Look out folks Samsung has a smart speaker too!

Today Samsung announced its first smart speaker with the Bixby virtual voice assistant, the Galaxy Home  The announcement was made at the company’s Unpacked event in Brooklyn, New York, alongside the Galaxy Note 9 phone.

OK sure, the Galaxy Note 9 is the bigger announcement from Samsung’s event overnight but it’s definitely not the most interesting (or easiest to make fun of).

The new “Galaxy Home” smart speaker has a unique design that I personally think is quite cool and I’m sure to have drawn inspiration from high-end audio brand Bang & Olufsen. Many are likening the shape to a witch’s cauldron but in bucking the trend the speaker stands out from the crowd and matches modern design aesthetics.

Technically speaking the speaker’s size & design affords it the space to include a full range of speakers and a subwoofer, potentially giving it an edge against competitors – although it’ll be difficult to knock off the HomePod for sound quality.

The Galaxy Home also includes 8 far-field microphones to activate what is probably its most laughable feature: Samsung’s rather dysfunctional voice assistant “Bixby”. Whilst Bixby has somewhat matured over time it’s never really been anything of significance in the VA world and despite pivoting in message sits well below Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana, which in turn pale against Amazon’s Alexa and best in class Google.

There’s no pricing or availability date set for the Galaxt Home as yet but if it’s anything like the pricing for the new Galaxy 9 Note, which starts at a mind boggling US$1k, she ain’t going to be cheap!

Source: The Bixby speaker is real. Here’s what we know about Samsung Galaxy Home – CNET