Samsung has outed its long-awaited smart speaker. Called Samsung Galaxy Home, it definitely has a distinctive design and sits on three prongs. But there's one key question: is Bixby good enough to power a smart speaker?

Bixby hasn't exactly been a shining light in Samsung's phones but we are promised that Bixby 2.0 will be much better. 

Sadly, there aren't many details about Galaxy Home as it was just a teaser at today's event. 

After all, it was the launch of the Note 9 and Galaxy Watch primarily. Expect an actual launch at CES 2019 in early January even though Samsung said it will talk more about the speaker at its Developer Conference in early November. 

We do know after today's event that there will be six speakers inside the device which looks HomePod-sized and also has a subwoofer plus eight microphones to pick up your voice from all directions. It's certainly a bigger device than, say the Amazon Echo Plus.

As with the HomePod, the speakers are designed to provide 360 degree sound around an entire room and as with the Echo Plus the Galaxy Home has smart home smarts - it can act as a hub for your Samsung SmartThings devices. 

Samsung-owned Harman appears to have designed the smart speaker and incorporates technologies from the audio specialist: Soundsteer - which enables you to ask Bixby to direct the sound towards you (seriously, who is actually going to say that every time) and natural sound processing, which is essentially a surround sound technology. 

Check out our best HomePod alternatives