Adding to its ever-increasing collection of connected home devices, China’s Xiaomi, the world’s third largest smartphone seller, today unveiled two new products: a new 48-inch smart TV as well as a water purifier (strange?). This follows after it introduced a pair of smart shoes in China (stranger ?).
While the new smart TV was a welcome sign, the water purifier came as a surprise to most people. Xiaomi already has a large collection of smart home appliances which compose its collection of connected home devices. These include a blood pressure test unit, smart light bulbs, air purifier, $20 routers and many more and the Chinese company has plans to offer more than 100 of them, via third party partners in the coming years.
The main target of the company are, according to the firm itself, ‘new demographics’ who will appreciate its well priced products and buy others, thus becoming a loyal customer.
Now that we are through that, let’s talk about the new products unveiled today, starting with the smart TV.
The new smart TV, named the Mi TV 2S, is a revamped version of the older smart TV the company had released earlier. With a thickness of a mere 9.9mm, this new TV is one of the slimmest units you can currently find in the market.
The display on this giant is a Samsung UHD display with support for 4k and there is a 1.4GHz quad-core processor under the hood powering the set and the usual goodies including HDMI, USB, Bluetooth, etc.
When compared side by side, the new model has a few significant modifications from the older one. Some of them being aesthetic like the super thin format factor (customers can take their pick of five colored aluminium frames), and a few others which are more towards the performance side like the addition of a subwoofer and a Dolby-powered soundbar.
The unit will cost you just around $483 with a better ‘theatre’ version, which includes a sound system and comes in at $644. That, in our opinion, is surely a great deal.
We want Mi TV 2S to be the first TV that young adults buy. Xiaomi’s TV team spent one year developing Mi TV 2S, working with global industry-leading suppliers, the best materials, and top-of-the-line technology to produce a gorgeous TV with amazing performance.
said Xiaomi CEO and co-founder Lei Jun in a canned statement.
Now for the surprising addition to Xiaomi’s technology, the water purifier.
The unit unveiled by the Chinese firm today is said to be a ‘smart’ water purifier (you can’t expect any less, duh!). That is to say it will contain control units as well as monitoring devices. Apparently, customers can check on its settings, recent activity and get alerts when replacement filters are required. The unit will be available only in China, for the time being, and will be priced at around $209.
Rumours for a water-related product had already been doing rounds, ever since Xiaomi released a poster earlier, hinting at the launch of a ‘water-related’ product.
