Samsung’s Bixby-powered Galaxy Home has again missed its release window

By Patrick Hearn October 8, 2019

Although Samsung announced plans to join the smart speaker arena with the Bixby-powered Galaxy Home, interested fans are disappointed once again. The smart speaker has gone the route of Carmen Sandiego — nowhere to be found, with no hints toward its status. The Galaxy Home was originally unveiled in August 2018 and slated to launch in April of this year, but was then pushed back to Q3 of 2019. With the smart home market roaring into the start of Q4, the Galaxy Home still has not made an appearance.

That said, Samsung started a beta test earlier this year in Korea for a device called the Galaxy Home Mini, a smaller version of the Galaxy Home. While their naming conventions leave a bit to be desired, it’s curious that a smaller version would be announced and in testing before the main device even launches. With Samsung’s current track record, the Galaxy Home Mini might actually make it to shelves before its larger cousin does.

Bixby does not command anywhere near the popularity that its competition does. Google Home and Amazon Alexa dominate the market, but the virtual assistant might still be able to carve a piece of the pie for itself. With the launch of the Bixby Marketplace and its inclusion in almost every Samsung smart device, Bixby’s presence is growing.

Although no price has been announced, many experts speculate the Galaxy Home will enter around the same price as the Apple HomePod. Samsung worked with Harman, one of its subsidiaries that specializes in audio technology, to improve the Galaxy Home’s sound. The implication is that the Galaxy Home will be more heavily focused on a great audio experience than the Google Home or Amazon Echo.

The Galaxy Home is said to have eight microphones, a design choice that puts it on par or slightly above the competition as far as the number of microphones go. The full technical specs aren’t yet known, but interested consumers hope the numerous delays mean that Samsung is going to release the next must-have smart assistant. After all, there must be some reason behind its troublesome release history.

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Patrick Hearn writes about smart home technology like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, smart light bulbs, and more. If it's a…

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