At the launch of Xiaomi TV 2s, Xiaomi water purifier appeared as "one more thing". In addition to the family style extremely simple white appearance, it is estimated that Xiaomi water purifier is also one of the smart products of Xiaomi series, with the most micro innovative products. Almost all of them have been redesigned from appearance to pipeline to filter element. The final result is the 400 gallon water purifier with RO reverse osmosis membrane and a price of 1299 yuan.
There is only one logo on the front of the kraft paper box, and simple product information is on the side. Unfortunately, the tester met with a violent express delivery, and the packaging has been scarred.
A disposable watermark type adhesive tape is used for sealing, which has a certain anti-counterfeiting and anti unpacking effect.
The inner side of the carton handle is also sealed with transparent plastic, which can protect the safety of the machine during transportation. This is really done carefully.
The box includes the host, 4 filter columns, accessory box and instructions.
There are only 6 faucet adapters of different specifications and wrench for turning faucet in the accessory box.
The adapters are equipped with screens (bubblers).
The filter column has the name and label of the host, the QR code of the purchase link below, and detailed product and production information on the back.
The top is a handle for tightening the filter column, and the side is provided with a silica gel strip for buffering and anti-skid.
There are three openings at the bottom, which are the inlet and outlet of the filter column and the opening for fixing.
1. The 2 # and 4 # filter columns (PP surface filter element and front and rear activated carbon filter element) all adopt the same shape and interface. Pay attention to the placement during installation.
The largest RO filter element (on the right side of the figure above) has three water inlets and outlets at the bottom in addition to nearly doubling its diameter.
The three-dimensional fuselage is 260 * 205 * 40mm, which is a large circle smaller than the Xiaomi air purifier on the right, but the weight is very close (the water purifier weighs 11.3kg).
The dust cover on the top of the water purifier does not have any fixed snap, and the filter column slot can be seen by opening it. Instructions are printed on the right side of the slot, and the lower right corner is the working indicator light and switch of the filter column/water purifier.
The precautions and wifi connection instructions that are not placed on the front panel are printed on the dust cover.
Slots are divided into two specifications, and the structure of the large filter column slot (above) is obviously much more complicated.
Insert and screw on the filter column according to the serial number.
At the bottom of the fuselage are logos and detachable feet, and grooves for handles are reserved on both sides.
A parameter nameplate is pasted on the bulge on the back. It may be that the water pipe and power cord adopt the design of upper opening for easy placement.
The widest pipe on the left is the inlet and outlet pipe (the two pipes are sealed together), and the filter waste pipe is on the right.
The waste water pipe is provided with instruction labels and suction cups for fixing.
The millet purifier integrates the water inlet and outlet pipes together. At the other end of the water inlet/outlet pipe is the touch tap of the machine. On the top, you can choose to output tap water or filtered water. After power on, you can also see their status indicators.
The touch faucet is equipped with a quick connector, which can be locked automatically after pushing in the adapter faucet, and can be pulled out by pulling down the quick connector.
Two water outlets can be seen below the faucet, the tap water outlet with filter screen/bubbler on the left side and the filtered water outlet on the right side are very small.
app
In Xiaomi's ecosystem, smart appliances such as sockets, cameras, purifiers, and home kits that use wifi to connect to the network are all managed by Xiaomi's "smart home" app. After opening, the app will automatically scan nearby smart appliances and prompt for connection. Enter the password of the target wifi, click any button on the phone to complete the verification, and then connect to the phone.
The app's function is also quite simple. It displays the current water quality, filter element status, tap water/purified water consumption statistics, and alerts of abnormal operation and water quality.
Although the real-time water quality view and use statistics function is very popular with the author, the most practical function for ordinary users is actually the online purchase function. Since the service life of the four filter columns is not the same, and the shortest service life is only 3-6 months, the filter element should be replaced once or twice a year in normal use, which will be a relatively high-frequency operation.
user's experience
The use experience of water purifier can be roughly divided into installation, water outlet speed, wastewater ratio, heat generation, power consumption, ease of maintenance and later cost.
install
The working process of the water purifier is similar to that of the air purifier: through the water pump/fan, the water/air is forced to pass through the filter screen. The water purifier can work completely independently of the mobile phone. It can be connected to the faucet, put the waste water outlet pipe in place, and can work after being powered on. The working waterway is from the tap to the filter column in the machine through the touch tap, and then flows out from the touch tap.
The biggest difference between Xiaomi water purifier and conventional water purifier is that the inlet and outlet pipes are integrated together and the internal water storage tank is eliminated. It is also an important selling point that there is no need to change the waterway or make additional holes. After all, "the first water purifier for young people" is likely to be placed in the rented house.
The previous improvement, in addition to allowing the touch tap to perform two functions (water inlet and water outlet control), left the machine with only three external pipelines, namely, "power supply, water inlet/outlet pipe and waste water pipe". The installation process is difficult to imagine: use the attached adapter to replace the bubbler of the home water tap (that is, the ring similar to the filter screen), Connect the touch tap of the machine to the adapter (it will lock automatically), and then extend the waste water pipe to the proper position.
If there is any trouble, it should be the 1.2m water pipe (concentrated waste pipe and inlet and outlet pipe) and the 11.3kg fuselage. Although it is convenient to take over, how to put the machine should be carefully considered.
Convenience of water intake
The improvement of canceling the water storage tank mentioned above is mainly aimed at preventing the purified water from secondary pollution, but the touch tap of the machine has not added its own control switch, resulting in different use logic. The normal use logic is that the tap should be turned on for a long time. If you want pure water, click the pure water switch of the tap, and if you want tap water, click the tap water switch.
However, the touch tap has no function of turning off. It is only responsible for changing the water route - letting tap water flow out directly, or letting tap water flow out from the pure nozzle after passing through the water purifier. In actual use, whether tap water or pure water is needed, the tap must be turned on first, and then the pure water switch will be turned on to get pure water.
Fortunately, when the machine is powered off and the tap switch is turned on by default, the tap can be used directly without turning on the water purifier. Under special circumstances such as "turning on the pure water switch without turning on the tap" (idling of the machine), it will automatically switch back to the tap water output state.
In general, the machine is easy to install and will not affect the original faucet function, but the touch faucet itself does not have the function of turning off, so it is slightly inconvenient to use.
Effluent quality
The core of the water filter is the pipeline, pump body and filter screen/filter element. At present, RO reverse osmosis technology is most suitable for civil use and has the highest precision. Its principle, in an imprecise analogy, is to use pressure to push the water through the filter membrane. The successful past is to filter the water, and the impurities whose particles are larger than the filter membrane will be intercepted and flow out of the machine's wastewater outlet.
The filter element layout of Xiaomi water purifier is divided into four levels: the first level is a polypropylene cotton filter element, which is used to filter sediment, rust and other large impurities; The second and fourth levels are both imported coconut shell activated carbon filter elements. The second level is mainly used to absorb odor, color and residual chlorine, and the fourth level is mainly used to improve the taste; The third level of the core is the RO reverse osmosis membrane of Dow and GE, which is responsible for the solution of bacteria, viruses, antibiotics, heavy metals, organic/inorganic substances and other impurities.
The purification capacity (desalination rate) of the official label is 95%, which can remove 99.9% bacteria, 99.7% organic matter, 99.9% heavy metals and 100% antibiotics. These parameters are much higher than the average level of the industry, but as an electronic equipment evaluation website, we have not verified the equipment for these parameters, so it is also true to say more
TDS detection pen
What we can detect is TDS of filtered water. The full name of TDS is total soluble solids, that is, how many milligrams of soluble solids are dissolved in water, in ppm or mg/L. In fact, it is not used to test how good the water quality is, but to test how bad the water quality is. Because TDS does not include soluble salts, organic matter, and insoluble particles that can pass through the filter. However, if even a simple indicator such as TDS is failed, the water quality will certainly not be very good.
According to previous tests, the TDS reading of tap water in a hotel in the third ring road of Beijing is about 170, the reading of toilet tap water in the office building in Nanshan District of Shenzhen is about 70ppm (the water quality of public buildings will also be affected by the water supply pipes of different buildings), and the bottled water of Ipoh is about 1ppm.
Tap water TDS reading
TDS reading of filtered water
TDS reading of concentrated wastewater
The measured TDS of tap water on that day was 68ppm, and the filtered TDS was about 5ppm, which was close to the value of bottled drinking water, while the TDS of concentrated wastewater soared to 151ppm (still lower than the value of Beijing tap water...)
The final taste is very metaphysical, and here is only for reference: the filtered water has almost no smell (at least it has been covered by the taste of the paraffin coating of the disposable cup), and the taste is similar to the barreled water, "very soft", without the raw taste of tap water. It tastes a little sweet (maybe hallucination?), but there is still a faint "tap water smell" that barreled water does not have, but in fact, the strongest taste is the paraffin smell on the disposable cup
Water production rate
The water purification speed and water production rate (ratio of purified water to wastewater) of the water purifier are directly related to the local tap water quality. The worse the water quality, the slower the water production and the lower the water production rate. Therefore, if tap water from different regions is used for filtration, there may be obvious differences.
The official rating here is 50% water production rate, 1L/min filtration rate (400 gallons per hour), and the measured water production rate has caught up with the water dispenser, so it is not a problem to reach the official standard speed. In terms of water production rate, the concentrated wastewater and water inlet were connected at the same time, and the machine was removed at the same time. It was found that the water production rate of the machine was more than 60% (probably because the quality of tap water in Shenzhen was really good).
The filtered water is actually "high concentration" tap water, which will turn white when it comes out at the first time, and will become clear when it is still, but it will also turn slightly white. Although the water is not drinkable, it can flush toilets or water flowers.
Power consumption&heat&noise
Connect the water purifier to the smart socket, and the standby power consumption is 3.72W
The working power consumption is maintained at about 73W
When the machine is powered on and standby, it is about 3.7W, and the working state is about 73.2W, which is smaller than the official standard 95W, and the power is close to the normal desktop computer host.
When the water purifier works, there will be a large amount of water flowing through it. The water changes into a heat conducting agent, so even if it works for a long time, the body will not have obvious heat. The heating during standby is very slight, concentrated on the upper right side (control circuit).
The noise of the machine body comes from the built-in pump body, and the volume is about 50-60 decibels (this value is also affected by the local water quality), which is close to the volume of ordinary air purifiers/air conditioners with medium air volume. The machine will vibrate with low frequency and amplitude when working. If you have ever raised fish, you can refer to the vibration mode and amplitude of the aquarium air pump.
Maintenance and post cost
The biggest problem of general water purifier maintenance is water leakage and filter element replacement. To solve the problem of water leakage, Xiaomi proposed an integrated waterway, making the original independent water pipe into an independent component. Although the cost of damage replacement increases, it can actually reduce the possibility of water leakage in principle. The 23 parts inside the Guanxuan machine have self inspection function, which can easily troubleshoot the use problems.
Therefore, it is more troublesome to replace the filter element than to leak water. The service life of the four filter columns of the machine is not the same. The first stage PP cotton is 3-6 months, the second and fourth stage activated carbon is 6-12 months, and the most expensive and important third stage RO reverse osmosis membrane is 18-24 months. On the fuselage, they all have independent life indicator status, and the app can make life statistics accurate to 1%.
The judgment of the machine is based on the TDS reading of water quality, flow rate and frequency of use, which can be very accurate. However, TDS itself does not fully represent water quality. The author has tested the TDS of washing machine wastewater (the last pass of water, and added softener). This kind of wastewater is full of softener, and the TDS of milky white wastewater is only about 100ppm. Therefore, in actual use, the readings of the machine are not necessarily reliable, but must be judged by eye observation and taste, or increase the frequency of filter element replacement.
Finally, the cost of the filter element. The price of the 4-stage filter element is 59 yuan (3-6 months) for PPcotton filter element, 69 yuan (6-12 months) for activated carbon filter element, and 499 yuan (18-24 months) for RO reverse osmosis filter element. Based on the calculation of the longest replacement cycle (the most cost saving algorithm), the use price of PP cotton in two years is 59 * 4=236 yuan, the active carbon is 69 * 2 * 2=276 yuan (there are two), and the minimum use cost of the machine is (236+276+499)/2=505.5 yuan per year.
summary
Xiaomi purifier is estimated to be the most innovative product in Xiaomi household appliance series. From the interior to the appearance, we can feel that the design team is really working hard on the product, and this time it is really independent innovation rather than "reference".
The actual use experience of the machine, although the score of "touch tap without water stop function" has been reduced a little, the installation of the machine and the convenience of filter element replacement, water outlet speed and daily maintenance have all been done well. In terms of filtration capability, Xiaomi also carried out the test results of many authoritative testing institutions, giving excellent purification capability.
And the final maintenance and cost performance are as fierce as ever. Xiaomi successfully extended the name of price butcher to the field of water purifier. If you really need to buy a water purifier, it is indeed an invincible product among products at the same price.
Fragmentary thoughts
From wearable devices to air purifiers and then to water purifiers, intelligent products are becoming more and more close to daily life. First, they are put on their hands, then the air they breathe in and the water they drink. It is undeniable that after entering the traditional field, Internet manufacturers have given many innovative products and marketing plans, but they have also slowly entered the health and medical fields that need real supervision.
The poor quality of mobile phones and computers affects work efficiency and mood at most. However, if something inhaled into the lungs or drunk into the stomach fails, it is a health problem. Therefore, the author's attitude is that equipment such as purifier and water purifier can be used as an additional treatment tool. The original air and water quality are not good, and they can help us improve, but they cannot be used as the final treatment means. Regardless of the brand, it is recommended that the water from the water purifier should be boiled again, and the filter element should not be replaced until it is used for official life.
