Samsung may be making it owns Bixby-equipped Amazon Echo rival

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A new Samsung patent appears to indicate that the company is working on a Bixby-equipped smart speaker in the vein of the Amazon Echo. 

The filing, which was reported by Patently Apple, shows a screen mounted above a slimline tripod suggesting the device is equipped with a display much like the recently announced Amazon Echo Show and Apple’s rumored Siri speaker.

The move would certainly make sense. All the major voice assistant players have either announced, or are rumored, to be working on making a fixed speaker to house their smart AI. 

Amazon’s Alexa has the Amazon Echo, Microsoft’s Cortana has Harmon Karden’s upcoming speaker, and rumors are increasingly circulating about Apple building a Siri speaker.

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(credit: Patently Mobile)

A voice assistant without the voice

Samsung is already building out the ecosystem that a smart speaker needs, and its SmartThings ecosystem would allow such a speaker to act as a control point for your smart home. 

But Bixby as a voice assistant still lags behind the competition, and currently doesn’t even support voice commands outside of Samsung's native Korean. 

Samsung still has a lot of work to do on its voice assistant if it hopes to one-day make it the center of your smart home, but with the amount of interest voice assistants are currently getting it will be easy for the company to justify the continued investment.  

• Check out the competition, the Amazon Echo, Invoke Smart Speaker and Apple Siri Speaker.

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