Xiaomi’s new smart speaker was alleged to plagiarize Sonos Play 1

On May 21, Xiaomi officially launched the latest version of its Xiao Ai speaker series, which is also known as Xiaomi Xiao Ai Speaker Art.

The speaker features a new metal body with a special geometry that could evenly distribute the 10531 sound outlets on its surface. In the upper part there is a ring that lights up with RGB lighting effects to the rhythm of the music, as well as buttons to reduce the volume, pause or restore the audio or deactivate the microphones.

In terms of sound quality, Xiao Ai Speaker Art builds in a 2.5-inch full-range speaker with a paper-body diaphragm which made of a specific proportion of wool, enhancing the tone quality. Along with DTS professional tuning, Xiao Ai Speaker Art can switch between human voice, gentle and bass sound modes, suitable for different music genres; at the same time, it also supports two speakers combined stereo playback, in order to get better listening experiences (requires two products of the same model).

The speaker is equipped with Xiaomi’s artificial intelligence voice assistant, Xiao Ai, and users can control the speaker by calling “Xiao Ai Tong Xue”. The speaker, priced at $349, is positioned as the high-end model in the series.

The only problem is that the speaker looks very much similar to Sonos Play 1. The day the product was released, it sparked skepticism from some consumers.

A group of Xiaomi’s loyal fans contradict in a message: the company has always worked with Sonos. Xiaomi Love Speaker Art may collabrate with Sonos.

But that claim was later denied, with Sonos China officials releasing a statement on May 22 stating that the company had never cooperated with Xiaomi on the speaker.

As of now, Xiaomi has not responded to the query yet.