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Samsung might finally be ready to sell its first Galaxy Home smart speaker
Long-awaited product appeared briefly on Samsung's South Korea website
It's a full 18 months since Samsung first showed off its Galaxy Home smart speaker, and six months since it announced a smaller version, yet neither have actually gone on sale.
That could soon change, however, as Samsung itself mistakenly published a page about the smaller Galaxy Home Mini on its South Korean website this week. The now-removed page included new details about what the speaker can do.
Read More:
- Samsung announces new Galaxy Home Mini - but where did the forgotten original go?
- Delayed Samsung Galaxy Home misses April deadline
According to Android Police, which saw the page before it was deleted, the Galaxy Home Mini will go on sale in South Korea on February 12 and be priced at approximately $83. This is interesting timing, as it's just a day after Samsung's Unpacked launch event takes place in San Francisco, where it is expected to show off the Galaxy S20 phone family and new Galaxy Z Flip folding phone.
The deleted Samsung page suggested how the speaker will use Bixby in the same way other speakers use Alexa, Siri and Google Assistant. It also said how the speaker can let owners send and receive messages without connecting a smartphone.
Most interestingly for smart home fans, the page said of the Galaxy Home Mini: "When connected with an external sensor, it detects emergency situations such as fire, smoke and leaks and provides notifications quickly."
The speaker is expected to work as a SmartThings hubSamsung
To us, this sounds like the speaker can double as a Samsung SmartThings hub, connecting to fire, smoke and leak sensors. Promotional material published last year, above, showed how the speaker works with SmartThings.
The page also said how the speaker "tells you if your appliance is working or when it needs to be replaced." Again, this sounds like a smart home play similar to LG's proactive appliance AI, where an assistant alerts you when connected home appliances show signs of not working correctly.
Finally, the speaker offers multi-room support, so you can buy several and install them throughout your home. There also appears to be a feature where music is easily handed off between your Samsung Galaxy phone and the speaker, like Apple does with its HomePod and iPhones.
The speaker might initially launch exclusively in South Korea - indeed, Samsung said last year it would sell the speaker there as part of a trial - but we still hope to hear more at the Unpacked event next week.
As for the full-size Galaxy Home, which was announced back in August 2018, we still don't know if it will ever go on sale.
Check out The GearBrain, our smart home compatibility checker to see the other compatible products that work with Samsung SmartThings.
Samsung SmartThings Hub 3rd Generation [GP-U999SJVLGDA] Smart Home Automation Hub Home Monitoring Smart Devices - Alexa Google Home Compatible - Zigbee, Z-Wave, Cloud to Cloud Protocols - White
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