In an announcement that no-one saw coming, Samsung has unveiled the Samsung Galaxy Home, the firm’s very first smart speaker, at its Unpacked event in New York alongside the Samsung Galaxy Note 9.
Driven by Bixby, the Samsung Galaxy Home, (the clue’s in the name) looks to be designed specifically to take on the might of the Apple HomePod and Amazon’s Echo devices in one fell swoop.
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Samsung Galaxy Home: What does it look like and how does it work?
In a word: odd. With its chromed tripod legs and barrel-shaped body, it looks like a bit like misshapen witch’s cauldron, only that the open top is replaced with a touch-sensitive control panel.
Details are currently thin on the ground, specifications-wise but Samsung has teased a few key features and the most interesting one is “sound steering”. Essentially what this means is that you’ll be about to ask Bixby to “steer” the sound and it will detect your sitting position and drive the audio towards you.
Again, there’s no word yet on how this effect is achieved or how it will work when there is more than one person in the room at same time or, indeed, how useful this feature will be.
What we do know is that Samsung has leveraged its ownership of audio giant, Harman, to fashion the speaker’s audio capabilities, specifically the firm’s AKG arm. The speaker has a subwoofer for deep bass and will also utilise eight microphones in a far-field array to help pick your voice out over the hubbub of a busy household.
And, just like the Amazon Echo Plus, the Galaxy Home will come with a built-in smart home hub, complete with Smart Things integration.
One final interesting tidbit revealed by Samsung as part of the Galaxy Home announcement was that Spotify will be supported right from the off, integrated with Bixby and in Samsung Music.
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Samsung Galaxy Home: When is it coming out and how much will it cost?
Samsung hasn’t announced a launch date for the Galaxy Home yet, and confirmed little more than a few loose details on how it will work or its specifications. The firm did say that more will be revealed later this year at the Samsung Developer Conference on the 18th to the 19th of October.
Neither is there any hint yet at what the price might be. You can bet your bottom dollar, though, that, since the Galaxy Home has the Apple HomePod firmly in its sights and appears to be emphasising sound quality, that it will cost around the same at something in the region of £300. Watch this space for more details.
