Readers of our previous article on smart homes [LINK TO FIRST ARTICLE HERE] will know that tech giant Xiaomi has reinvented the entire concept of smart homes in South Africa by making the tech affordable, easier to use, and even more feature rich.
What we didn’t cover in that first article is just how far the smart home idea goes. While you may think that your smart home starts and ends with the home itself, that is not true at all – the true smart home experience ends with you.
Explaining this concept to us is Luke-Simon Pretorius, senior product manager at tech distributor Syntech and Joey Lee, AIOT manager at Xiaomi South Africa. The pair recently sat down with us to not only go over the basics of the transformative Xiaomi smart home, but also unpack its intricacies in the food we eat and the air we breathe.
Xiaomi has really challenged just how smart meal preparation can be by bringing this new tech into the kitchen.
“We have smart blenders, smart air fryers and even smart kettles. The great part about the kitchen side of smart homes is that you can schedule food to be cooked. Maybe you’re fetching your kids and you want food ready when you walk in the door? From your phone you can schedule food to be prepared in the app and it will be ready when you arrive. The Xiaomi Smart Kettle Pro lets you carefully manage water temperature, also from your phone, and a favourite function of mine in the Xiaomi Smart Blender is that it can do both hot and cold. Want a soup? Just throw in the ingredients and it will cook and blend a perfect soup for you,” Lee tells us.
Having a pseudo private chef is just the start, however. For those who want to carefully control their wellness journey, products like the Xiaomi Smart Scale 2 and Xiaomi Body Composition Scale 2 both offer ways to numerically track your progress and wireless functionality means seamless connection to your health platform of choice.
And the smart functionality for your bathroom doesn’t stop with a scale.
“Think about your toothbrush. How can you make your toothbrush smart? Xiaomi has the Smart Electric Toothbrush T500 and I use it in my house. The toothbrush will map out your mouth and tell you where you’re not brushing! You can fall into a habit of brushing in a certain way and you may not know that you’re favouring one side or missing a spot. This toothbrush will tell you where you’re brushing, if you’re brushing too hard, if you’re not brushing enough and it will tell you how long you’re brushing for. Think about this for kids too. You want to make sure that your kids have the best dental health and you tell them to brush for the recommended two minutes, but how can you make sure they’re doing that when you’re not there? The Smart Electric Toothbrush tracks that for you,” Pretorius explains.
Even the air you breathe benefits from the smart home revolution. Xiaomi offers a huge range of air purifiers, humidifiers, heaters, air conditioners and fans to carefully control the climate around you. Not only does this make your home, school or work a more comfortable place to be, but also a healthier one.
While you may already know about the benefits of these climate control options, you may not know about added functionality Xiaomi has engineered, such as the pet dander and hair control that products like the Xiaomi Smart Air Purifier 4 Lite can offer. This helps with allergies and keeping a cleaner home, even with many furry members of the family.
To see the entire range of Xiaomi smart home products from Syntech, check out the product page here and shop the wide range from your favourite retailer this upcoming holiday season.
