Along with the Xiaomi Bluetooth Headset Air, the China-based company has also announced its new smart speaker — Xiaomi XiaoAi Speaker HD. As the name suggests, the speaker comes with the company’s own XiaoAi voice-controlled smart assistant.
The Xiaomi XiaoAi Speaker HD also comes with HiFi sound quality and 360-degree surround sound support. It is priced at 599 Yuan, which roughly converts to $87 and is currently up for pre-orders but will start shipping from 11th January.
In terms of design, the smart speaker from Xiaomi features a tower-like minimal design and measures 150mm x 150mm x 230mm. At a first glance, the speaker looks very similar to the Google Home series. The company has even opted to use the dark gray and light gray fabric that wraps around the speaker’s body.
It is made in such a way that it protects the internal components from dust but does not affect the sound transmission. The speaker is designed as a three-dimensional stereo structure that delivers an immersive 360-degree surround sound, says Xiaomi. On the top, there are four buttons — power button, volume up, volume down, and play/pause button.
The company also says that the Xiaomi XiaoAi Speaker HD comes equipped with high-power full-range speaker array that offers strong performance and rich musical expression. Xiaomi has also optimized sound field and the 104mm large-caliber woofer has a more accurate transient response.
The Digital Signal Processor (DSP) that comes equipped with the speaker delivers powerful loudness control and can automatically compensate and adjust the audio according to the volume, dynamically adjust the tri-band loudness for a balanced sound field, and offer clearer sound performance that’s natural, soft and resistant. For connectivity, it uses dual-band Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.1 technology to support A2DP music playback.
To ensure that it captures the user commands in one go, the Xiaomi XiaoAi Speaker HD comes in a ring of microphone array that consists of six high-sensitivity microphones. This ensures accuracy in voice recognition as well as quick response to those commands.
As said, the XiaoAi Smart Assistant from Xiaomi is powering the smart speaker, which enables users to control it through voice commands. It also enables controlling smart home devices switching the lights on/off or adjusting the brightness, etc.
