Mitu Robot— is this an alternative to Lego EV3?

Xiaomi is a Chinese consumer electronics company that was famous/notorious (at least a few years ago when this was still a big deal) for its iPhone clones. Now, Xiaomi is proud to present another product line that has great potential: connected robotic toys.

the only official model with instruction book included

I do not want to say that the Mitu robot is a clone of Lego EV3. Let’s say it is “inspired” by the latter and is designed to be somewhat compatible with it. This is not a problem for me as I think it is actually the only way to do business: what could be a better practice than to make your product compatible with the major player of the field and to offer a little improvements in key aspects?

The key advantage of the Mitu platform is its cost. Currently the Mitu set is priced at 499RMB, which is about 72USD at current exchange rate. The Lego EV3 home edition, on the other hand, sells for 345USD. No surprise here. Just like the iPhone: we don’t need to be better; just more affordable. And this strategy will always work. Innovation means huge research investment (both time and money) and it involves big risk. Cloning is safe; and it is still profitable.

So much for the business side of the product. This is not the real concern of this article, which is the following: is the Mitu set an alternative to Lego EV3?