Xiaoyan/Terncy Devices Now Work in Mi Home Using Xiao-Ai Voice Assistant

Shanghai-Based Xiaoyan/Terncy have today revealed that many of their devices, which incidentally, are already HomeKit compatible, now work with Xiaomi’s smart home ecosystem, within the Mi Home app, as part of the app’s ‘other platform devices’ section.

In our case, this exposes the Xiaoyan Smart four-button switch, the smart plug, smart bulb socket, and the forthcoming smart blinds. However, don’t expect to see these devices listed in your Mi Home app, at least not for the time being.

To explain further, many companies under the Xiaomi umbrella, like Yeelight and Aqara, for example, are a part of the Xiaomi ecosystem, and so can be added directly to the app. As previously mentioned, in the Mi Home app, there’s a section called ‘other platform devices’, the allows a large selection of 3rd party companies, and their devices, to be connected to the app. However, at present this is limited to voice control only, using Xiaomi’s Xiao-Ai voice assistant devices. This also means that it’s also limited to Chinese speech. For those that don’t speak Chinese of course, this may seem less than relevant, however, given the sheer size of the population of Mainland China that are already getting into smart home tech generally, and HomeKit in particular, this simply adds more convenience for Mandarin-speaking populations that want voice control over their devices that wasn’t previously possible via Xiao-Ai. Other Chinese companies that work with Apple HomeKit, that are slowly deploying this route are LifeSmart and Opple, along with established western brands, like Nanoleaf. This is something that works really well for families that have a mix of English and Chinese speakers of course, and as Siri on HomePod can’t do dual languages, like Google’s Assistant devices are capable of, for some, it will be quite useful. We’ve tested this new connectivity here, and it works well, using a Xiao-Ai enabled smart speaker we have set up.

If you’re not aware of Xiaoyan/Terncy, they make a series of products that all work with Apple HomeKit via their Home Center, which uses Zigbee to communicate with its child devices. The company also recently announced that their new Smart Dial, as well as working with Apple HomeKit, can also control Sonos smart speakers, as well as their forthcoming smart blind motor. Some of the company’s products are already available on Amazon.com, and for more info, you can find out more about Xiaoyan, via their website – xiaoyan.io or simply check out our overview video below;