Xiaomi just released a Roomba competitor at a fraction of the price
Xiaomi just added another home appliance to its growing line-up of smart home gadgets.
This time, it's a Roomba-like robotic vacuum cleaner, called the Mi Robot Vacuum. Like others on the market, the disc-like gadget promises to slide around the house picking up dirt, but it comes with a set of impressively advanced sensing systems that could make it a lot better than the rest at detecting its surroundings.
One of the vacuum's 12 sensors is a laser distance sensor that is able to scan 360 degrees around it, 1,800 times per second.
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This technology is similar to that found on the rooftops of self-driving cars and is touted as a step up technologically from infrared sensors, being more reactive and accurate than the latter at sensing obstructions.
Xiaomi says the robot will be able to maintain a 1 cm distance from the wall so it can pick up dirt near corners. This wouldn't be possible with more basic robots, which come with physical "bump" sensors that need to touch objects to know they're there.
The laser sensor places the Mi in competition with other makers such as Neato, which puts laser sensors in its Botvacs. The top-end iRobot Roomba 980 model comes with infrared sensors. Entry-level models in the market tend to come with only the bump sensors.
Its companion Mi Home app will allow owners to command it to start cleaning and shows the robot's cleaning progress.
As with Xiaomi's modus operandi, the Mi Robot Vacuum is priced at a fraction of that of the competition, at 1,699 RMB ($254). In comparison, the top-end Roomba 980 lists for about US$900, and Neato's Botvacs range between US$400 and US$700.
The Mi vacuum will sell online on Mi.com and Mi retail stores in China, starting Sep. 6.
Topics Xiaomi
Victoria Ho is Mashable's Asia Editor, based in Singapore. She previously reported on news and tech at The Business Times, TechCrunch and ZDNet. When she isn't writing, she's making music with her band
