Aside from making tech more accessible to everyone, Xiaomi is not afraid of flexing its prowess in tech, whipping out insane innovations one after another. While they often present these insane innovations through proof of concepts, some of these groundbreaking tech ideas do make it to consumer products at one point. Looking back from last year to this year, Xiaomi is definitely showing the world its potential as the next tech titan. Here are some of the most insane ideas they have thought of so far:
Wraparound displays. While brands use screen-to-body ratios as the main selling point to showcase how much they have trimmed the bezels, Xiaomi’s Mi MIX Alpha defies our usual perception of screen-to-body ratio with a wraparound display that literally only leaves space for the triple rear camera setup.
With no buttons in sight, the Mi MIX Alpha makes use of things like display acoustics, pressure-sensitive side-display, ultrasonic proximity sensors, and an advanced mistouch detection algorithm powered by AI. The price for such tech is expensive, as Xiaomi did sell the Mi MIX Alpha for around Php 150k in China.
Transparent TVs. How do you make a large boring piece of slab like a TV interesting? By making it transparent, as Xiaomi showcased with the Mi TV Lux. It is literally a TV from the future, as it was the first product to make use of a transparent OLED panel that is insanely thin at 5.7mm. What you are seeing is a large slab of tempered glass that supports a 120hz refresh rate and 1ms response time.
With a price of around Php 350k, the Mi Lux TV is relatively accessible compared to LG’s Rollable OLED TV, which you can buy if you have Php 5 million lying around.
Robot Dogs. From out-of-this-world displays to…robots? Having their own open-source quadruped robot is Xiaomi’s way of showing their knowledge in engineering. In the case of the CyberDog, the unique niche product is Xiaomi’s way of showcasing its proprietary servo motors and how all 11 of its sensors worth together in order to make the CyberDog interact well with the environment.
Currently, the CyberDog is only open for sale to Xiaomi Fans, engineers, and robotic enthusiasts, and its price tag of roughly Php 80k makes it an affordable alternative to Boston Dynamics’ Spot.
Ridiculous Wireless Charging Speeds. While Xiaomi is one of the very few brands to have a phone sold globally with 120w wired charging, they also sell a charging dock that can do wireless charging at up to 100w. Currently, 67w is the fastest wireless charging speed on Xiaomi’s smartphones Mi 11 Ultra and Mi 11 Pro–and both phones are exclusive to China.
Currently, Xiaomi’s 100w (and 80w) wireless charging tech has yet to receive a certification for global markets. And we have yet seen a phone that supports higher than 55w wireless charging for global markets.
If you think 100w wireless charging is not crazy enough, Xiaomi announced that they are also working on 200w wired and 120w wireless charging on smartphones.
Smart Glasses. While smart glasses are not exactly new, Xiaomi’s approach to them is different. The Xiaomi Smart Glasses has one of the lenses housing a display to show notifications, make calls, help you navigate, take photos, and even translate text in real-time. The display chip of Xiaomi’s smart glasses is roughly the size of a grain of rice, and the display itself can go as bright as 2 million nits for adequate brightness even when used outdoors.
While Xiaomi calls their Smart Glasses a “wearable device concept”, the tech giant might make them available to consumers in the near future.
BONUS: Electric Cars. While all the insane tech innovations mentioned in this article have the actual products showcased by Xiaomi, its plans to make electric cars deserve a special mention. This recent move by Xiaomi shows that they are serious about making electric cars, which is often associated to be pricey compared to gasoline-powered cars, to be affordable to the mass market.
