First Look: Bixby Voice-Activated Personal Assistant for Samsung Galaxy S8 Phones
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Hi Bixby. Nice to finally speak with you.
Samsung has rolled out the voice capabilities for its digital assistant to U.S. owners of its Galaxy S8 and S8+ phones, adding Bixby to the ranks of Apple’s Siri, Google Assistant, and Amazon's speaker-based Alexa.
Samsung’s phones already come with Google Assistant installed, but the South Korean tech company says Bixby takes digital helpers a step further by ingraining itself deeper into apps, allowing users to harness hidden functionalities and growing its capabilities as it learns more about the owner's preferences.
After a short period of time experimenting with Bixby, my first impression is that it is useful but not game-changing. On the surface, Bixby looks a lot like Google Assistant, but it does benefit from being tightly integrated into apps such as the camera and messaging functions. Down the road, Samsung says, Bixby could be used to control other Samsung devices, from TVs to washing machines.
Samsung had talked up Bixby in the run-up to the Galaxy S8 launch in April, but when the phone arrived, the voice-based features weren't ready to go. Voice capabilities soon came to Korea, and the United States is the first English-language market to receive this update. It's yet to be rolled out in the UK, Australia, or Canada.
Here’s a look at Bixby and the voice capabilities it brings to Samsung's S8-series phones.
Getting Started
Samsung is sending the new features out as part of a software update. It took several minutes to download and install, and then I needed to update the operating system on the two test phones from CR's labs that I borrowed for this first look. I also needed to update all of the apps that use Bixby.
Once that was done, the next step in setup was to train Bixby to recognize my voice. Bixby asks the user to repeat a few key phrases including “Hi, Bixby,” which can be used to wake up the digital assistant later on—it's the equivalent of "Hey, Siri" or "OK, Google." Bixby isn’t terribly strict about this phrase, however. “Hey, Bixby” worked just as well.
After that, my new digital assistant was pretty much good to go. I could summon Bixby with either the dedicated button or the voice command. Fair warning: Like Siri and Google Assistant, Bixby is always listening and fairly sensitive. Don’t be surprised if it mistakenly kicks in while you’re having a conversation with an actual person. (You can dial the sensitivity up or down with a slider control.) And, if it's really driving you nuts, you can turn off the voice activation in Bixby's settings.
What Can Bixby Do?
Most people may use Bixby’s voice controls to do a lot of the same things they would with Siri or Google Assistant, such as getting the latest news headlines or the weather forecast.
I tried all that, along with making calls and sending text messages, and Bixby operated pretty much like its competitors.
But Samsung has worked Bixby pretty deep into the S8’s core apps (including voice calls, contacts, photo gallery, messaging, camera and calendar) in ways that allow it to do some things that are beyond the reach of other assistants. Some popular third-party apps such as Google Maps, Google Play Music, YouTube and Facebook are integrating with Bixby, too. Most other apps don't work with Bixby right now, but you can tell the digital assistant to open them. And, like other assistants, if Bixby can't give you what you want, it'll do a web search for information.
From what I've seen, where Bixby excels is in following multi-step commands.
For instance, when I said, “Hi Bixby. Open Google Play Music and play songs by Bruce Springsteen,” the phone went through a series of steps that made it look like an invisible hand was typing in commands for me. (It felt a lot like watching a remote tech-support person take over your computer.) Bixby opened the app, then began searching for songs, then ultimately cued up and played a song. It only took a few seconds.
Bixby proved especially adept at working across apps. For instance, I told it to, “take a picture and send it to Mom.” That command opened up both my camera and messaging app, and addressed a message to my mother. Bixby waited for me to take a photo, then added my picture to the message and asked if I wanted to send it. That's the kind of thing Siri and Google Assistant can't yet do.
For now, Bixby's functions are fun to play with and could be very useful for people looking to do more with their voice and less with their hands. Is that functionality essential? Probably not.
Looking ahead, huge tech companies are tripping over each other in the race to perfect voice control for a variety of devices—which is why Google, Apple, and Amazon are currently engaged in a smart-speaker war. Bixby is starting far behind its competitors, but it has some neat capabilities, and of course Samsung has a big hardware advantage: It already makes televisions and lots of other consumer products.
And if the future really does consist of people sitting on their sofas and telling their appliances what to do, Samsung could be in a promising position.
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