(Yicai Global) June 10 -- Chinese home appliances giant Midea Group has unveiled its first home services robot, which is expected to go on sale in the second half of the year.

Called Xiaowei, the first-generation, meter tall robot “can act as an AI butler, family assistant, safety guard and tech playmate”among other roles, the Foshan-based company said in a press release yesterday.

In a similar way to electric cars and smartphones, household robots are already changing people's lifestyles and will become a basic essential for families, Dr. Tang Jian, general manager of Midea’s Midea AI Innovation Center, said in the statement.

As an artificially intelligent housekeeper of smart homes, Xiaowei can connect with Midea’s home appliances, Tang Jian told Yicai Global. The company also plans to link it with Huawei Technologies’ HarmonyOS, he added.

Household robots should remove the barriers between different home appliance brands, Tang said, noting that this is particularly difficult, as manufacturers may be unwilling to open up their interfaces.

The core of household robots is AI, and the key to AI lies in data, computing power, and algorithms, and Midea has accumulated much data and experience on user needs, he added.

Samsung Electronics and LG Electronics have also presented some home service robots on the International Consumer Electronics Show last year.

Midea also brought out new sweeper robots and shopping guide robots yesterday. Home appliances will be ‘robotized’ in the future and the company will have robot products for shopping, cleaning, cooking, gardening and commercial use.

Xiaowei will likely go into mass production in the second half, Midea said.

Editor: Futura Costaglione