With the Galaxy Home still MIA, Samsung announces Galaxy Home Mini release plan
After unveiling the highly anticipated Galaxy S10 Lite and Note 10 Lite handsets and confirming the date and venue of its even more highly anticipated Galaxy S20 launch event, we didn't expect to hear much from Samsung at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas in terms of mobile hardware announcements.
But while the company doesn't have any additional new phones or wearable devices to take the wraps off at CES 2020, another product bound to capture the interest of many hardcore tech enthusiasts just got a confirmation of sorts. We're talking about the elusive Samsung Galaxy Home Mini, a diminutive variant of the tech giant's original smart speaker, which was previewed all the way back in August 2018 without ever commercially materializing.
By the way, Samsung is apparently still undecided regarding the future of the "full-sized" Galaxy Home, which definitely sounds ominous nearly 18 months after this Bixby-powered Google Home and Amazon Echo rival went official. But at least we're not getting yet another vague and unrealistic release window.
Speaking of, however, the Galaxy Home Mini is now vaguely slated for a commercial debut in "early 2020", even though Samsung is not ready to actually showcase this product at CES 2020 either. Most of the specs and features are also kept under wraps, but we obviously know Bixby will be the brains of the smart home operation, taking voice commands to stream music and control Samsung's extensive SmartThings ecosystem.
Because Bixby still has a lot of catching up to do in its fight with Google Assistant, Alexa, and even Siri as far as conversational skills go, Samsung wants to focus primarily on the smart home controls of the Galaxy Home Mini as a key selling point. The goal is to connect every type of smart home device, accessory, and appliance to this central hub in a more seamless way than what the competition is currently able to do.
Unfortunately, we have no idea what price point Samsung is targeting for the Galaxy Home Mini, but despite what the name suggests, you probably shouldn't expect this thing to compete directly against the likes of Google's Nest Mini and Amazon's Echo Dot.
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