Would You Trust Xiaomi With Drinking Water? | TechTree.com

Would You Trust Xiaomi With Drinking Water?

Considering the standards that locally made bands have dropped down to, there seems to be plenty of room for a quality product.

 
Would You Trust Xiaomi With Drinking Water?

Xiaomi, best known for smartphones, also sells TVs and water purifiers in China. Its RO (Reverse Osmosis) purifier is touted as a smart one. Everything is going smart these days. Now you know what Matt Stone and Trey Parker were up to, when they snarkily introduced a smart towel in South Park.

What's exciting is that Hugo Barra, Vice President of Xiaomi, mentioned in his Facebook post that the company would love to bring the Mi Water Purifier to India. There's a good chance that Xiaomi's purifier will hit the Indian market in next few months. The Chinese brand enjoyed phenomenal response to its smartphones in India, despite a few controversies. Will the company receive similar love in the appliance category? Let's see what may or may not work in Xiaomi's favour.

Smart Features
Xiaomi is primarily a smartphone manufacturer. Little wonder then that the Chinese company wants to place its phones at the heart of the home appliances. The Mi Purifier plays nice with smartphones. Using a phone app, the purifier can let you know the (TDS) Total Dissolve Solid value of the water, before and after the filtration. it is also smart enough to notify you when it is time to change those filters. This can give Xiaomi an edge over competitors such as Eureka Forbes, Kent, and TATA, whose products lack such features.

Build Quality
I happened to buy a new water purifier last week. While checking the options, I realised that most of the water purifiers available in our country have pathetic build quality. Eureka Forbes, whose Aquaguard has become a synonym for water purifiers, is the worst offender. The plastic used in most of their products in trash. The buttons and grooves are shoddily made. Xiaomi, on the other hand, is known for well-made smartphones. If the company manages to deliver similar build quality in appliances, it would get a definite edge.

After-Sales Service
Unlike smartphones, good after-sales service is critical for water purifiers. So much that, most consumers end-up buying Eureka Forbes trash only because of its wide network of service centres. Looking at the disgruntled Xiaomi phone buyers, I guess after-sales support is not going to be a strong point for Mi purifiers. The company may find itself in a spot much like Philips that makes quality products, but lacks service support in many areas.

Trust Factor
This one is a tricky matter. Xiaomi has been embroiled in many controversies. First, the company's phones were detected sending user information to China. Indian Air Force banned officials from using these phones. This didn't deter normal buyers though. Lets face it, privacy and data security has never been a priority for us Indias. So while Xiaomi's handsets sell like hotcakes in India, I doubt that we Indians are ready to trust a Chinese brand with the drinking water yet.


Tags : Home Appliances, Xiaomi, Mi Water Purifier

 
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