Why does Xiaomi make air purifiers?

A few days ago, Lei Jun announced on his Weibo that Xiaomi will hold a new product communication meeting on December 9. The filter in the picture and the copywriting of "wait for the wind to come" are very imaginative. Later, Xiaomi Vice President Lin Bin refuted some netizens' speculations on Weibo, such as Xiaomi air conditioners and electric fans. Among the remaining fields, smart air purifiers are almost the only product that can match Xiaomi's promotion this time.

The truth is indeed so. A few hours ago, Xiaomi's new product was confirmed to be the "Xiaomi Air Purifier", and its official Weibo account with Blue V certification has been launched. However, unlike the previous rumors that Xiaomi's partner this time was the home appliance giant Midea, Xiaomi chose the same approach as when it launched its smart bracelet, with another new company it invested in, Zhimi Technology, as the product producer.

Xiaomi officials said that the Xiaomi air purifier is equipped with a Sharp high-sensitivity digital particle sensor and a three-layer filter, and has a built-in Xiaomi WiFi module, which can be remotely connected and controlled; it has functions such as light sensing and dimming indicator lights at night; and it occupies an area the size of an A4 paper. Officials said that its purification capacity (CARD value) is 406 cubic meters/hour, suitable for rooms of 28-48 square meters, and the price is 899 yuan. The filter can be replaced by itself, and the three-layer filter is sold separately for 149 yuan. It is worth mentioning that Cheetah Mobile, under Lei Jun, has also launched an independent hardware "Leopard Mi Air Purifier" before. The latter has a CADR value of 270 cubic meters/hour, suitable for an area of ​​27-40 square meters, and the price is slightly higher than the Xiaomi air purifier, at 998 yuan.

Why does Xiaomi make air purifiers?

First of all, Xiaomi's air purifier is not a big leap for its smart home strategy, which has already been laid out through TVs, boxes and routers. What's more, in Beijing, including Xiaomi's headquarters, and other densely populated cities in the country, the rampant smog has begun to make Chinese families pay more and more attention to the issue of air quality, which has gradually made air purifiers a necessity.

In addition, air purifiers are already highly modular products. The main difference lies in the different design schemes, and it is not difficult to make them. More importantly, the entire air purifier industry is still in a stage of selling concepts. People who understand business psychology know that the value of goods can be divided into three categories: what you know before buying, what you know when you buy, and what you don’t know how to know after buying. Air purifiers belong to the last category because their effects are not intuitive. Without professional equipment testing, consumers cannot feel their functions and the differences they bring. It’s like giving ordinary people expensive wine, and the final experience may not be much different from ordinary wine. The reason is that consumers don’t understand what is good or bad, and at this time price becomes their almost only reference.

This has given many manufacturers the opportunity to hype and play with concepts. The prices of air purifiers on the market currently range from thousands to over ten thousand, but in fact, most manufacturers are doing OEM design work, and there are also some merchants who take advantage of the Internet to hype. For consumers, although they cannot see the actual effect after buying, in order to reflect their pursuit of health and investment, plus the value guidance brought by the not cheap price, the market potential and bubble of air purifiers are not small.

This is the basis for Xiaomi to make air purifiers, because this will not only allow Xiaomi to once again burst the bubble of the industry and continue to implement its usual low-price strategy, but also create greater topics to capture a large number of users who yearn for high-quality life but at the same time pursue cost-effectiveness.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that in the smart home business, Xiaomi obviously paid attention to design earlier than in the mobile phone business. The person in charge of the Xiaomi air purifier project this time is Su Jun, the former director of the Design Department of the North China University of Technology, and Omoto Yuya, who has designed air purifiers for MUJI. And this part of the investment is absolutely worthwhile, because an air purifier is first of all to be placed at home and to be part of the home, which means that its appearance must be beautiful enough to attract users to buy it. And under the premise that there is no revolutionary breakthrough in function and performance, using good design to further increase the cost performance of the product is undoubtedly a smart way.

Xiaomi and Midea may have more tricks up their sleeves

It is also worth mentioning that Xiaomi did not cooperate with the traditional home appliance giant Midea as rumored, which disappointed some people who were optimistic about it. However, air purifiers are just the tip of the iceberg of Xiaomi's smart home, and it is not technically difficult, so it is reasonable for Xiaomi to go it alone. And it is not ruled out that Xiaomi will cooperate with Midea when launching large home appliances in the future.

On the one hand, large household appliances have high requirements for brand, technology, performance and R&D, which Xiaomi cannot handle alone, and the model of investing in new companies is not reliable enough. On the other hand, large household appliances are different from content carriers such as televisions. Their requirements for intelligence are not high. They only need to be connected to the Internet and remotely controlled. Therefore, if an operating system with many functions and complex interactions like MIUI wants to be directly implemented, it will inevitably have to carry out a lot of slimming exercises. However, instead of doing this, it is better to let its own massive Internet-connected terminals serve as the control center and let traditional household appliances continue to do what they are good at. This is a win-win situation.

In addition, the potential cooperation directions of the two companies also include e-commerce, logistics and cloud computing. According to the revelations of many well-known people, this is indeed true, so the industry's speculation about the cooperation between Xiaomi and Midea cannot be regarded as a surprise, but just as an early prediction of the future.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.