Samsung says it’s still working on Bixby-powered Galaxy Home smart speaker

Samsung says it’s still working on Bixby-powered Galaxy Home smart speaker
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Samsung confirms that it is still working on the Galaxy Home smart speaker.

It was originally announced a year ago.

On the one hand, Samsung is working hard on new and lofty projects like that much-awaited 64MP ISOCELL camera sensor for smartphones, but on the other it is scrambling to get things in place for a proper product release. Until now the much-delayed Galaxy Fold smartphone was the biggest example of such a scramble. Now, the Galaxy Home smart speaker is another. According to a recent report by The Verge, Samsung has not abandoned the Bixby-powered Galaxy Home that it announced one year ago.

Confirming that it is still focussed on launching the Bixby-powered smart speaker, Samsung said in a statement to The Verge, “We’re continuing to refine and enhance the Galaxy Home prior to launch, and look forward to sharing more with Galaxy fans soon.” What this means is that even a year after the speaker’s first announcement, Samsung is still working on it. There was no mention of it in the Unpacked event that Samsung held earlier this week to launch the new Galaxy Note10 and Note10+. You can read more about that here.

Going by Samsung’s product page, we can tell that the Galaxy Home is a direct competitor to Amazon’s Echo series of smart speakers. It also competes with the Google Home and Apple HomePod. While Amazon equips the Echo speakers with its proprietary digital assistant Alexa, Samsung equips the Galaxy Home with Bixby 2.0 and Tizen. The Galaxy Home is also equipped with an inbuilt SmartThings hub, which lets it talk to smart home devices, such as lights and fans. Users will be able to command their Galaxy Home to turn off home appliances using their voice.

Weighing in at 3.2 kilogrammes, the Samsung Galaxy Home smart speaker measures 10.7 inches in height and 7.7 inches in width. It’s powered by an Octa-core Cortex-A73 processor and supports Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, Zigbee, and Z-wave. It is home to six 1.5-inch speaker drivers for mids and highs and a 4-inch subwoofer for lows. The 110W audio setup is complemented by an 8-way microphone setup. There are four keys on the device and lights around the edge. The Galaxy Home is wrapped in premium fabric. Samsung has yet to announce a launch date for its smart speaker.

Vignesh Giridharan

Vignesh Giridharan

Progressively identifies more with the term ‘legacy device’ as time marches on. View Full Profile

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