Samsung’s Bixby smart speaker is coming in the second half of 2018

Bixby fans, rejoice. DJ Koh, president of Samsung’s mobile division, has confirmed at Mobile World Congress that the company’s long-rumored Bixby smart speaker will be out sometime in the second half the year, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Samsung confirmed that it was working on the smart speaker last August, and rumors from December pegged a release for sometime in the first half of 2018 for around $200, although it seems that the rumored release date has since slipped to the second half of the year.

There’s still not much information about what the Bixby speaker will look like or what it will be able to do, but presumably Samsung will be looking to tie the device in as a central hub for its SmartThings smart home system in addition to the usual plethora of smart speaker features like music, reminders, timers, and trivia.

Koh told the WSJ, “I want to focus on more premium,” for the upcoming speaker. That could indicate an intention to try to compete on the high end of the smart speaker market against devices like Apple’s recently introduced HomePod, as opposed to the more entry-level Google Home Mini and Amazon Echo Dot.