Smart speakers are becoming cheaper and cheaper, and in the US and some other countries, Amazon Echo Dot can be purchased for under $50.
But Xiaomi has come up with an even cheaper model – for the Chinese market – with their Allwinner R16 based AI Speaker Mini that has just launched for 169 RMB, or about $27, in China.
XIaomi Mi AI Speaker Mini specifications:
- SoC- Allwinner R16 quad core Cortex A7 processor @ 1.2 GHz
- System Memory / Storage – TBD
- Speaker
- 1.5″ 4Ω speaker
- Frequency Range – 140Hz – 20000Hz
- Speaker sensitivity – 78dB/m/W
- Maximum output power – 2W
- 4x Microphones
- Connectivity – 802.11 b/g/n WiFi, Bluetooth 4.1 with A2DP support
- Misc – Microphone on/off button, volume buttons, and play/pause button
- Power Supply – 5V/2A via micro USB port
- Dimensions – 90 x 90 x 50 mm
- Weight – ~210 grams
The speaker ships with a power supply, and a user manual. It is compatible with smartphones running Android 4.4 and iOS 8.0 or greater, and also work as a Bluetooth speaker.
AI Speaker Mini supports voice searches, story telling, Mijia home automation products, and gives access to a collection of 35 million songs and premium audio content. That is if you can speak Mandarin of course, and the songs may not be available outside of China.
If you can read Chinese you’ll find more details and a purchase link on the product page. People living outside of China, and still interested in the device can pre-order it for about double the price ($60) – shipping included – on sites like GeekBuying or GearBest.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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Interesting, but useless for us non-Mandarin speaking ppl?
Yes, unless you plan to hack it.
I could not find confirmation, but it must be using Baidu DuerOS as both companies partnered last year, so it will be Chinese only for now.
Just got my hand on one of the mi AI mini smart speaker. Just using it as a bluetooth speaker at the moment.
Did anyone has already hacked it to install google AI or Amazon Alexa on it ?
Speaker sensitivity – 78dB/m/W can’t be right. Normal Hi-fi speakers are 85-95 dB/m/W. 10 dB less means it requires 10 times as much power to produce same volume. So this is as loud as a 200 mW normal speaker. Sounds weak.
Allwinner has provided DOA (direction of arrival) and beamforming code to make these microphones work. Is the source code to that available anywhere? Previously there was only a closed source library (libgpss?), a microphone company has given the binary to Allwinner.
Open it up, what wifi chip is it using? Probably Realtek – 2.4 Ghz with BT.
Outside of China (where IP laws are enforced) we have to pay $10/mth to access those 35M songs.