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AI Hardware

Samsung Targets First Half of 2018 for Smart Speaker (bloomberg.com) 64

Posted by msmash from the next-up dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: Samsung is aiming to introduce a smart speaker in the first half of 2018, entering a crowded field of voice-controlled devices from Amazon, Apple and Alphabet, people briefed on the plans said. The device by the South Korean technology giant will have a strong focus on audio quality and the management of connected home appliances such as lights and locks, said the people, who asked not to be identified talking about private plans. The gadget will run Bixby, Samsung's digital assistant that rivals Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant. It will also synchronize with TVs, Galaxy smartphones and other Samsung devices, the people also said. The upcoming speaker, the report claims, will be priced at about $200.
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Samsung Targets First Half of 2018 for Smart Speaker More

Samsung Targets First Half of 2018 for Smart Speaker

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  • Still don't understand why there is a "price" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Friday December 15, 2017 @09:49AM (#55745209)
    >> (listening/marketing device) priced at about $200

    I still don't understand why there is a "price" attached to these things. I'd think companies would be giving them away, and for guys like me, they'd need to pay me to put something like this in my living space.
    • The Scroogle one is $30, pretty close to being given away. If sheep will pay for this junk, might as well make a few extra bucks.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by leonbev ( 111395 )

        It gets better than that... Walmart is offering a $25 gift card if you buy it from them and hook it up their purchasing service. So, basically it's $5 plus tax and shipping.

        I think that they REALLY want to get everyone using their ecosystem this Christmas, just to make it more difficult for Samsung and Apple to get in later.

    • I don't know either.. I don't know anyone that owns or is even looking to buy one but they somehow appear to sell according to TFA.

      According to Gartner, voice-activated speakers will become a $3.5 billion market by 2021, up from $720 million in 2016.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by DogDude ( 805747 )
      People are more likely to "buy" something with a higher price. Perceived value.

    • Because people are willing to buy them?

  • It's good for kindling. Or giving to your worst enemy.

    Yeah, yeah, computers have mics. Which can be disabled with a "dummy plug." So do cell phones, but they're not omnidirectional (you basically need to talk/shout at one to be heard) and aren't designed to listen 24/7.

    This is a device that needs to listen to your home 24/7. No thanks. If someone gives me one for X-mess, I'd return it to them, specifically shove it where the sun don't shine.

    • This is a device that needs to listen to your home 24/7.

      . . . maybe it's doing more than listening in the middle of the night while you are sleeping . . .

      "Tomorrow you will not consciously remember these instructions, but will follow them. Here is your list of things to buy on Amazon tomorrow . . .

  • Solution is search of a problem (Score:3)

    by sinij ( 911942 ) on Friday December 15, 2017 @09:58AM (#55745289)
    Is there demand for smart speakers? Are there everyday people excited to get these devices?
    • Yes. There are a lot of dumb sheep who want telescreens.

    • Yes. Outside the IT crowd concerned for privacy there's a billion plus people out there who don't give a crap about that and see instead the functionality that it provides.

  • ...will contain the line "Bixby, catch fire!"
  • I feel like either I am way behind on what people in general want or the PR marketing from Google, Apple, Samsung, etc. has infiltrated my brain and turned it to mush.

    I don’t want smart anything in my house (lights, thermostats, speakers, etc.). The only thing I want connected is my alarm system for obvious reasons. I don’t know anymore if I am in the minority or majority on this.

    I have been house hunting lately and a lot of new construction has all this smart technology and while it does

    • The only smart technology I want in a house is empty conduits to pass my own wires.

    • I'm cautiously dipping my toe in, and parts of it are quite nice. For instance, I have a problematic room in my house where there are pocket doors preventing the installation of a traditional light switch. Instead I have a Z-Wave flat, battery-operated switch which looks and behaves exactly like the other AC powered switches. There have been remote switches forever, but using a Z-Wave controller I can set the remote to turn on and dim all of the lights in the room in a single group (they are on two circuits

      • I wouldn't mind smart tech to let me know about the state of basic things (temperature, lights, locks) but I would never give it any control over it nor would I want anything with microphones or cameras.

        And yes, I store my smartphone in a sealed tube with a built-in faraday cage when I get home.

        • I get the paranoia over locks and security systems, but lights and temperature? Why not let it control those things? Do you think hackers are going to turn your lights on and off or set your thermostat really high? The microphone thing has me weary, but I'm warming up to it as I realize that Google and Apple are already listening all the time through our family's smartphones. In the case of Google you can see what they have listened in on the Voice and Audio Activity Page [google.com].

          • Funny. My audio activity page is blank, because I disabled "OK, Google" and other such things on my phone when I used a smartphone. Also, phone mics aren't very good as picking up sounds not immediately near them (by design).

            I'm not worried about hackers? I'm worried about the big-pig firms themselves (Apple, Google, Amazon, Samsung, they're all terrible). They don't need access to a voice feed inside my home. They don't need to know when I'm home, when others are home, etc, etc, via lighting and tempe

            • It's weird - I was responding to DontBeAMoran but you are acting like I was replying to you. I certainly never accused you, b0s0z0ku, of not being capable of setting your phone up the way you like it, or of having the incapacity to flip a switch. I am curious, though, about what your worry is specifically? What is wrong with Google or Apple knowing when you are home?

              • Here's my problem. If Apple or Google know it, the courts and government know it by extension. Either by pressure or subpoena. Plus what people talk about in private, being caught in a lie about being home when they were having sex with a married man's wife, etc is future material for blackmail. Best not to create the data. Let people have their petty vices. A roll in the hay with someone else's spouse without divorce lawyers ever being the wiser. "Pass the joint." (puff, puff) High school drinking

                • If I had something to hide, I wouldn't be interested in these services, that is true. But I'd also need to ditch my cell phone, since that records my rough location at all times from the tower data - and obviously the government has access to that as well. I'd probably also have to play some tricks with internet usage, since that would probably indicate when I was home as well. Unlike a Google Home, you could track me right to the house of the married man's wife with a cell phone.

                  • You can leave the phone at home.

                    As smart home tech becomes entrenched, you might not be able to turn it off/disconnect it from the cloud without freezing in the dark.

                    • Maybe. For now, there are still ways to accomplish things without "phoning home". For instance, the Z-Wave controller I use is a little board that plugs into your Raspberry Pi. By default it does connect to a server to register itself so that your phone app can easily find it - but you can disable this and just hard-code your IP (or use a domain name if you have one, like from DynDNS). But it's running on the Pi so you can do with it what you please, including simply disconnecting it from the network altoge

          • I get the paranoia over locks and security systems, but lights and temperature? Why not let it control those things? Do you think hackers are going to turn your lights on and off or set your thermostat really high?

            Well, a simple scenario off the top of my head: those hackers could easily infer whether anybody is in the house by intercepting and monitoring the lights and temperature readings from the sensors you so kindly provided them with. They could do it from anywhere, and, in case they aren't the high-minded moral people we think they are, they could break into your house. Or, they could sell this information to less technically inclined folks with a dislike for property laws, who would be very happy to know whe

            • Meh... has this ever happened? Isn't it far more effective to drive/walk/whatever over and ring the doorbell? If I answer, mumble something about supporting orphans and if I don't, break in? What if they get there to abduct my son only to realize that he simply left the light on? How do they know the light belongs to my son? If they want my son and have done enough research to find out which light is his, why not simply come over and pick him off? It seems contrived, and frankly I won't worry about it until

              • Meh... has this ever happened?

                I don't know whether it has already happened from thermostat data, but burglars do use [telegraph.co.uk] social media, like facebook [ep.wi.us] or Twitter [ibtimes.com] to find vulnerable homes. Burglars do like to know the owner is not home before acting.

                Isn't it far more effective to drive/walk/whatever over and ring the doorbell?

                Of course not, duh. A hacker in Russia can't ring your bell at all, and a local malefactor gang can't run about ringing all the doorbells in the city every few minutes - not to mention that ringing a random bell may alert the homeowner and puts them at risk. But running a script that checks thermos

                • OK, so while it is POSSIBLE for Russian hackers to determine my presence/non-presence and pass that along to local American organized crime centered around using these tips to burglarize houses... it has never actually happened. I'll worry later.

    • I like having parts of my home "smart". My garage door, most of my lights, the thermostat, the fountain in the back - all are smart devices. I leave the house, the garage door automatically closes. When I return, and the system senses my presence, it opens up (I ride a motorcycle, no need to carry/fish for a remote). Lights come on when it's starting to get dark, turn off at my normal bedtime (easily overridden), outside lights turn off at sunrise, fountain turns off later in the evening and comes on ab

  • Solution for the sticking point? (Score:3)

    by mysidia ( 191772 ) on Friday December 15, 2017 @10:51AM (#55745677)

    I want to be able to play my local media. Google Home and Alexa will only let you tell the player to play songs by STREAMING music from their respective services; which requires a working uninterrupted internet connection ---- oddly the seemingly easier thing to do, play from a local file share or request a download from a local web server seems to be omitted from their capabilities.

    Where can I get a speaker that I can ask to play a song that I have indexed on a local NAS?

    I can do this manually with an app using the Sonos multi-room system, but I want voice command to play from indexed songs that I OWN, and I don't want to be bound to monthly for a streaming service to access my content.

    • And the voice processing should be local, too. No traffic should leave your LAN unless it's critical to the function it serves... which should be what YOU want, not what some tech company wants.

      It'll happen (if it hasn't already). There will be a FOSS project at some point and you'll be able to install your own system that isn't owned by a megacorp. And you know what? As a percentage of the market I doubt anyone will use it because they'll be happy with their Google Home or Amazon Alexa.

    • I believe the SONOS One speaker will play from your local repository, or from any streaming service supported by SONOS.

  • Why don't we call them "smart microphones"?

  • Amazon and Google own this market already. Microsoft is once again too late to market to matter. Samsung Bixby? No one really cares outside of South Korea..
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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