You probably didn’t even hear about the Galaxy Home Mini but Samsung is working on a follow-up – another smart speaker you likely won’t be able to buy.
Just when we thought Samsung was done with its troubled journey into smart speakers, rumours of a Galaxy Home Mini 2 have appeared. The news comes from Max Jambor on Twitter who posted an image with the product name along with the model number ‘SM-V230’.
Galaxy Home Mini 2 (SM-V320) isn’t too far away anymore, I can tell you that😉 pic.twitter.com/xtV6z4645Y
— Max Jambor (@MaxJmb) January 12, 2022
Since then, the speaker has been Bluetooth SIG certification as spotted by MySmartPrice. It’s listed as a ‘Samsung SmartThings Home Hub’ and has the same SM-V320 model number posted by Jambor.
As well as indicating that the launch of the speaker might not be far away, it reveals that it has Bluetooth 5.2.
It’s no surprise that Samsung isn’t known for smart speakers as the original Galaxy Home (below) was announced way back in 2018 alongside the Galaxy Note 9 smartphone.
It actually looked pretty good – albeit with a divisive design featuring three short legs – but after numerous delayed and missed released dates, Samsung quietly killed it without ever officially saying why.
The Galaxy Home Mini was available in South Korea as a free gift when purchasing a Galaxy S20 but never got a proper launch, even in a limited number of markets.
There’s no information about the Galaxy Mini 2 apart from the above model number but Jambor adds that it “isn’t too far away anymore”. So, we could see Samsung unveil it with the Galaxy S22 range which is rumoured to appear at an Unpacked event on 8 February 2022.
This might happen on 9 February, as evleaks has tweeted the following image showing the Samsung teaser for the event with the words ‘The Epic Standard’.
We can expect it to be similar to the first Galaxy Home Mini (pictured at the top) – a compact smart speaker powered by Bixby with far-field mics, sound by AKG and possibly IR (infrared) again.
A report by SamMobile last year suggested that it could come with a display. At the time, it also said the speaker could be limited to South Korea.
It would rival devices like the Amazon Echo 4 and the Google Nest Mini.
Author: Chris Martin, Reviews Editor
Tech Advisor's Reviews Editor, Chris has been reviewing all kinds of tech for over 10 years and specialises in audio. He also covers a range of topics including home entertainment, phones, laptops, tablets and more.