One year ago Samsung unveiled the mammoth Galaxy Home alongside the Note 9 at Unpacked 2018.
The device was pegged to be Samsung’s challenger to other smart speakers in market such as the Google Home, Amazon Echo and Apple HomePod.
12 months later and it’s still nowhere to be seen. And it didn’t get a mention at this year’s conference, either..
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We didn’t know much about the Galaxy Home, but it was partnering with Spotify and was said to include AKG, full-range speakers and a subwoofer.
It was also supposed to include SoundSteer, which would allow the speaker to optimise the sound and direct it wherever you were in a room.
While the Galaxy Home never received a hard release date, Samsung CEO DJ Koh comfirmed with CNET that it would be arriving in April 2019.
When that time expired a Samsung representative said to The Verge that we would see it on shelves sometime in the first half of 2019.
When June rolled around Samsung’s Consumer Electronics CEO, Kim Hyun-suk confirmed a new release period with the Korea Herald.
“The Galaxy Home speaker, which will be the centre of Samsung’s home appliances, is planned to be launched in mid-second half of the year,” he said.
In other words, Q3 was the new alleged release period, which gives the company until the end of September to deliver.
Considering that we’re now in August and there was no mention of the Home at this week’s Unpacked event, things are looking grim.
There were also rumours of a smaller Galaxy Home being in the works, though we haven’t heard much else about it since earlier this year.
And that’s a shame, because it seemed a lot less oppressive than the home, that has been compared to the likes of a webber or a side table.
Bixby can help cook BBQ#GalaxyNote9 #Unpacked #GalaxyHome pic.twitter.com/Ri1ErsAnIr
— kratua ขอนอนอีกครึ่งชั่วโมง (@itua) August 9, 2018
Despite the fact that Galaxy Home was seen in the flesh at Unpacked 2018 and CES in January, the radio silence is making it seem like it is destined to become vaporware.
It’s worth noting that Samsung has been pushing Bixby heavily over the last few years, and yet there was no mention of the virtual assistant at the most recent Unpacked outside of the pre-show video.
The dedicated Bixby button has also been removed from the latest Note series.
Bixby has been central to Samsung’s attempt to create a connected ecosystem, and the Home was positioned to sit at the centre of it.
Bixby has been so ingrained in the coversation that its absence from Unpacked 2019 was overt and possibly significant.
While this is all speculation at this stage, the ballad of the Galaxy Home is becoming increasingly odd.