The Galaxy Speaker

Samsung announced this week the new speaker version of Bixby that they’re calling the Galaxy speaker. Almost two years ago, there were stirrings that Samsung would come out with it’s own device. The first was the Samsung Scoop.

Samsung had acquired Harman and Bixby had been announced. Blending the two is a natural evolution. There was a time when there was a Harman Cortana speaker and a chance for Samsung to work with Microsoft, which had acquired Maluuba. But Samsung decided to go it alone…

Like all new entrants in the ambient voice interaction space, this Galaxy device will need to differentiate itself in applications or be forced to a very poor side by side comparison to Echo or Google Home.

Sure, there might be a play with SmartThings. Not to boast, but UCIC was the first company to build voice interaction with SmartThings, long before Samsung was thinking of acquiring the IoT hub maker.

However, the real killer app is music. After music, it’s maybe information look up. Samsung can add in personalizations based on health information or create a new UX by having pushed notifications rather than waiting for commands.

Samsung has a long battle in North America if it wishes to chip away at Google or Amazon.