Definition
XiaoAI speakers are Xiaomi’s smart speaker family with the XiaoAI voice assistant, used for music playback, voice interaction, and smart-home control. The official product page presents the family’s base form as the “Xiaomi AI speaker”: after a voice wake-up it plays music and stories, answers weather and traffic queries, sets alarms, and controls home appliances, and it also works as a network and Bluetooth speaker (see the official product page). The family spans several models and form factors; currently sold models are listed in the Xiaomi online store.
How it works
Per the official product page, the speaker works through far-field voice wake-up: the body carries a six-microphone ring array with beam-forming noise suppression, so it can be woken from anywhere in the room; recognized commands are handled by the voice assistant for playback, queries, or appliance control, covering lights, air conditioners, air purifiers, robot vacuums, and Xiaomi TVs. Setup and configuration go through the “XiaoAI Speaker” app, available for Android and Apple devices; the official page also offers a training feature for custom question-and-answer pairs.
Usage
The typical setting is a living room or bedroom, where the speaker serves as the voice entry point for music, information queries, and smart-home control. Content services (music, audio programs) depend on partners, and the official page notes that partner content may change; appliance control requires the relevant devices to be connected to Xiaomi’s IoT ecosystem and authorized, with availability governed by the list shown in the app.
Related and confusable terms
- XiaoAI speakers are hardware. “XiaoAI Tongxue” (XiaoAI classmate) is the name of Xiaomi’s voice assistant, and HyperXiaoAI is the AI assistant built into Xiaomi HyperOS; both are software capabilities, not the speaker itself.
- xiaozhi-esp32 is a community open-source voice chatbot project with no connection to Xiaomi; the “turn an old speaker into a Xiaozhi” idea discussed in episode 007 is a repurposing project, not an official Xiaomi feature.
Discussed on Next Token
In episode 007, in the chapter “Omarchy、旧手机与重写软件的可能性” (Omarchy, old phones, and the possibility of rewriting software), 橘子 (Orange) mentioned that someone had found a way to open SSH on a XiaoAI speaker, triggered through a button, and 歸藏 (Guizang) added that this hidden entry was discovered by AI; 杨攀 (Yang Pan) then proposed that the software inside old smart speakers could be rewritten entirely — “you could turn it into a Xiaozhi”. These are the participants’ remarks about repurposing old speakers, not an official support path or security advice. See the episode 007 chapter (Chinese transcript).
Frequently asked questions
How do I control home appliances with a XiaoAI speaker?
Finish pairing in the “XiaoAI Speaker” app first, then give voice commands directly. The official product page’s examples include lights, air conditioners, air purifiers, robot vacuums, and Xiaomi TVs; which devices are actually controllable is governed by the app and the official product page.
Which app does a XiaoAI speaker use?
The official companion app is the “XiaoAI Speaker” app for Android and Apple devices, used for setup, configuration, and content management; the entry point is on the official product page.
Can an old XiaoAI speaker be flashed into a Xiaozhi device?
That is a community repurposing project, not an upgrade path offered by Xiaomi. Yang Pan raised the idea in episode 007; the xiaozhi-esp32 project lists mainly development boards as supported hardware, so converting an old speaker means adapting the speaker, microphones, and other parts yourself — evaluate against the project’s repository documentation.