Smart kettle xiaomi mi smart kettle. Xiaomi MiJia Smart Home Kettle Electric Kettle - “Fashionable metal kettle in a plastic case! Fast, reliable and endlessly beautiful. Such a smart kettle with no brains." High quality inner surface

Smart Xiaomi kettle MiJia Kettle combines the functions of a thermo pot - it not only boils water, but also maintains its temperature for a long period of time (from 1 to 12 hours). Moreover, the value of the water temperature can be set manually - the user has a choice in the range from 40 to 90 ° C in increments of 10 ° C.

Smartphone connection

It is possible to set the desired degree of maintaining the water temperature in the associated application smart home ecosystem Mi Home. But you can’t remotely start the operation of the kettle from a smartphone - boiling and keeping water hot are called up only by pressing the touch control keys, which are hidden on the bend of the inside of the device’s handle.

Stylish appearance

The outer side of the model is made of white matte plastic, and the inner flask with a volume of about 1.5 liters is made of steel, respectively, the kettle does not have any external water level sensor. Steel is also the inside of the lid. The white color of the case is slightly diluted with a black pad on the stand. In the interior of the last element there is a compartment for winding excess power cord.

Localization

Initially, the teapot is oriented to the Chinese market, so the inscriptions on its buttons are made in the form of hieroglyphs. Similar symbols are also found in the smartphone application from time to time. But to a greater extent, the interface of the program for managing the kettle is dominated by English. In conjunction with intuitive icons, switching between the few menu items of the application will not be difficult.

Hello friends!

I have been eyeing the kettle from Xiaomi for a long time, but there was no particular need for it. My Moulinex BY 5001 kettle, although without smart features, coped with the task of heating water without question. Why is it premature to retire a working kitchen "fighter" ... However, everything has its own service life, he worked for me for 5 years faithfully. Yes, and still a worker in fact, only now the water began to leak from it. When hot - there are no problems, it cools down and starts to fill the table. It was then that I ordered a Xiaomi teapot with all sorts of newfangled features in order to keep up with the progress in teapot building)

Order screenshot

SPECIFICATIONS

Package Contents: 1 x Original Xiaomi Mi Electric Kettle.1 x Charging Base

PACKAGING AND DELIVERY SET

The teapot is packaged in a large white cardboard box with a color image of the teapot. The packaging, in general, did not suffer much during shipment, with the exception of slightly worn corners.

On the reverse side are the main specifications, everything is in Chinese, unfortunately, but by the numbers you can understand what is at stake.

Inside the box, immediately on the foam, we find instructions with the logo of the Xiaomi Mijia sub-brand

The instruction, as usual with Xiaomi, is only in Chinese, so there is little use for it. However, there is a QR code by which you can download an application to your smartphone to control the operation of the kettle.

And under the foam, the culprit of today's review is already hiding along with the stand.

The stand is made in the color of the body of the kettle, but there is also one black element. The cable is not really that short, just wound inside to take up less space in the box. Stand diameter 145 mm, thickness 16 mm.

The cable can be unwound and it becomes the usual length, like all of its "relatives" - about 70 cm.

Only now the plug is not European at the end of the wire ... There are two ways out: replace the cable with a regular “Nashensky” one, or purchase an adapter and not bathe at all.

At first I wanted to replace the cable, but then the right adapter just caught my eye in the store and I realized that it was fate) It costs 4.5 Belarusian rubles or a little more than 2 dollars in terms of.

On the bottom of the stand are rubberized feet for a stable position on the surface. Immediately we see a circle with a niche under it, around which the cable is wound. There is a warning: do not submerge in water.

The stand is marked: power specifications are standard, maximum power 1800 W.

DESIGN

The Xiaomi teapot has a very minimalist design and I can’t say that it really came to me, it looks a bit rustic in my opinion. However, I didn’t take it for the design) but for the bluetooth control and interesting functionality. We see the mijia logo on the case. Case material: plastic. Color is available only white, other colors are not provided by the manufacturer.

There is a small metal "layer" in the upper part of the case

There is only one mechanical button on the body, it is located on the handle. When pressed, the lid of the kettle opens.

There is also a bluetooth icon on the handle, because the kettle is paired with a smartphone via Bluetooth version 4.0

On the inside of the handle there are two touch buttons that are responsible for turning on the water heating and for turning on the keep warm function. To understand which of the tasks is currently being performed, there are red LEDs under the buttons.

The lower part of the teapot is not much different from that of other "stupid" teapots.

The inside of the device is made of AISI 304 stainless steel. Between the metal insides and the body of the kettle, two-layer insulation is provided so that the body does not heat up with outside, and to maintain a constant temperature inside. The Japanese Shibaura temperature sensor is used to measure the water temperature, and the thermostat is made by the British company Strix. AISI 304 steel (The American Iron and Steel Institute) is an austenitic steel with a low carbon content. AISI 304 stainless steel is acid-resistant and withstands short-term temperature rises up to 900 degrees Celsius. Information taken from Wikipedia.

Inside, you can pour a maximum of 1.5 liters of water. Rather, you can fill in more, just the maximum recommended mark is no more than one and a half liters.

The cover of Xiaomi Kettle is also double, it opens when the button is pressed at about 60 degrees. Manually, you can open it at 85 degrees. Only now, after boiling, water accumulates on the lid from the inside and in this position it begins to drip onto the handle and table.

USAGE

To connect the kettle to our network, an adapter for a European outlet was purchased, I wrote about this above.

Xiaomi Mijia Smart Kettle can be used and how ordinary teapot, but it's not so interesting, it's 2017 in the yard! Give all sorts of jokes to the people! However, let's start with the simplest mode of using the kettle - manual. I poured it to the maximum - one and a half liters of water into the kettle and set it to warm up by pressing the touch button.

It took a little over 5 minutes to heat up to a boil. Mi Kettle cools down for a long time. An hour after boiling, the water has a temperature of 78 degrees, after two hours 65, after three hours 53.

At the same time, after boiling, the body is simply warm, it is impossible to burn your hands. Only 37 degrees Celsius.

And here metal part nevertheless heats up: 53-54 degrees, it is better not to touch it.

When you open the lid, drops of water from the inside drip onto the handle, which is not great. If the cover is opened by pressing the button, then this is not critical. But if you open it to the maximum, then you can wet the table a little

If you turn on the temperature maintenance function by pressing the second touch button, then when the water reaches probably 55 degrees, the heating turns on again. At the same time, the kettle cools noticeably slower than my previous one.

To reveal all the smart abilities of the gadget, you need to download the Mi Home application from the play store. Or from w3bsit3-dns.com the Russian version:

To enter you need a Mi-account, the application is used for all gadgets of the system " smart House» from Xiaomi. It is necessary that Mi Kettle is connected to the network, and bluetooth is turned on on the smartphone and the proprietary application is launched. The kettle was found very quickly, and the connection took a few seconds. To synchronize, you need to hold the touch button on the handle of the kettle for 3 seconds.

The temperature of the water in the kettle is displayed at the top. The amount of time for maintaining the selected temperature is set below: from 1 to 12 hours. Next, the minimum and maximum temperature. The modes "Cool down the boiled water" and "Warm up the water" are responsible for switching between two options: to cool or heat the water.

The color of the background on which the water temperature is displayed depends on the degrees. When heated, animation is displayed, water bubbles)

And here the gull is ready!

TOTAL

During the operation of the Mi Kettle kettle, there were no particular problems with it, but the device has a number of shortcomings. Firstly, it bothers me a little that I don’t know how much water is in it. Neither through the application, nor visually (without opening the lid), it is impossible to find out. In my old kettle there was a window through which the water level was always visible. I think it will be useful to add it in the next version. Then the fact that after boiling a little water always drips from open lid I don’t really like the handle of the kettle, a design flaw. The coating of the kettle itself is white and easy to get dirty, it would be nice to add other body colors and change the body material to a more practical one, although this is already possible nitpicking. I know English, so I did not have any difficulties with the application, but other users may have them. There is no official Russian language in the application, and for Russification you need to get root rights, etc. Not everyone wants to do this. The price of the kettle also can not be called a penny. After binding by bluetooth and making necessary operations after a while, the smartphone disconnects and you have to reconnect.

On the positive side, I can note good thermal insulation, Mi Kettle really cools down much more slowly than its counterparts. Maintain function certain temperature I personally found it useful and I use it all the time. It is also quite convenient to remotely start the heating without getting up from the chair.

So the kettle seems to be not bad, it seems that Xiaomi will come to the fans) But it has enough minuses, it is far from ideal. Today, if you turn back the time, then I would consider whether to take Mi Kettle or look at options from the same Redmond with smart features. I think people should look at reviews of other kettles with smart features before buying and compare what looks better for them.

I tried to be objective and perhaps I could help someone in choosing (or, on the contrary, dissuaded from buying) a “smart” kettle. Thanks in advance for the likes and ready to answer any questions in the comments, maybe I missed something.

Chinese technology is extremely obstinate. "Smart" kettle from major manufacturer was no exception.

Moving to new apartment- always a very difficult process. The first two weeks breaks everything that can break. So it was with me - the first thing the kettle burned out.

A cursory search in offline stores did not turn up anything good - decent brands simply disappeared from the shelves. Take another device for 2 months - why? And then the idea came to buy a recently announced teapot from Xiaomi. Moreover, he was already on the wish list.

Who would have known what adventures the desire to furnish an apartment with “smart” appliances from China will turn into. But there were no reviews yet - and the teapot went to Russia.

It's time to learn Chinese

The joke that a pessimist is learning Chinese is already so bearded that the author cannot be found. Only now I began to understand that learning Chinese is rather a harsh necessity than the whim of teachers and popularizers of Chinese culture.

It's all to the fact that the teapot came to beautiful packaging, With detailed instruction, many inscriptions on the body ... Without a single English character! All - only hieroglyphs. There are no mnemonic icons.


By the method of scientific poke, it was possible to establish that near to the case the button (touch, by the way) is responsible for turning on and heating to a boil. What's next? Unknown. At the time of receipt of the device, information in Russian and English was not found.

In memory of the work of other devices, Xiaomi has launched an official application for smart home MiHome and tried to press second button. The kettle made a pleasant low squeak, blinked the LED, and the effect was 0.

On the page for adding a new device, there is not a word of English. The MiKettle device is missing. (I know about the methods of Russification, setting the correct region did not help. The first batch is torment for the fans.) What should I do?

Xiaomi as an interior element

Use smart kettle as usual. I must admit that MiKettle performs its functions well and is ready to actively compete with other manufacturers. Even if they were released by Tefal, Moulinex or Bosch.


Whole the metal flask warms up much faster than analogues. The thick plastic in which it is placed allows you to protect not only the appearance, but also the hands of the owner. For 3 months of operation, the temperature of the kettle could not be felt: it is barely warm even with boiling water inside.


Thoughtful design of the lid does not give MiKettle break in mounts. Press the button and the lid opens. If necessary, further refine with your hands. You can not be afraid of the traditional "blank head" in the form of a lid left in your hands when you open it again.


Turns off on time - also a plus, a little bit. Still turns on without water- here is the first puncture of this spy unit. Shutdown after a “dry” start is almost instantaneous, but I personally held a grudge. Now I constantly check the presence of water before turning it on.

Xiaomi read Russian Internet resources?

After a month of using MiKettle in the “just a kettle” mode, it was necessary to set up the kitchen MiAmplifier. At this moment, it turned out that the applications for devices built into MiHome in a fresh update received English!

The hand itself reached out to search for new devices ... Click on the teapot (far button), agonizing wait, a dozen attempts to restart Bluetooth and repeated clicks - and here it is, the moment of truth. The app found the teapot! Never before has the disappointment from Xiaomi devices been so strong.

Works? And how! But not like that

When ordering Xiaomi Mi Kettle, it seemed like an almost reasonable kitchen unit that can do everything in the world - it boils water itself, pours tea, and sings Chinese songs. It turned out - it seemed.

All this is due to a lack of information. Unfortunately, in fact, the teapot is not at all as intelligent as it should be. And not even the right way.

I have a router and many other Xiaomi branded gadgets. All of them are combined into one ecosystem controlled via Wi-Fi using a smartphone. As it turned out, the teapot refers to her only formally.

It still runs through the official MiHome app (iOS, Android). But - via Bluetooth. Thus, the communication range is only 5-7 meters in a real Russian apartment. Or even less if there is a strong source of electromagnetic fields between the smartphone and the kettle. For example, refrigerator, microwave or stove.

After Mi Kettle is linked to a Xiaomi account via MiHome, it becomes possible to remote control . Actually, all functions, except for boiling, work only through a smartphone.


And to be more precise, there is only one function: maintaining a constant temperature in the kettle. From the main screen of the MiKettle page in MiHome, you can launch one of the preset profiles: 90, 70, 50 or 30 degrees. You can also set a different temperature using the slider, after checking the manual control mode checkbox.

Also in the settings you can specify the principle of heating. Kettle or all the time cools down to required temperature, or heated up to it at certain intervals.

"Um" is not real!

The application works with the kettle only within the range of the Bluetooth connection. As soon as it breaks, the smartphone moves away - the connection disappears, no control.

It is not necessary to dream of the opportunity to turn on the kettle when driving up to the house. Bring kettle control to web interface is not possible by standard means. And happiness and hot tea from the threshold were so close ..


And where is the mind? Just another thermopot - cheap, but beautiful and a little mysterious. Although for

Those who like to sit with a cup of tea will appreciate the device from a company from China. Xiaomi teapots not only perfectly fulfill their immediate duties, but also fascinate with their appearance. Manufacturers have developed for their manufactured devices, a laconic design that fits absolutely any style of kitchen. Xiaomi smart kettles are able to boil water in a fairly short time, while it will not splash out from the edges, as is often the case with ordinary kettles.

We all know how useful it is to drink one glass of warm water in the morning, before meals. The presented devices heat the water to a comfortable state, in which you will not burn yourself by taking a sip. The temperature of the water in the kettle can be kept at the temperature you need thanks to the heat retention. The kettle is completely safe for your health. Manufacturers took care and created such a device that will not close and will not shock. By inviting friends for a cup of fragrant tea, your tea ceremonies will become unforgettable. The Xiaomi teapot is available for order in several color options. You can buy a device in one of our stores in Moscow, or order delivery to any other city.

Greetings, dear readers.

Fashion for smart home technology does not slow down. Chandeliers, clocks, scales - you can list further. Xiaomi (more commonly pronounced as Xiaomi in Chinese) is also developing and expanding its “smart” ecosystem, and today the hero of our review is an electric kettle with control functions via mobile devices.

About company

Xiaomi was founded by businessman Lei Jun along with seven other partners on April 6, 2010. At the very beginning of its journey, the company was engaged in the development and release of MIUI - a user interface for the Android OS with its own services. Next came the release mobile phones, followed by TVs, tablets and more. Today it is a huge company with its own crowdfunding platform, which allows to produce a huge variety of products.

Packaging and equipment

Two sides of the package contain an image of the teapot itself. On the right, at the bottom, there are two logos - the manufacturer and MI Home (aka the MiJia sub-brand logo). The left side sheltered two stickers - one shows the model, color; on the other, from the useful, they placed the characteristics and equipment.

Characteristics:
- Volume: 1.5 l;
- Power: 1800 W;
- Body material: metal/plastic (double walls);
- Flask material: steel 06Cr19Ni10;
- Type heating element: closed spiral;
- Management: 2 touch buttons, software smart home;
- Cord length: 75 cm;
- Filter: no;
- Weight: 1240 g;
- Protection: cover lock, blocking of inclusion without water;
- Compartment for the cord: There is;
- Wireless interfaces: Bluetooth 4.0 BLE*;
- Dimensions (WxHxD): 20.4x23.5x14.5 cm;
- Additional features: temperature maintenance with smart apps Home** (Android, iOS).
* Bluetooth LE devices support connection to phones/tablets with BLE-module, as well as work with BLE-smart home gateways.
**Not exactly, since Smart Home is the general name of the smart home ecosystem, and the app is Mi Home.

Appearance

The handle is comfortable, long (about ¾ of the height of the teapot). In its upper part there is a familiar button for opening the lid with a rather large stroke.

Let's go back to the lid. Full opening occurs at an angle of about 80 °, but there is one subtlety - when you press the button, the lid opens only at 45 °. If you need more, then only manually. Quite unusual, although I dare to assume that the logic is as follows - 45 ° is enough to fill the flask, and the full one will be used only for its maintenance, which is infrequent. What else surprised me was the diameter of the neck - this is, no less, as much as 130 mm! There will obviously be no problems with access to the internal cavity of the flask.

In the upper part of the kettle, the plastic body passes into a steel "rim" 20 mm high. This is part of the flask, it also forms a small spout for water. There is no lime filter.

On the bottom of the case is the inscription: "Do not immerse in water", however, only in Chinese and English. In the center there is a contact group manufactured by the long-established company Strix (England). There are also 2 stickers - one factory, one from our importers.

On the stand is the second part of the contact group (also Strix). Below is the same inscription as on the bottom of the kettle: “Do not immerse in water”, a sticker with information in Russian, a special cavity for the power cable, and for better stability on different surfaces placed 3 silicone legs.

Since we have a European version (DNS sells it), to connect to the network alternating current CEE 7/7 plug is used (CPCS-CCC in Chinese version). Electrical contacts are protected by plastic caps.

In general, summing up the section, the author could not find assembly / manufacturing flaws, the design came at the right time, and we will get acquainted with the ease of management and operation in the next section.

Testing the operation and convenience of the location of the controls

Test volumes will be 0.5, 1 and 1.5 liters. For convenience, the data is summarized in a small table. The initial water temperature is 18°C.

After boiling, the surface of the teapot warmed up to only 45 ° C according to the readings of a Chinese non-contact pyrometer. Tactile - just a warm surface. The handle, as it should, does not heat up.

2. Electricity consumption. When boiling, the kettle consumes up to 1946 W / h. In order to boil 0.5 liters of water, 54 W is needed, for 1 liter - 98 W, for 1.5 liters - 152 W.

3. In addition to simple boiling, it is possible to maintain the temperature at a certain value, it is turned on by pressing the "Warm" button. The default is 50°C, duration 12 hours (maximum) and "Cool to specified temperature" mode.

Touch control buttons, despite their close proximity to each other, are quite convenient, you just need to get used to their location. Spontaneous operations, random touches during testing were not observed.

Software

You can download the application in several ways. The simplest and most obvious is to open the Play Store, enter Mi Home in the search bar and install, or scan the QR code directly from the kettle. We agree to the terms of use of the software.

To use the software, you will need a Mi account (you can register) or a Facebook account.

If the bluetooth is not turned on, then the program will kindly offer to turn it on, which we do. Next comes a proposal to give access to GPS. If you want, press the button to go to the settings, or cancel if you do not want to do this. Allow or not access to Wi-Fi to search for devices connected via this protocol.

In the dialog box that appears, click Accept. We go through all the proposed steps. Hold the Warm button on the kettle for 3 seconds. The kettle will be connected, followed by sound signal, and installing the plugin.

The plug-in will open, we immediately check the firmware update of the kettle itself. To do this, click on the three dots and select General settings. Go to the submenu check for firmware updates. The software will check the version on the server and on the teapot, and offer, as in my case, to upgrade. We are waiting for the end of the firmware process.

The current temperature of the water in the kettle is indicated at the top. Conveniently, you do not need to go to the kettle and preemptively heat it or try to tactilely determine the temperature of the water inside.

Under the scale, you can choose this very target temperature either from 3 presets, or choose an arbitrary temperature in the range from 40 to 90 ° C.

Clicking on the "More" button opens a page with five stored presets, choose to display on home page Plugin can only 3 of them. When choosing the fourth one, you will be carefully offered to replace one of the previously selected ones. Here we meet "under-translation" - the confirmation button in Chinese. I would like to note that each icon indicates what this or that temperature is used for (coffee, baby food etc.).

Cool down to the set temperature works as follows. First, the water in the kettle is brought to a temperature close to boiling, and after that it is cooled to desired temperature. Obviously, such an algorithm is suitable for non-boiled water. But what if the water was already boiling, but you just forgot about it? Re-boiling is, at a minimum, the consumption of excess electricity, and hence the material costs. It is for such cases that the “Do not boil again” option is present here. In this mode, the following algorithm is used to maintain the set temperature: if the current temperature deviates by 5 °C below the set value, the heater is turned on. It heats the water a little more (by 3-5 ° C) than required, and turns off. The number of turns on and, as it follows, the power consumption of each will be different, but during testing, 12 watts were consumed for one such inclusion.

"Heat to set temperature" only heats water to the specified temperature without trying to boil it first.
Both modes have additional function– prolonged heating. Despite the name, its essence lies in the resumption of the selected mode after removing and then installing the kettle back on the stand. Also quite useful.

Attentive readers may have noticed that there is no elementary (and simply logical) button - boil. The indignation of the author and many other people is connected with this. Xiaomi are you serious? It's a kettle! And you can’t just take it and boil it out of bed when you wake up in the morning! Yes, you can do it through crutches in the form of the first heating mode, but! To do this, you must first transfer the kettle to the temperature maintenance mode, and it will “eat” electricity all night, which we do not need. Subjectively, this is the biggest disadvantage in the device, which kills the very idea of ​​​​a “smart kettle”. And so far it is not clear whether this is only a problem of “software” (and the laziness of programmers), or a limitation of the chip used in the teapot.

Conclusion

Advantages:
+ High-quality assembly and materials;
+ Wide filler neck;
+ Temperature maintenance mode and control from the phone;
+ Indication of temperature in the application;
+ Fast boiling.
Flaws:
- You can not boil the kettle from the application (without putting it into heating mode);
- No water level indicator;
- Small software functionality.

I would like to thank DNS for providing the sample, and Club of DNS Experts for the opportunity to publish the review.