If you’re looking for an alternative to the Google Nest Mini, Xiaomi Malaysia has introduced its Mi Smart Speaker for the Malaysian market. Like the name suggests, this is an internet connected speaker and it supports “Hey Google” voice commands via Google Assistant.
The Mi Smart Speaker is officially priced at RM209 in Malaysia. It’s now available on their official store on both Lazada and Shopee as well as all authorised Mi Stores and official retailers in Malaysia. For our market, it only comes in white which has a silver speaker mesh that wraps around the device.
According to the spec-sheet, the Mi Smart Speaker has a single front-firing 12W speaker that has a large 63.5mm driver. That’s almost 60% larger than the Google Nest Mini’s top-facing 40mm sound driver.
Xiaomi’s speaker uses a Texas Instruments TAS5805M sound processor which promises to offer high power, low distortion and multi-band dynamic response control algorithms to deliver HiFi sound output. It also claims to offer DTS professional tuned sound with crisp vocals and dynamic bass.
The key highlight of its “smart” feature is its built-in Google Assistant and Chromecast integration. You can ask the speaker to play your favourite music, get traffic updates, read out your schedule, set reminders or play your favourite TV show on your smart TV. If you have other Xiaomi or Google Home supported IoT device at home, you can use it to control your lights, robot vacuum, air purifier and more.
The Mi Smart Speaker features two far-field intelligent mics at the top that are designed to pick up your voice from anywhere in the room. If you’re feeling paranoid, you are able to switch off the mics completely for better privacy.
Apart from your voice, there are also touch-sensitive buttons at the top which allows you to control the speaker’s volume and playback. What’s interesting is that the top edges has an LED indicator ring which lights up when it’s listening to your voice commands.
For a stereo speaker experience, you are able to pair two Mi Smart Speakers together. It supports multi-room setup and you can pair multiple speakers and control them from your smartphone.
The Mi Smart Speaker supports 2.4GHz and 5GHz WiFi and Bluetooth 4.2. Oddly, it’s powered by a DC power jack (12V/1.5A) instead of a USB connection. According to the spec-sheet, the speaker uses an Amlogic A113X 4-core A53 chip with 512MB RAM.
