A new report out of Bloomberg cites sources who say Samsung’s upcoming Bixby-powered smart speaker will launch “as early as next year.” The device comes after the company was reported to have shelved the device for the meantime. Now, it appears the ball is rolling again.
According to Bloomberg, Samsung’s smart speaker will be sized somewhere between Apple’s HomePod and Amazon’s Echo. It’ll focus mainly on audio quality, therefore directly competing with the likes of Apple and Google with the Home Max. The report also says it’ll be priced at around the $200 mark which, while competitive when compared to the Home Max and HomePod, is a lot more expensive than the Google Home ($129) and Amazon Echo ($99).
And of course, the speaker will be powered by Bixby. Originally debuting on the Galaxy S8 this year, the voice assistant hasn’t received much praise and is usually the subject of discussions surrounding how much further Samsung needs to go in order to compete with Apple, Google, and Amazon in the AI department. Whether it’ll improve between now and the time this thing goes on sale isn’t known, but let’s hope it does. Otherwise, it could be dissed for just using Bixby.
Bloomberg says Samsung hopes to introduce the speaker to a number of markets, including the United States. We don’t have a precise timeframe for when it’ll hit the market, but we’ll let you know when we do.
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