After debuting the Mi AI speaker last year, Xiaomi is back with an even smaller version called the Mi AI Speaker Mini. It’s still a bit larger than a Google Home Mini or an Amazon Echo Dot, but still fairly small. It does do basically the same thing as a Google Home Mini or Amazon Echo Dot as well. It has Xiaomi’s intelligent assistant built-in, instead of using Google Assistant, and that is because it is targeting China only with this product right now. But it will allow you to control your smart home products (of which are Xiaomi-made, and there are plenty of those), as well as play music, read books and so forth.
Everything with the Xiaomi Mi AI Speaker Mini is controlled with the Mi AI app that is found on Xiaomi’s smartphones. Since this device is not targeting the US, or really any of the Western countries, it does not have a number of countries listed in the app to use for preferences. But those in Asia should have no problem using the speaker and its AI functionality. The speaker is designed as a “squircle” which isn’t too bad looking, and has some touch controls on the top for adjusting volume and skipping through tracks and such. The Xiaomi Mi AI Speaker Mini is available in white only, which actually looks really nice. Now the speaker does actually stand a bit above the tablet that it is sitting on, and that’s because sound does come out from underneath the speaker. This way the sound is not muffled. Which is really nice to see, to be honest.
Xiaomi decided to use a micro USB port to power the Mi AI Speaker Mini here, instead of a USB-C connector. This was likely done to keep costs down, seeing as Xiaomi does normally sell its products at cost, or just a bit above cost. And with the Mi AI Speakers being a new platform for the company, it wants to get as many users as possible – similar to Amazon’s way of selling Echo’s. Xiaomi did not state when the Mi AI Speaker Mini would be available, nor a price. But the original Mi AI Speaker that debuted about eight months ago, was priced around $45 USD, so it’s likely to be around half that price.
