Echo, this new instalment in the IoT series is simply a miniaturised version of the AI Speaker which Xiaomi launched last year. This smart device which is powered by Artificial Intelligence will debut in China on April 2 at the price of RMB 169 which in INR comes out to be Rs 1,746.
Although the Mi AI Speaker Mini might seem like a perfect and more economic replacement for the Amazon Echo Dot but the chances of the AI Speaker Mini coming to India are pretty slim. Xiaomi however is leaving no stone unturned to boast about its latest AI product, in accord to which they said the following in a press statement "It (Mi AI Speaker Mini) serves as a smart home assistant and a personal assistant and allows users to easily tune in to music and listen to audiobooks with simple voice commands."
They also didn’t forget to add the fact that Mi AI Speaker Mini can access 35 million books and songs. We will have to commend Xiaomi on its design capabilities as they have been successful in implementing a more minimalistic design for their brainchild AI product -The AI Speaker Mini.
The device comes with always-on capability like the Amazon Echo Dot and will also provide a good microphone to the users to input commands after connecting to their phones using the Mi Home application. The controls on the AI Speaker Mini have all been collected at the top of the device to provide easier access to it.
Summarising, it can be said that this speaker will assist a lot of people in stepping up to buy a smart Speaker and will provide a viable alternative for the Amazon Echo Dot, but only for users in China. However, the fact that Xiaomi is keeping up with the trends and is constantly innovating on its products is a good signal for the fans of the brand.
