Samsung to Unveil Smart Speaker Next Month: Report

Samsung may unveil its smart speaker as early as next month, suggests a new report in the Wall Street Journal.

Samsung first hinted that it had an Amazon Echo rival in development last summer, with its mobile head, DJ Koh, coyly stating, “Maybe soon we will announce it.” The company still hasn’t, but insiders are apparently ready to leak some information.

Citing “people familiar with the matter,” the Wall Street Journal says that Samsung’s smart speaker “should debut in the next month or so,” with its release likely to arrive along with the Galaxy Note 9 smartphone expected to be launched at a media event on August 9th. The smart home hub device is code-named “Lux”, and it’s “bowl-shaped, with a legged bottom and lights at the top,” according to the report. In marketing the Lux device, Samsung is expected to frame it as a high-end music player that operates by voice command and can shift its sound settings based on where a given user is speaking from.

Notably absent from the report is any mention of Bixby, Samsung’s virtual AI assistant. But given the company’s determination to make Bixby a central interface across its device ecosystem, it’s almost certain that Bixby will power the Lux device.

Of course, Samsung hasn’t officially confirmed any of this. But given that pretty much every major tech company is dabbling in smart home speaker devices, it’s a good bet that the Wall Street Journal’s reporting has a solid basis in this case.

Sources: The Wall Street Journal, The Verge, 9to5Google