Samsung Says 'Bixby 2.0' Smart Speaker Will Feature Multi-User Voice Recognition

Samsung has announced at the Mobile World Congress that version 2.0 of its Bixby voice assistant will launch with the Galaxy Note 9 and come with support for recognizing individual voices (via ZDNet).

Samsung mobile chief D J Koh said that Bixby 2.0 is being tested by approximately 800 partners and is helping the company to develop a "wider scope of voice assistant features", one of which is the ability to recognize individual voices on devices supporting multiple users.

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Development of the feature makes sense given Samsung's plans to launch a television set with built-in Bixby next month, as well as a Bixby-enabled smart speaker set for release in the second half of 2018.

Amazon's Echo devices and Google's Home smart speakers already include voice matching settings which let multiple users access personalized services, however Apple's HomePod lacks such a feature.

For Siri commands that interact with user-specific information, only the Apple ID account holder who sets up the HomePod speaker is able to use the additional functionality, and Apple hasn't revealed any plans to bring multi-user voice recognition to its Siri virtual assistant anytime soon.

Related Roundup: HomePod
Tags: Bixby, Samsung
Buyer's Guide: HomePod (Neutral)

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Top Rated Comments

Return Zero Avatar
100 months ago
I love Bixby... It's the one reason I can honestly say that Siri isn't the worst digital assistant out there.
Score: 10 Votes (Like | Disagree)
neutralguy Avatar
100 months ago
I’ve seen a real time demo of the new translate feature from the Bixby camera in the new S9. Holy crap it works amazing fast and smooth.
It's there on S8 too. I bought a boy scout survival kit for my son from Amazon. And the instruction sheet inside was in Chinese. All I had to do was turn on bixby and point the camera at the sheet. In a few second, I got the whole translation in English.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TrueBlou Avatar
100 months ago
Other than Reminders and SMS text, is there anything else it currently can access as personal information?

So if multiple persons are sharing the same Home, only the main owner can use Siri? This looks different from other users reports...
(Still waiting wife to come back home to test this by myself)
No, anyone can use the HomePod, but it’s only linked to the account which set it up for the time being. My wife uses Siri on my HomePod.

So any commands to add things to reminders or send messages, or whatever all happen on the account which set the HomePod up.

It’s bound to change to multi-user voice recognition eventually. Apple filed a patent for just such a feature last year. So once they’ve perfected it, it’ll come in a software update.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
pratikindia Avatar
100 months ago
Those who are bashing Bixby, should watch the following video or many other videos on Youtube.

Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
nfl46 Avatar
100 months ago
Siri > Bixby

That's rare. Lol. Apple Maps and Siri are hilariously bad.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
cardfan Avatar
100 months ago
Bloatware speakers...lol. Can’t imagine who’d want this.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)