Xiaomi’s Smart Cooking Robot revealed itself in small touches. Indeed, the Chinese manufacturer has created expectation and desire by repeatedly exhibiting its very first robot cooker during press events organized by its French subsidiary. And despite a well-done teaser, Xiaomi has finally made its robot cooker available on the French market in all discretion; a quick tour of the manufacturer’s online shop indeed allowed us to see that the Smart Cooking Robot was sold at 999 €, a “reasonable” price and consistent with the average price of a robot cooker (1000 €).
While we expected Xiaomi to drastically lower the price of its robot cooker – as it is used to doing on its other product categories and like Lidl with its Monsieur Cuisine Smart (which it sells for €400) — this robot cooker shares the same segment as the essential models on the market. Alongside Moulinex, Magimix or Kenwood, which sign top-of-the-range or even elitist cooking robots, it will now be necessary to rely on Xiaomi, which equips its Smart Cooking Robot with a very attractive technical sheet, very close to that of Vorwerk’s Thermomix TM6 sold, him, 1359 €.
Induction cooking
While most cookers on the market (including the Thermomix) use resistance to heat, Xiaomi’s Smart Cooking Robot provides induction cooking. Today, only the Magimix Cook Expert and the Taurus Mycook Next can boast of having an induction heating system up to 180°C, supposed to provide faster and more homogeneous cooking than resistance. Note that generally the maximum temperature of a food processor is capped at 140°C.
The heating system is not the only advantage of the device, which also relies on an 8-inch tablet to seduce. This makes it possible to accompany the guided cooking in the best conditions. From the little we could see of the food processor, the interface deployed by the manufacturer seems clear and well readable. According to the information gleaned, the catalog will be rich with 200 recipes natively and can be supplemented with new recipes according to the updates of the device (connected via wifi). In addition, there are eight automatic programs: frying, simmering, steaming, kneading, chopping, pressing, mincing, cleaning.
As for the bowl, inside which we find a knife with four blades, it is able to rotate clockwise and anti-clockwise to mix without chopping the food. The useful capacity of the bowl is 2.2 l, enough to ensure the preparation of a meal for four people. Its “three-layer” design is said to be more durable and efficient in thermal performance. Finally, a scale accurate to the nearest gram completes the equipment.
The accessories delivered with the Smart Cooking Robot are numerous: there is a small steamer basket, but also a large steamer basket with an intermediate level or even a beater, a liquid collection tray, a cover for the mixer blade (to mix without slicing), a measuring spoon, a measuring cup and a flexible spatula. A very comprehensive range.
Given the services promised by Xiaomi, it could be that the Smart Cooking Robot sold at 1000 € could stand out in our comparison as a good quality/price ratio. A visit to our laboratory would allow us to validate, or not, this hypothesis.