Samsung yesterday publicly corroborated rumors that it has been working on an unnamed HomePod competitor that will likely use the company’s Bixby personal assistant and provide “a fruitful user experience” at home with Samsung devices.
The Samsung-branded smart speaker will be launched “soon”.
The news has been officially confirmed in CNBC’s interview with Samsung mobile president DJ Koh following yesterday’s introduction of the new Galaxy Note 8 smartphone.
Here’s exactly what he said:
Maybe soon we will announce it. I am already working on it. As I mentioned I wanted to provide a fruitful user experience at home with Samsung devices, and I want to be moving quite heavily on it.
So, Samsung’s HomePod rival is now official.
All we got before were whispers and rumors. The Samsung wireless speaker rumor can be traced back to a July report by The Wall Street Journal which stated that the project, internally code-named “Vega,” has been in development for more than a year.
However, subsequent reports from Korean publications said that Samsung may have shelved the project because the company didn’t think wireless speakers were marketable.
The speaker should be driven by Samsung’s Bixby assistant, which currently speaks Korean and US English although its voice capabilities are now available in 200+ countries.
Priced at $349 and available in White and Space Gray, HomePod is launching this December in the United States, United Kingdom and Australia. Launch supply is expected to be constrained. The device should gradually roll out across global markets in 2018.
Aside from Apple and Samsung, Facebook too is rumored to be working on a wireless speaker of its own that should have a built-in fifteen-inch touch screen and release in early 2018.