Samsung confirms it’s working on a smart speaker to rival Apple’s HomePod
ME TOO COMPANY Samsung has confirmed that it’s working on a smart speaker device to rival Apple’s HomePod.
Speaking to CNBC at its Galaxy Note 8 launch event on Thursday, DJ Koh, president of Samsung’s mobile division, said that the smart speaker would be launching „soon.“
„I wanted to provide a fruitful user experience at home with Samsung devices, and I want to be moving quite heavily on it, “ Koh added, whatever that means.
This confirmation comes just weeks after reports claimed that Samsung has cancelled its smart speaker plans due to Amazon and Google’s dominance in the market.
„Samsung currently does not view Al speakers as marketable, as the global market is already dominated by unbeatable Amazon and the Korean market is too small to make profits, “ an anonymous source told the Korea Herald.
The source added that „Samsung cannot afford to focus on the uncertain market, as most of its AI specialists are currently going all out to develop the Bixby version in English.“
While Koh hasn’t confirmed, it’s likely that Bixby will power the Samsung’s upcoming smart speaker, which is allegedly codenamed ‚Vega‘ and likely will allow users to control connected devices around the home, such as lights, TVs and thermostats.
It’s likely that the speaker was originally set to launch alongside the Noe 8 this week, but the WSJ reported back in July that progress of the speaker had been held back by slow roll-out of the US English language version of Bixby.
Samsung on Tuesday, however, announced that Bixby is now available in 200 countries worldwide, including the UK, Australia, Canada, and South Africa. It still only works in two languages though (Korean and US English) , so you’ll likely have to put on your best New York accent in order to get it to understand you. µ
