Tencent takes aim at Xiaomi with launch of OS for smartphones and smart gadgets

After three months in beta, Chinese tech titan Tencent today unveiled its Android-based OS that’s designed for use across smartphones, game consoles, wearable tech, and smart home gadgets.

The software, called TOS+ (pictured above), was unveiled this afternoon at the GMIC conference in Beijing by Tencent COO Ren Yu Xin, Bloomberg reports. The OS is designed to help Tencent take on the might of Xiaomi across mobile and smart gadgets, as well as to tackle Alibaba’s expansion into things like smart TVs.

Aside from unveiling a logo for TOS+ and pinpointing what kind of gadgets the system could be put on, details are still scarce at this stage. We’ve contacted Tencent with questions.

Tencent is taking a different path from Xiaomi and Alibaba in making this OS – like with Android itself – free for third-party companies to use. But no manufacturing partners or gadgets have yet been revealed.

Tencent’s move comes six months after Xiaomi first diversified from smartphones to smart home gadgets such as the Mi Air filter. Xiaomi, which became China’s top phone brand in 2014, uses its own Android-based MIUI as a platform to get its phone users to try smart home gadgets, all of which can be controlled using one app and one simple login through a Xiaomi Cloud account. Tencent will likely be aiming to make things as seamless for the 800-plus million people who have Tencent QQ or WeChat IDs.

But TOS+ will live or die by the quality of the hardware that’s it’s applied to. Unlike with Xiaomi, that’s not in Tencent’s hands.

See: A peek at Xiaomi’s smart home strategy, under the lights

(Source: Bloomberg)