It’s pretty much confirmed that Samsung is launching the Galaxy Note 9 on August 9th in Brooklyn, NY. Now the only question is, what else does Samsung have in store. And now there’s a new report coming out of The Wall Street Journal, citing a person familiar with the matter, that Samsung may unveil its much anticipated Bixby Smart Speaker at the event, as it is hoping to release it in mid-August. While the source didn’t specifically say that it would be released with the Galaxy Note 9, it does sound like it’ll be on the same release track as the new smartphone.
The Bixby speaker is said to cost about $300, being right in line with the higher-end smart speakers on the market right now like the Apple HomePod, and the Google Home Max. It is being referred to internally as “Lux” and has a bowled shape, with a legged bottom along with lights on the top, according to the sources. Samsung is planning on marketing this as a high-end music player, that does have Bixby inside. It’ll boast features like sound shifting, which means that the sound can change direction and be aimed at where the person is located. This would be done via verbal commands given to Bixby.
This speaker from Samsung has been long rumored, and Samsung has even come out to say that it was indeed working on a smart speaker for its personal assistant, Bixby. But given that it is pretty late to the game, and Bixby is still pretty far behind the likes of Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa, it’ll be interesting to see how this smart speaker does compared to Google Home and Amazon Echo devices. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see Samsung include a discount on this speaker if you pick up the Galaxy Note 9 – it likely won’t be included with the purchase of the Galaxy Note 9 seeing as it is brand new and a $300 speaker. However, we shall find out more about this Bixby smart speaker in the next few weeks, when Unpacked takes place on August 9.