This is how Xiaomi seeks to overcome Samsung and Apple in the most futuristic home automation technology

Xiaomi has managed to become one of the preferred electronics manufacturers in Spain. Beyond its exceptional and affordable mobiles, the Chinese company does not rest in showing that not only do they know how to build cheap things, but that they can spearhead technology, and for this it is willing to challenge the best.

In this case, the company appears willing to compete against Samsung and Apple for technology.Ultra Wideband, known more colloquially by the acronym of UWB. This technology is present in the market only by Apple in its iPhone 11, 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max (and hopefully in the iPhone 12 that they present tomorrow) as well as the Galaxy Note 20 Ultra, in one of the rarest chips we’ve seen lately.

Xiaomi still does not have a mobile with UWB, but it is willing to be a leader in this technology.

Xiaomi is not the first, but its commitment to the UWB is very serious

UWB is not a wireless technology that is precisely new, and the name refers to any type of wave whose bandwidth is greater than 500 MHz. However, in the world of smartphones it is one of the most innovative and less accessible today, since Apple began to integrate it into their mobiles a year ago and the next manufacturer to integrate it has been Samsung.

What is it for? Well, the implementation that these manufacturers have explained is that it is capable of rendering Bluetooth obsolete in certain tasks when communicating with smart devices. Two devices with a UWB connection can communicate and know with centimeter precision how far apart they are. In this way, for example you could know where your mobile is exactly by searching for it from the clock and vice versa, send files to another person by pointing your mobile at theirs or unlock a smart lock when we are close enough.

This connectivity has great potential for home automation of the future, and Xiaomi has shown it in a video in which they use what appears to be a UWB-modified Xiaomi Mi 10 to control household devices. In the video we see how, when pointing at each device, apopup with the home automation controls of the device we are targeting.

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To this day, UWB controls are still something that there is not much sense to bet on from the user’s point of view. However, if anyone can push the implementation of this stand

ard into gear, it is without a doubt Xiaomi. The company, beyond its mobiles, enjoys a vast ecosystem of home devices, so it is likely that in the coming months we will see updates to its products with versions that, in addition to working as they have already been doing, will be compatible with this new one. standard.

Given that the technology is relatively new but its production cost is not that high, we would not be surprised to see Xiaomi in February present the successors of the Mi 10 together with a complete ecosystem of devices.

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