After less than a month of Apple announcing HomePod — a smart speakers solution for homes — Samsung has announced its intentions to launch its own smart speaker. Why are we not surprised?Well, for one, Samsung does have a kind of an infamous history when it comes to copying stuff from Apple. Right from the first iPhone, and its subsequent design elements, Samsung has been one step behind Apple always.
And now that copying streak is extending into smart speakers.
To give Samsung the benefit of doubt, we will acknowledge that there is already a lot of competition in the smart speakers market. It’s not a new product by any stretch of the imagination. However, what’s questionable is Samsung’s timing. As observed by BGR —
“The home assistant business is already getting crowded, with Amazon positioned as the unexpected leader, and Google taking a distant second spot. Given the popularity of Alexa, we shouldn’t be surprised to see tech giants chase after Amazon. But is it really a coincidence that Samsung’s rumored to launch such a product after the HomePod was unveiled?”
It’s as if Samsung wasn’t sure if it should get into the market or not, but once it say Apple making smart speakers, suddenly, it decided to do it as well! We are not saying that’s what happened, but it certainly looks like that!
What will Samsung Smart Speakers be called?
For now, the project has been titled “VEGA”. Which, by the way, is not the first time Samsung has dabbled with the product. According to The Wall Street Journal:
“Samsung has been working on such products for a few years. It planned to launch a product codenamed “Hive” back in March 2015 at the Mobile World Congress. But the project was apparently killed over voice recognition concerns.”
Will the new product from Samsung be able to stand to the competition from Apple, Amazon, and Google? For now, it seems unlikely. However, as we have seen before, in the tech industry, things can change pretty quickly. So all we can really do is speculate. And then wait and watch!
