Samsung announced the original Galaxy Home over a year ago, but the company still has yet to release the speaker to the public. Now, however, it’s teasing a second smart speaker – a Galaxy Home Mini – and boldly brought it to Samsung Developer Conference happening this week in San Jose, California.
Samsung quietly started teasing the Galaxy Home Mini a few months ago, without ever officially announcing the device. That’s all well and good – but the company still has yet to announce a launch date for the normal-sized Galaxy Home that’s supposed to go head to head with the Amazon Echo and Google Home.
Despite not getting additional details on the full-size speaker, we did get a chance to see the Mini version, which shares a lot of similar features: like the larger Galaxy Home, the Galaxy Home Mini looks to have been developed in partnership with the now Samsung-owned AKG, which bodes well for the sound quality... that said, we’ll have to actually hear it in person before we can pass any real judgement there.
The speaker looks nice, but not that much different than any of the other best smart speakers out there. It has a fabric covering around the outside, along with controls on the top for volume and playback.
Of course, it remains to be seen whether anyone will want a Galaxy Home at all, mini or otherwise. The speakers are set to ship with Samsung’s Bixby digital assistant, which has been getting better over the years. Still, to truly make use of Bixby, you’ll have to use all Samsung devices – while Alexa and Google Assistant are both available in a range of devices from a number of different manufacturers.
So when, exactly are we getting this new mini speaker? Well, we haven't the faintest idea considering the persistent problems facing the full-size Galaxy Home, but we'll definitely keep an eye out at CES 2020 in case it makes another surprise appearance.
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