Samsung announced a lot today. Like a lot, a lot. But the company was pretty quiet on the Bixby side of things, and the Galaxy Home smart speaker it announced mid-last year was nowhere to be seen.
In an interview with mobile CEO DJ Koh, however, CNET was able to get a bit of a status update on the HomePod competitor during today’s event. Seems the product’s not all that far away, after all. The executive says the device will launch “by April.” Broad, sure, but after half a year of radio silence, we were beginning to wonder if the thing would ever seen the light of day.
How the product will actually sell, on the other hand, is another question entirely. After all, it’s an already crowded market, and Samsung’s got stiff competition from Apple at the high-end. When the inclusion of Bixby over Alexa, Assistant or Siri is your primary differentiator, it’s hard to image Galaxy Home ever being anything approaching a mainstream device.
Still, the product — as well as a rumored cheaper version — are a core part of Samsung’s push to make Bixby a key player in the smart home raise. The company has already announced a number of household appliances sporting the assistant, and now smart speakers can finally be added to that list.
Update: The company is now offering an even more wide open timeframe. “Samsung is planning to launch Galaxy Home in the first half of 2019,” it says in a new statement given to TechCrunch.
