On December 31, 2025, a landmark moment arrived: the “Shanghai Starlight Open Lab” was officially unveiled at the Midea Global Innovation Park in Shanghai. This lab, jointly built by Midea Group, Shanghai HiSilicon, the International Starlight Alliance, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the National Engineering Research Center for Digital Television, the Shanghai Qingpu District AI+ Joint Innovation Center, and Hangzhou Yongxie, is the first open innovation platform in China focusing on the application of Starlight technology in the smart home field.
The “Shanghai Starlight Open Lab,” unveiled this time, received comprehensive support from the Qingpu District Government in terms of policy, space, and industrial resources, and integrates three core functions: technology research and development, testing and certification, and ecosystem incubation. From optimizing protocols for home and building scenarios to providing compatibility and security certifications to lower the barriers to entry for enterprises, and then opening up resources to the entire industry chain to promote the implementation of solutions, a complete closed loop of “technology-product-scenario-ecosystem” has been formed. Chen Xiqi, Deputy District Mayor of Qingpu District, stated in his speech: “The Shanghai Starlight Open Lab is a key fulcrum for Qingpu to build the ‘Yangtze River Delta Digital Trunk Line’ and the ‘Smart Terminal Industry Cluster.’ We fully support leading enterprises like Midea in leading the construction of high-level innovation platforms to promote the dual-wheel drive of technology innovation and industrial transformation.”
As a pioneer of the Starlight Alliance, Midea has invested earliest and achieved the most significant results in the home appliance industry. Its participation in the lab’s construction is a crucial step for Midea in building the “connectivity foundation” of smart homes, marking its full-chain integration from operating systems to interconnection standards. In recent years, Midea has firmly promoted its “technology leadership” strategy, continuously increasing investment in underlying innovation fields such as AIoT, chips, and connectivity technologies, striving to become a global leader in smart living and green technology. As a key member of the StarSpark Alliance, Midea has taken the lead in completing the R&D and release of its “Sensing and Computing Integration” StarSpark module, successfully solving common industry challenges such as interference from multiple connections, and sensing accuracy and stability, thus clearing technical obstacles for the large-scale application of smart devices. Over the past four years, Midea has conducted in-depth research and development in core areas such as sensing accuracy, connection stability, and edge intelligence. Xu Yi, Dean of Midea AI Research Institute and leader of AI technology, participated in the technical path of deep integration of StarSpark and artificial intelligence. Through self-developed lightweight native AI toolchain, Midea successfully overcame the limitations of computing power and memory resources in StarSpark modules; and through innovative measures such as adding anti-microwave interference algorithms and anti-wall penetration algorithms, it tackled common industry challenges such as microwave interference.
During the laboratory and exhibition area visit, attendees experienced firsthand Midea’s next-generation whole-house smart solution based on Star Flash technology. Supported by millisecond-level response, centimeter-level positioning, and high-concurrency connectivity, traditional “passive response” smart appliances are being upgraded to “active sensing and collaborative decision-making” smart living systems.
For example, Midea’s AI air conditioner uses StarFlash technology to sense the user’s location and posture in real time, automatically tracking or avoiding airflow, truly achieving “wind following the person and wind avoiding the person.” Midea’s sideboard refrigerator is equipped with the “StarFlash Human Sensing” function, which softly illuminates when a user approaches in low-light conditions at night. This capability is further extended to washing machines and other product categories, enabling more natural voice and screen interactions—without the need for a wake word, devices can automatically sense the user’s intent through StarFlash Human Sensing, making interaction as natural as breathing. In the kitchen scenario, based on the low latency characteristics of StarFlash, the range hood and stove linkage reacts faster, achieving millisecond-level emergency response combined with smoke sensors, significantly improving home safety.
Zhao Lei, President of Midea Group’s Smart Home Business Group, emphasized: “True intelligence is not about connecting devices, but about system collaboration. StarFlash provides us with a unified, efficient, and secure ‘nerve center.'” Midea will continue to invest R&D resources with an open attitude to promote the deep integration of StarFlash into the five major living systems of the whole house: air, water, energy, cooking, and laundry care. Midea will work with ecosystem partners to build experience standards and open its scenario verification capabilities to the entire industry. In this round of technological transformation, Midea will leverage its system integration capabilities and large-scale implementation advantages in whole-house intelligence to create an industry benchmark case demonstration for the StarFlash home scenario, providing replicable and scalable best practice models for the upstream and downstream of the industry chain. The Shanghai StarFlash Open Lab will focus on three core roles: first, to become a StarFlash technology innovation center, conducting protocol optimization and application breakthroughs; second, to become a StarFlash industry implementation center, pioneering incubation and open testing and certification based on home appliance scenarios; and third, to become a StarFlash ecosystem convergence center, bringing together industry chain partners to jointly promote standards and solutions.
In the future, the Shanghai StarFlash Open Lab will be based in the home furnishing industry and radiate to all sectors. Midea will fully leverage its leading role as a “chain leader” enterprise, continuously breaking through the scenario limitations of StarFlash technology, starting with smart homes, and extending to broader fields such as smart mobility, smart buildings, and industrial manufacturing, breaking down connectivity barriers through independent innovation, and helping Chinese standards go global.
