12 of China’s hottest hardware startups

We’ve all heard of Nest, Oculus Rift, Pebble, Dropcam, and SmartThings – but what are the hottest hardware startups coming out of China?

Here’s our pick of a dozen of China’s best making waves with their gadgets. They’re cool, they’re smart – and they’re mostly cheaper than their Western counterparts.

1. Xiaomi – smartphones, tablets, wearable tech, smart TVs

Can Xiaomi still be called a startup now that it’s on course to sell 60 million phones this year and is probably valued at tens of billions of dollars? Since Xiaomi just passed its third-year anniversary as a gadget maker, let’s say it can.

Xiaomi is clearly China’s hottest new hardware company. Its rise also holds a valuable lesson for smaller startups in this space – the software side of things is extremely important. Before Xiaomi outed its first smartphone, the company spent more than a year honing its MIUI OS, which is build on top of Android. MIUI can be ‘flashed’ onto numerous other Android phones, meaning you don’t need to have a Xiaomi phone to use its Android skin – and that allowed the startup to get a lot of testing done with millions of Android geeks before the first phone was even revealed. The good looks and polish of MIUI undoubtedly helped boost Xiaomi sales by making the budget phones feel more premium than their plasticky hardware would suggest.

Xiaomi has gradually branched out over the past few years to make a set-top box, a smart TV, the MiPad tablet (pictured top), a router, the Mi Band fitness tracker (pictured above), and a bunch of accessories. The Mi Band packs in most of the features of the Nike Fuel Band or a FitBit wristband, yet it costs a mere RMB 79, which is US$13.

It’s not all been easy sailing for Xiaomi. Now the firm is on the global stage it’s finding itself under attack in the media for hardware design that lacks originality – such as the iPhone 5c-esque aesthetic of the MiPad. Then again, Samsung is facing the same critique with the new Galaxy Alpha, which looks like an iPhone 5s photocopied at 117 percent zoom.

The Beijing-based startup now has four phone models, ranging in price from just RMB 699 (US$113) to RMB 1,999 (US$325): the Redmi, Redmi Note, Mi 3, and the upcoming Mi 4. It has so far launched outside of mainland China in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and India. The next stop is Indonesia.

See: Xiaomi MiPad is a pretty package for just $240 – REVIEW

2. OnePlus – smartphones

When OnePlus launched earlier this summer, it was clear that this new startup had learned the key lessons from Xiaomi: it takes software seriously, it uses flash sales to minimize inventory and risk of over-production; it mostly only sells online; and it goes for a low price-tag that’s half of what you’d pay for a flagship from HTC or Samsung.

3. Codoon – fitness trackers

4. Picooc – smart scales

5. InWatch – smartwatches

6. ANTVR – virtual reality

7. Depth-VR – interactive 3D

8. Flexbot – drones

9. Xgimi – smart projectors

10. Phantom – smart home gadgets

11. Netseed – smart home controllers

12. Ariel Rider – ebikes