Really, the Bixby-Powered Smart Speaker Is Doomed

As if the smart speaker space isn’t locked down by two companies, Samsung will enter the mix. Yet a lot more than ambition and hype is necessary to propel it to success. In a few months, we’ll realize how Samsung didn’t make a product nearly compelling enough to shake the competition.

Right now, you can choose between Alexa and Google Assistant. Both digital assistants are thriving across all platforms, and the hardware backing them doesn’t disappoint either. But there’s another digital assistant that would like a dedicated spot in your life. Bixby, which Samsung introduced a little more than a year ago, will soon arrive on a smart speaker of its own.

The Galaxy Home is the world’s first Bixby-powered smart speaker. And there’s a strong possibility it’ll be the last. Samsung might want to pump the brakes on this product before it faces an inevitable wave of criticism.

Despite the AKG-made technology packed inside, Samsung’s Galaxy Home doesn’t stand out. The smart speaker won’t accomplish anything an Echo or Google Home cannot. It may be intelligent, but Bixby doesn’t have the raw brainpower. Google’s unbeatable knowledge graph was built over decades, and even Amazon’s cross-platform compatibility is a huge advantage for Alexa.

Bixby isn’t ‘dumb’ in the slightest. Instead, it’s just not the most useful digital assistant you’ll find. People would much rather use an established alternative.

Making its digital assistant available first helped, but Amazon’s Alexa holds the lead in market share because of its free-flowing nature. Whether you’re on iOS or Android, Alexa welcomes you. Does Samsung think anyone with an iPhone will scoop up a Galaxy Home? Doubtful, and Bixby already gets ignored by Galaxy device owners.

Alexa and Google Assistant also jump way ahead because of the ecosystems they connect to. Samsung still needs to wrangle a long list of partners for Bixby on the Galaxy Home to have equal third-party support. While the SmartThings platform branches out pretty far, Bixby weighs it down.

There’s more to a digital assistant than sounding nice. Unless Samsung starts paying developers to port for Bixby, the Galaxy Home will be stuck with first-party capabilities and a meager user base.

Article source: https://www.technobuffalo.com/2018/09/16/galaxy-home-bixby-smart-speaker-totally-unnecessary/