Samsung's Galaxy Home smart speaker might be launching soon
First announced at an Galaxy Unpacked event one year ago, Samsung's Galaxy Home smart speaker is missing in action. CEO DJ Koh made a comment earlier this year that it was coming in April, but it still isn't available.
Now Samsung is starting a beta testing program for the unannounced Galaxy Home Mini, indicating that it would be ready for public use soon. In fact, the product has shown up on the company's website in South Korea as well. Testers can sign up to use the product from August 28 through September 1 through the Samsung Members app.
The Samsung Galaxy Home Mini, if it's not entirely obvious, is a smaller and more inexpensive version of the Galaxy Home. It uses Bluetooth 4.2 and had a micro-USB port, and you can use it to control your smart home or for anything else that Bixby AI can do.
Beta testers will, of course, have the opportunity to provide feedback on the products. But the key thing to note here is that with a public beta testing in place, the Galaxy Home and the Galaxy Home Mini should be ready to go soon.
Guest expert at the Samsung World newsblog Nikolay Iznov says Samsung hasn’t put much emphasis on promoting smart acoustics under its brand, since many of these audio speakers have long been produced by a subsidiary of HARMAN, where voice assistants from Amazon (Alexa), Google or Microsoft (Cortana) are installed.
"The South Korean tech giant, releasing a huge range of home electronics items, is betting on introducing its Bixby voice assistant into every appliance (microwave oven, robot vacuum cleaner, TV, refrigerator, washing machine or even in an automotive infotainment system). Therefore, the smart acoustics segment long captured by competitors, for Samsung is not very relevant. However, Galaxy Home speakers will be released for those who already have various smart devices (possibly from different manufacturers), but do not yet own a single smart hub through which they could manage this entire automated house without leaving their kitchen. In addition, the Galaxy Home/Galaxy Home Mini speakers will successfully work as a digital radio or relay of streaming music services such as Spotify, transmitting music on an individual request.
But the main criterion for success will be how advanced Bixby's intelligence will be. It is with its modernization that the delay in the release of Galaxy Home to the global market is associated. In recent months, Samsung has been working to expand the range of languages that Bixby understands, as well as to improve the control algorithms for various household IoT devices (not only from Samsung, but also from other vendors that support the corresponding protocol)." - the expert noted.
More info + video: https://samtizen.blogspot.com/2019/08/samsung-galaxy-home-mini.html