Photo/Shetuwang

Nov. 29 (NBD) -- China's smartphone maker Xiaomi announced Wednesday strategic partnerships with IKEA, Ji Hotel, CHJ Automotive and interior decoration firm Ikongjian.com as well as an investment of 100 million yuan (14.4 million U.S. dollars) to build the Xiaomi AIoT Developer Fund at the MIDC Xiaomi AIoT Developer Conference.

This is part of Xiaomi's larger efforts to expand into the booming sectors of artificial intelligence (AI) and internet of things (IoT). 

Xiaomi's founder Lei Jun revealed AI and IoT will be the Chinese smartphone maker's core strategy in the following 5-10 years.

According to Fan Dian, General Manager of the IoT platform department of Xiaomi, IKEA’s full range of smart lighting products will be connected to Xiaomi's IoT platform through the ZigBee protocol.

Users will be able to use Xiaomi's smart voice assistant Xiao Ai and its mobile app Mijia to control IKEA's smart lighting products which can also be paired to other Xiaomi IoT smart devices such as sensors and electrical appliances for smart scene management.

The tie-up will start from December this year in China and will later bring smart home products to users around the world, Fan noted.

Fan also stated IKEA and Xiaomi share very similar values and the bilateral cooperation will accelerate the development of the smart home industry across the world.

Bjorn Block, the global business leader for IKEA's Home Smart division, said the smart home industry is now mainly challenged by unaffordable prices and complicated operations. 

The desire to make smart home products affordable and easy to understand has made IKEA and Xiaomi cooperate, Block added.

As Xiaomi steps up efforts to strengthen its presence in the IoT segment, the Chinese company will also face the security issues of IoT devices.

A hardware expert commented that every coin has two sides, so do IoT devices. On the one hand, IoT devices make people's life more convenient; on the other hand, they present security concerns, the expert added.

A report on the IoT devices released by internet security company Qihoo 360 showed users were mostly concerned about privacy leakage, personal safety, payment security, virus attack and wifi risks. 

IoT manufacturers can safeguard the IoT security by setting security modules, securing default passwords and repairing vulnerabilities of the devices, the above-mentioned expert said.

At the same time, IoT security can be also affected by users since their improper use of IoT devices such as not changing default passwords and updating patches, setting insecure passwords and downloading too many plugins will substantially increase the risks. 

Qihoo 360 predicted that vulnerabilities of IoT devices will rise at a rate of 28.6 percent in 2019 if no efficient measures are taken to strengthen the security of IoT devices.

Email: wenqiao@nbd.com.cn