Amidst quality concerns, Xiaomi takes its smart air filter off the market (sort of)

Xiaomi’s smart air purifier has had a bumpy ride. When the gadget was first launched, observers accused Xiaomi of copying its aesthetics. It has been dogged by quality complaint rumors from the start, but those complaints finally seemed to gain some empirical support when the gadget failed an inspection by Shanghai authorities earlier this month. The filter had “grave quality problems,” inspectors said, with its clean-air delivery rate, as well as its noise output.

Now, it seems Xiaomi may be slowly backing away from the product. It’s still available for purchase on Xiaomi’s own website, but the company’s official storefront on JD.com doesn’t seem to include it. Xiaomi’s official Tmall store does list two air filter models, but neither are purchasable: clicking on one of them results in an error message, and clicking on the other displays product details with a note: “This product has been removed from the shelves.”

Xiaomi has previously suggested publicly that the Shanghai failed test was the result of a differing test environment than previous quality-control tests (which the device passed). It has asked that the device be retested. But the apparent delisting of the air filter on JD and Tmall looks like a sign that at least until that retesting happens, Xiaomi is backing away from its smart air purifier line.

Whatever the truth about the air filter, there’s no question that the failed inspection has seriously harmed Xiaomi’s brand. On a Sina Tech post about the air filters being delisted, readers have left over a thousand comments, and the most popular are all questioning Xiaomi’s quality. The top comment, with over one hundred upvotes as of this writing, begins: “When I buy, I’m definitely not buying a Xiaomi.”

Ouch.

(It’s worth pointing out that like many of Xiaomi’s smart hardware gadgets, the smart air filter isn’t actually made by Xiaomi. It’s produced by a Beijing company called Zhimi, but sold under the Xiaomi brand as part of the Xiaomi ecosystem.)