Samsung’s smart speaker is the Galaxy Home
Of course it could not be that Samsung was also going to make a smart speaker. The rumor went more than a year ago around that Samsung planned this and now it is slowly becoming reality. With the emphasis on slow, because apart from telling that the thing exists and showing how it will look, Samsung did not let go at the Unpacked event. The focus was clearly on the Note 9 and the Galaxy Watch .
What do we know?
We know what the Galaxy Home looks like. It looks like a cross between all the other smart speakers, with the fabric that you see from Google Home and the HomePod from Apple and the same light egg shape. The most striking thing is how the Galaxy Home stands: instead of a flat base like all other smart speakers, the Galaxy has three legs at the bottom. Whether that is a practical design remains to be seen (no one has had the chance to see the thing up close), but at least it is something else.
We also know that the Galaxy Home will run on digital assistant Bixby. It was shown for the first time at the introduction of the Galaxy S8 and fortunately has made some jumps. That is not to say that Bixby can compete with Siri, Alexa or Google Assistant. On a Note 9 it was demonstrated that with Bixby you can now order a Uber and reserve at a restaurant, but that was only possible via extra actions on the phone, Quartz says. Whether Bixby can do things like that via the Galaxy Home is not clear.
More speaker than slim
Music is always important for a smart speaker. The CEO of Spotify was brought in to tell how the music service will be integrated into Bixby and Galaxy Home. What form that takes and whether other music services can and may also cooperate with the Galaxy Home was not reported.
The quality of the speaker in the Home was touched on. Samsung took over Harman in 2017 and they take care of the speakers under the name of daughter AKG. With that, Samsung seems to be following the same route as Apple with the HomePod: sound quality over smart functionality. During the presentation it was said that a piece of music that could be heard by everyone was produced by a battery of Galaxy Home speakers, but without being involved it is difficult to judge.
How far is this thing?
It is a bit strange that Samsung did not let the press look at the device in any way, which could mean that the development of the Galaxy Home is far from over. Samsung says we will hear more at the developer conference in November.
The chance that we can only buy the device in 2019 or even later is more than plausible. Samsung has, if so, a big gap on the competition, because by the time it is so far, most companies in the smart speaker market will be a round further and then Bixby not only a lot better, but can Samsung can not afford any flaw in the design if they want to be competitive in this new market.