Samsung is currently looking for beta testers to help the company test out the Galaxy Home Mini before it is announced.
Those that reside in South Korea – Samsung’s home country – have from now until September 1 to sign up to be a beta tester.
One would assume that if an applicant is accepted, that they would receive the smart speaker ahead of the announcement, and be able to use it, giving Samsung some feedback on it.
This is actually pretty important for Samsung, as it has had many setbacks with the regular sized Galaxy Home. After it was announced with the Galaxy Note 9 last year, it still doesn’t have a release date. So hopefully this beta testing can help Samsung get both models out there quickly.
Samsung just leaked the Galaxy Home Mini’s look
With the request for beta testers going out, Samsung has also essentially leaked the way that the Galaxy Home Mini is going to look. And it actually looks really good.
As we can see in the picture above, it’s a good looking, dark blue speaker. It has what appears to by ballistic nylon wrapped around it. This is a popular material that JBL uses on its speakers.
Remember that Samsung owns JBL’s parent company HARMAN now, so taking some design cues and hints from JBL should come as no surprise for Samsung.
But it doesn’t really look like it’s all that “mini”.
It definitely looks much larger than the Google Home Mini or the Amazon Echo Dot. But it is also promising some really good audio quality, so the bigger size would make sense. As that gives you more room to put better drivers, tweeters, woofers and such inside.
It still has Bixby
To no surprise, the Galaxy Home Mini still has Bixby. As much as we all want Samsung to just give up on Bixby, that’s not going to happen.
With Bixby included, Samsung is touting that SmartThings is also supported. As this is a smart speaker, that makes plenty of sense. Samsung wants you to be able to control your smart home products with your voice, using the Galaxy Home Mini. Like your refrigerator, smart lights, smart thermostats and much more.
The Galaxy Home Mini is slated to be announced later this year – perhaps at the Samsung Developers Conference – but given how the original Galaxy Home launched, it’s likely not going to happen. But we’ll see in due time, of course.