Samsung Galaxy Home: The surprise Bixby-enabled smart speaker unveiled at Unpacked 2018

Emma Sims August 10, 2018

The Samsung Galaxy Home was a surprise announcement from the South Korean manufacturer during its annual Unpacked event. The new, Bixby-powered smart speaker was revealed on Thursday 9 August in New York alongside the the hotly anticipated Galaxy Note 9 and the Galaxy Watch.

Samsung Galaxy Home: The surprise Bixby-enabled smart speaker unveiled at Unpacked 2018

Following in the footsteps of Amazon’s Alexa-enabled Echo and the Google Home, the South Korean firm is hopping on the smart home devices bandwagon. But the Galaxy Home has a premium look, feel and – we hope – performance, that puts its straight to the front of the queue.

Read on to find out everything you need to know about the brand new Samsung Galaxy Home.

Samsung Galaxy Home: What is it?

Simply put, it’s a premium smart speaker. And it’s the “premium” status that sets the Galaxy Home apart in an already saturated market; Samsung promises high-quality audio, stressing the Galaxy Home’s “amazing sound and elegant design”.

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In this light, the Galaxy Home’s main competitor is Apple’s HomePod, meaning the devices will go head-to-head in the high-end smart home speaker market.

Samsung Galaxy Home design: What does it look like?

Design-wise, the Samsung Galaxy Home is an interesting one. It resembles a three-legged vase, clothed in dark grey fabric. It wouldn’t look out of place on a sideboard, or coffee table. Hell, it may even make a nice centrepiece. It might not be for everyone, but on the whole it looks like Samsung’s “elegant design” promise may actually have come to fruition.

Samsung Galaxy Home features: What’s inside?

As for the technical stuff, the Galaxy Home looks set to deliver. Samsung has reported that the Galaxy Home will provide surround sound-style audio from its six in-built speakers and accompanying subwoofer.

As its interactive capabilities, the Galaxy Home boasts eight far-field microphones for picking up voice input. Samsung has let on that, as far as functionality goes, the Galaxy Home will be able to do many of the same things Bixby does on smartphones.

That being said, Bixby hasn’t generated masses of user praise, so only time will tell how well the Galaxy Home’s smart assistant functionality goes down.

Samsung Galaxy Home release date: When can we get our hands on it?

If the details are pretty thin on the ground at the moment, there’s good reason why; Samsung hasn’t announced the speaker yet, with more information expected at a developers’ conference in early November – right in time for the festive season.

But it’s safe to say our appetites are truly whetted. Watch this space for more information on the Samsung Galaxy Home speaker as and when it emerges…