Internet runs on Gadgets, don’t you know?

I use my Google home mini to command my xiaomi stuff.

You are absolutely right, many of their devices have received MIUI 11 even if they were old devices. Many already have MIUI 12. Xiaomi is well-known for supporting their devices for a long time. But indeed, because you don’t have MIUI 12 on your device, this entire company cannot release updates. Thank you for the content, great addition to the discussion.

It’s really interesting to see that what they want to be and what they actually are differs so much.

For several products they are de facto market leaders or have the potential to be if they marketed themselves properly. It takes a lot of good people to make products like those for this price.

So yeah, I can only think that they want to earn money more efficiently than through hardware. With internet services you don’t have to pay people to assemble your shit, you don’t have to worry about customer returns or lifetime tests.

Take a vacuum robot. So many things can break on this thing. Plus most consumers are idiots that don’t handle them properly.

You need to make a really well working product and test the shit out of it to make sure it works a long time. Plus, as a not established company, you need to sell it almost for free. And if customers want to return it for something that might even be their own fault, you need to also be accommodating otherwise you’ll not build any reputation.

It astonishes me how they were able to do that and does not surprise me that they want to be more diverse in their strategy.

I don’t really have anything xiaomi aside from my phone, and I don’t really care for anything more than that to be honest

In countries like India where xiaomi is seeing large success due to smartphone sales, its cloud and smart home accessories have non existent sales. Their services just won’t be able to compete with Google drive etc. in such markets. But to be fair to them smart home is just not a thing in countries like India. Even google and amazon have resulted to marketing their echo like products as purely smart speakers that have built in voice assistants rather than what they are, smart home hubs probably after market research told them that market for a smart home was minimal at best in India.

Thankfully there are projects that are able to utilize Xiaomi/Mija devices without the potential privacy concerns. Gadgetbridge for Mi Bands and some thermometers instead of Mi Fit for example.

I’ve got:
Garage door opener,
Humidifier,
Air purifier,
12 lights,
Security camera (hacked firmware)
7 other nests, a hub,
A dozen or more worked switches.

It’s all a huge waste of time except for the lights and power curtains.

Being able to turn off all the table and floor lamps with a voice command or button press is awesome.

If any of you use the Mi Home app, you can see the sheer number of products Xiaomi has that support the app (vacuums, air purifiers, smart home devices ) but don’t forget they also have many sub-brands that also have their own apps such as Amazfit (wearables) and Soocas (home appliances) which also have their own interfacing apps. The number of products they make are immense, and many are very high quality.

It’s really unfortunate with the whole China data abuse thing, as I love the quality of Xiaomi products, but it seems like they may get banned in my country.

Also regarding the recent Poco M2 Pro launch in India. There’s a very strong anti-China sentiment going around due to the recent events. The phone they launched is just a rebranded Redmi note 9 pro global variant. I feeling that they will slowly stop the chinese named brand like Mi and Redmi and focus wholly on Poco. The phone in question is just assembled in India but they still called it made in India, not to forget that the phone literally is a rebranded phone.