Galaxy Home Mini gets slight update, still not available outside South Korea

There have been rumors that Google is convincing Samsung to just drop their own digital assistant Bixby and instead push Google Assistant on their devices instead. While we’re not hearing anything official from Samsung to support that, it’s pretty obvious that they’ve stopped shilling for Bixby already. The supposed Bixby speaker, the Galaxy Home Mini is still not available outside of South Korea, although the smart speaker is now getting a small update that may also be distantly related to the rumor.

According to SAM Mobile, the latest software update for the Galaxy Home Mini brings a tiny but interesting change. Instead of just saying Hi Bixby to trigger the smart speaker, you can now use “Hey Sammy”. Sammy is of course the pet nickname that a lot of Samsung users have used at one point or another. This could mean that the Korean OEM is slowly de-emphasizing the importance of the word Bixby or they just wanted to give something to Samsung fans who affectionately call them by that nickname.

But in any case, you still won’t be able to enjoy Galaxy Home Mini anyway as it’s still only available in South Korea as a pre-order gift for those that bought the Galaxy S20 devices. It’s not even available as a stand-alone device that you can purchase let alone be available in other territories outside of its native country. There is no news whatsoever as to a possible release date in the US or in other territories.

As for whether or not we’ll still have Bixby months from now, it’s still pretty uncertain. We still have it on Galaxy smartphones and tablets and it has even received a UI update recently. But it’s noticeable that it’s not Samsung’s apple of the eye anymore. If we do get an update that promotes Google Assistant on Samsung phones that’s an indication that the reports may be true and we may see the slow “demise” of Bixby.

Meanwhile, if you do own a Galaxy Home Mini, you can update the software to the latest version. Then you can trigger your digital assistant by saying either “Hey Bixby” or “Hi Sammy”.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *