Samsung confirms plans for smartspeaker challenging Apple HomePod & Amazon Echo
In addition to premiering the Galaxy Note 8, Samsung on Wednesday said that it's working on its own smartspeaker, which will face off against products like the Apple HomePod, Amazon Echo, and Google Home.
Apple's HomePod.
An announcement could happen "soon," Samsung mobile president D.J. Koh told CNBC. Koh provided no additional details, even whether the device will use Bixby, the voice assistant found on the Galaxy S8 and Note 8.
Samsung has set high ambitions in the smarthome space, aiming to connect not just typical accessories but full-scale appliances like refrigerators. Bixby is expected to be a linchpin, though it will also likely have to interact with competing smarthome accessories.
Amazon's Echo speakers have been a surprise hit and the model for rival products. Apple's HomePod, shipping in December for $349, will take a slightly different tack by focusing more on audio quality. It will also serve as a HomeKit hub, potentially replacing an iPad or Apple TV for people wanting features like remote control.
One limitation could be the need for an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch during setup. The Echo and Home can be configured using iOS and Android apps.
Apple's HomePod.
An announcement could happen "soon," Samsung mobile president D.J. Koh told CNBC. Koh provided no additional details, even whether the device will use Bixby, the voice assistant found on the Galaxy S8 and Note 8.
Samsung has set high ambitions in the smarthome space, aiming to connect not just typical accessories but full-scale appliances like refrigerators. Bixby is expected to be a linchpin, though it will also likely have to interact with competing smarthome accessories.
Amazon's Echo speakers have been a surprise hit and the model for rival products. Apple's HomePod, shipping in December for $349, will take a slightly different tack by focusing more on audio quality. It will also serve as a HomeKit hub, potentially replacing an iPad or Apple TV for people wanting features like remote control.
One limitation could be the need for an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch during setup. The Echo and Home can be configured using iOS and Android apps.
Comments
Japan used to copy a lot of things from the west. But what they did is make the product a lot better than the original and make it cheaper.
The Samsung model is copy and make it slightly different and sell a little cheaper. Very similar to the Chinese model, copy, make it in low quality and sell it damn cheap.
Meanwhile, Samsung will jump into an Android-based marketplace with Google and Amazon, where standards and features across different hardware will be more confusing and less reliable, and -most importantly for controlling things in your home- less secure.
Watch this space (and probably even more over on macrumors) over the next year or two for much whining about this feature or that feature that one of the other devices does that Apple's 'walled garden' hinders. Then there will be the stories about how the Android-based devices are selling all sorts of in-home data to the highest bidder. Let one rip in the privacy of your den and see how long it takes for a "Gas-X" ad to pop up on an Android screen. Then watch this space for the story about a big breach in the 'internet of things' that hits one or all of the others but leaves the things tied together with HomeKit unaffected. Competition, sure, but it's remarkable that Apple still stands alone as the only combined hardware and software producer. It will make a big difference in this emerging technology.
They will come out with their speaker, it and like everything else they make that requires actual software coding expertise, it will fail miserably. They'll claim it outsold everything and a future lawsuit will show they essentially lied about how well anything they had sold.
The only thing electronics that they have going for them is they foundries and SSD and screen tech. If Apple had that kind of track record, everyone (especially Sog35) would be demanding Cook's head.
Samsung doesn't have the ecosystem and support.
No one wants that.
and it's gotta be android since tizen is even worse.
One has had to wonder what it will look like as well. Echo is an eyesore. The screen version is horrid.
Homepod looks perfect.
Samsungs will probably look just like homepod but with a chrome ring or two for "bling." Not even kidding.
That IS an Apple Homepod shown in the photo. I don't think there's any image of whatever Samsung says they're working on floating around yet.