Samsung teases Galaxy Home Mini smart speaker
Is Samsung running before it can walk? The Korean firm has teased a Home Mini... before launching the Home
It’s been over a year since Samsung announced that the Galaxy Home smart speaker was in the making, and we’re yet to see any actual hardware. Instead, Samsung has been flaunting a smaller version, the Galaxy Home Mini, at the Developer Conference happening this week in San Jose, California.
Whilst the Home Mini obviously isn’t available to the general public, it underwent beta testing in South Korea a few months ago, leading us to believe that it’s in the final stages of development.
This puts the Mini ahead of its stablemate the Galaxy Home, despite the company’s CEO declaring the Home series would be released in the “mid-second half of the year” in an interview with the Korea Herald.
Samsung gave no further information regarding the regular Home at the California event, instead choosing to spend its time teasing the miniature version. Indeed, it’s believed the original Home speaker has suffered a number of setbacks since its announcement alongside the Note 9 last year.
So far, we know that the Home Mini is being manufactured in collaboration with AKG, the audio brand recently purchased by Samsung. This is of course a sign of good things to come, although only time (and a full review) will tell us exactly how impressive the audio quality really is.
As the Home Mini is a smart speaker, you can expect it to come with Samsung’s own smart assistant Bixby built-in. This immediately presents a few concerns: Bixby will only available on Samsung devices, which might prove a hindrance when faced with the sheer breadth of Alexa/Google Assistant-enabled smart speakers out there.
Once released, the Samsung Galaxy Home Mini (and Home) will be competing with the likes of the Amazon Echo Studio, the Google Nest Hub Max and the Sonos One. We currently have no idea when we can expect the Home Mini to launch, but stay tuned for updates.