WSJ: Samsung working on Bixby powered smart speaker

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that Samsung has been developing a wireless speaker powered by its Bixby personal assistant to take on the rival Amazon Echo, Google Home and Apple HomePod devices.

Internally code-named “Vega”, the project has been in development for more than a year.

Citing people familiar with the matter, the report states that the release timing is far from determined because the device’s feature set and other specifications are yet to be decided, much less a release date.

The development is said to have been held back by the progress of Bixby itself, which already forced the South Korean firm to launch Galaxy S8 without proper support for English voice commands which rolled out in preview form last month.

According to the report, Samsung sees the full release of Bixby voice support as “unlikely before the second half of July.”