Pretty much what happened more broadly. Brands got sold off to companies making goods in Asia for lower prices. Consumers mostly not willing to pay 2x to 3xand it’s often not even clear if the higher prices are worth the premium.
I'm into coffee, and Timemore products are cleaner and overall better at what I want than from european or US brands.
Same went for MUJI, who were never really cheap outside of Japan (and were just middle priced even domestically) but kept a foothold thanks to better and cleaner design.
Increasingly Xiaomi's household products are also coming into that niche. Still daily using their driver set after 5 years.
>Xiaomi's household products are also coming into that niche.
IMO Xiaomi, more than Apple carries on Braun legacy. Relatively well designed, performant, and accessible (cheap) consumer goods. No one else is even trying to build out an ecosystem like Xiaomi with underlying design language.
Muji has some nice kitchen stuff/home appliances in Asian market, but they're expanding their portfolio very conservatively. Bonus for designing a Muji house filled with Muji goods. Wish I can order that from a Sears Catalogue.
Once I rented a place with a pretty Xiaomi kettle and I'll never forget how I small ants came out from around the round button in the middle of the lid when I turned it on first time.
I can't say "well designed" if it is just spamming plastic. In this case design or manufacturing defect ended up with big enough gaps in the plastic for insects to enter and all that space under plastic that is impossible to clean. It's a kitchen appliance after all.
The lid button by the way is super inconvenient. You can't just pick up the kettle with a single hand and open lid while you are heading to fill it up. But sure it looks good to some I guess compared to more useful button on the handle a usual kettle has
Never saw any other Xioami kettles since or before. Saw other products though. Didn't notice some sort of consistent design language. Aside from plastic being mostly white maybe? But even that not always true.
I also thought its sensor is faulty because it keeps boiling water for more than 1 minute though maybe that's intentional? Bit later it seemed like metal inside was rusting. But that's more manufacturing than design.
Sounds like a dud $10 Mijia 1A with open button on lid - their lowest end model. Others have button on handle.
I don't know any Xiaomi product with wide spread fitment issues, they're value engineered, but well assembled low-medium end consumer goods. Nice plastic, in Xiaomi white or black, occasionally orange accents. As well assembled as any western kit. Most of their kitchen appliance is some sort of knob and plastic covered button, very easy to clean/maintain.
>consistent design language
Less is more Dieter Ram, white/black, simple geometry with rounded edges, round oled display etc. It's very consistent. Especially considering they make nearly everything, from fridges, to cooktops, washing/dryer, to ACs, heaters, vacuums etc.
Ultimately, they look nice, do the thing they do, for fraction of the price, i.e. affordable / actually make decent design available to masses. Bring "design" to low/medium income markets. Which is core to OG ethos/vision of modernism/functionalism.
it's not "decent design". "Design" is how things work. Button in the lid is bad design, excess poorly fit plastic (which costs some of that $10) is bad design. The kicker here is that it's both bad design and more expensive.
> $10
Where you got that from? Quick search shows $20-30+ in most countries, that is mid range and more than other better budget kettles.
It's even crazier in poorer countries like China or Philippines where $10-$12 is not just "a bit more", it literally buys you two or three kettles with better design (can open lid with single hand) and more capacity.
And that's their lowest end price you say...
Xiaomu is not "bringing decent design to the masses". This is duping "the masses" into spending more money on objectively worse product that they would have to throw away sooner.
> dud
No, other reviews about how button doesn't fully open lid or temperature sensor is off or rust are consistent.
Seriously, it's just a badly put together product with zero innovation and worse quality sold at higher prices than equivalents. That's Xiaomi in my experience
Compare it against entire Xiaomi product portfolio and company history, they sell 100s of millions of products per year across different segments, brand is known for quality : price ratio, like IKEA, which has recalls all the time because some SKUs launch with issues. If you follow coffee drama, plenty of high end 100-200 USD kettle's rust. Duds happen. What do you think makes more sense, your / some people's bad experience with one SKU, likely due bad manufacturing batch VS claim that xiaomi makes bad products? Xiaomi reputation where Xiaomi household goods (not just electronics) are sold has been pretty established in past 10 years - they make mostly good looking (according to taste) products, cheap, accessible, with occasional duds, like most companies. Biggest common complaint, are not manufacturing issues, which happens, but region locking smart products.
>$10 / design
It's offical price on xiaomi PRC, 69 rmb. I've seen it go on sale for $5. You can pay a few bucks more for kettle with button on handle from main Xiaomi line. 1A is "Mijia" - entry level beater kettle, it's fine for what it does - value engineer function/aesthetics for people on budget who also care about looks and are willing to make compromises. So much so that people willing to spend 100-200% premium (big reason why xiaomi popular on aliexpress) for the aesthetics - which is part of design, not just pure functionality. Even Braun/Rams "functionalism" from architectural modernism/functionalism, is as much about APPEARANCE as actual function. Unsurprisingly, a lot of OG functionalist designs, especially in architecutre end up not being very functional. But they do look good. And that's ultimately as / if not more important for people who buy these products. Good design in this context is balancing function and aesthtics and accessbility. Braun/ Xiaomi addresses such needs extra well because they have range of products, i.e. it's obvious 1A button on lid isn't made for single hand function. For people who want more functionality other than a beater kettle for a rental that prioritizes aesthetics/stage dressing, they can buy one of the higher end models.
Yes, Ikea and others recall products eg. for safety issues. Xiaomi did a recall too for their scooter for similar reasons. Nobody recalls for "bad design" because laws don't require that. Not sure how that helps the fact that design is bad though
(Xiaomi should probably recall this kettle for malfunctioning temp sensor but they don't have that level of responsibility.)
For the prices I saw they are not entry level at any of the rock bottom cheapest online markets in Russia (Yandex), Philippines (Lazada) or China (Taobao). It seems that in UK it sold for 30 pounds at amazon.
And again even at the advertised 69 rmb price that only is true in China you can buy multiple better kettles with sane button placement in China. If you know the prices and salaries there you would hardly call that entry level price for a kettle
The fact that you need to pay even more for a model just with sane button placement (forget other issues) just says it all. They spam white plastic until you don't see the ugly and now they think they're Apple, and apparently some people are buying that marketing. To be Apple you actually have to have good design.
They have a few different kettle models with buttons in different places and varying amounts of plastic like any other brand. This is just my experience with one model and thoughts on its "design"
It was this year and kettle seemed brand new when I arrived, I guess it survived at most one other tenant. Not an old model for sure.
