For those living outside of Asia, you might be familiar with Xiaomi more as a phone brand, but the company does sell quite a lot of non-mobile devices. In fact the company actually has quite a few internet of things devices, like smart bulbs and the likes. Now it looks like the company is hoping to expand its portfolio by announcing a partnership with IKEA.IKEA themselves have also been working on creating smart home devices, like smart bulbs, lamps that come with wireless charging, smart blinds for windows, and smart plugs, just to name a few, so this partnership with Xiaomi will mark the first time the Swedish furniture maker partners up with a Chinese tech company.
According to the announcement, “Starting in China in December, IKEA’s full range of smart lighting products will be connected to Xiaomi IoT platform and can be controlled via Xiaomi products, including Xiao Ai voice assistant and the Mi Home app. The lights can also be paired to other Xiaomi IoT smart devices such as sensors and electrical appliances for smart scene management. The smart lighting products will be connected to Mi Control Hub through the ZigBee protocol.”
Given how big Xiaomi is in China, there is no doubt that this partnership will open up a lot of doors and encourage adoption. As it stands IKEA’s smart devices already play nicely with Apple’s HomeKit, but this could be an alternative for those who aren’t part of Apple’s ecosystem.
Filed in . Read more about Connected Objects, Ikea, IoT (Internet of Things) and Xiaomi.