The world’s first Samsung Bixby smart speaker will be close to $300

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On Aug. 9, Samsung’s likely to announce the Note 9 smartphone. At the same time, the South Korean company is expected to reveal the world’s first Bixby smart speaker. The accessory, priced at around $300, was discussed in The Wall Street Journal’s Wednesday story about Samsung’s upcoming foldable-screen phone.

According to the report, the voice-activated speaker should debut “in the next month or so.” Codenamed “Lux,” the speaker has a bowled shape, with a legged bottom and lights at the top. Additionally, the speaker will be marketed as a “high-end music player and boast features like sound shifting, where the speaker’s audio can be beamed in the direction of a person providing verbal commands.”

The Bixby voice assistant was first introduced in March 2017 with the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus. Since then, the software has arrived on other Samsung products including many of the company’s 2018 smart televisions. It’s also available on some of the company’s intelligent refrigerators.

Last October, Samsung announced the release of Bixby 2.0 during its annual developer conference in San Francisco. Thanks to the Samsung Developer Kit, third parties are now allowed to develop applications using the voice assistant.

The arrival of a Bixby speaker shouldn’t come as a surprise.

For years, Amazon has been dominating the smart speaker market with its lineup of Alexa-enabled speakers. In 2016, the Google Home was introduced, which uses Google Assistant. New Google Home products launched in 2017. Earlier this year, Apple also joined the smart speaker market with the arrival of the Siri-controlled HomePod. Microsoft has also entered the fray by introducing the Cortana-based Harmon Kardon Invoke speaker last year.

It will be interesting to see whether the Bixby speaker can gain some traction in the marketplace. The best bet: Samsung fans will at least sample it, while everyone else will stick with the voice-activated speaker they know.

What say you? Does the new Samsung variant interest you? Let us know below.

For more tech news, make sure to check out:

• It looks like Samsung will be releasing three different Galaxy S10 models in 2019
• iPhone sales have failed to impress in India, so Apple executives are leaving
• The world’s largest mobile phone factory is set to open in India and Samsung is footing the bill

Bryan M. Wolfe

Bryan considers himself a well-rounded techie, having written articles for MakeUseOf, KnowTechie, AppAdvice, iDownload Blog. When he's not writing, he's being a single dad and rooting for his alma mater, Penn State, or cheering on the Patriots.