Roger Fingas
In addition to revealing the Galaxy Note9, one of Samsung's other product announcements on Thursday was the Galaxy Home, the company's first smartspeaker.
The device is based on Samsung's Bixby voice assistant, and has eight far-field microphones. Speaker technology comes courtesy of Samsung's AKG, and the device will have a built-in SmartThings hub to connect smarthome accessories.
Little else has been revealed so far, but a partnership with Spotify should make the latter's music easier to move between Samsung devices. An unusual design touch is that the base is supported by three metal legs — most smartspeakers, such as Apple's HomePod, sit directly on a surface.
More details will be announced at a developers' conference in November.
Samsung faces an uphill battle, given overwhelming control of the smartspeaker market by Amazon and Google. Even Apple's HomePod has just a 6 percent install base in the U.S., which may be why the company is rumored to be considering a cheaper version.
Many Amazon and Google speaker owners also have multiple units, meaning they're unlikely to switch ecosystems.
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39 Comments
I was thinking about Bixby last night and it occurred to me, I don’t think it was included in that test a week or so ago. If my memory is accurate, that test only covered, Siri, Google Assistant, Alexa and Corana. Too bad, I’m curious to know how Bixby is doing.
Samsung says it can detect a listener's location and direct audio to that spot by speaking "Hi Bixby, Steer Sound". Like other recent higher end smart speakers it can also adapt sound to the shape of the room. But the design! Ugh!
Will they give this away along with a refrigerator purchase?
Gosh what a shock!