Samsung announced its own digital assistant, Bixby, in 2017 to take on Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant. The company’s virtual assistant is found in almost every mid-range and flagship Galaxy device, including the A and S series. It’s even expanded to its smart TVs and fridges since then.
So what is Bixby and how can you use it effectively? Let’s find out.
What is Bixby?
Bixby is an AI assistant built right into your Samsung device. It does more than just answer your questions and listen to voice commands, it can also use its “eyes” (aka its camera) to identify objects.
Today, the core role of Bixby is to help you navigate your device and help you get through your day. Bixby learns from your habits and adapts to your needs. He even goes so far as to recognize individual voices and change his answer depending on who is asking.
What does Bixby do?
Bixby is a smart assistant that lets you control your phone by voice, but it can do so much more. Bixby Voice, Bixby Vision, and Bixby Routines are the main Bixby features you should be familiar with. These helpful tools allow you to interact with Bixby by speaking, opening your camera, or touching your screen.
Bixby voice
To open Bixby Voice, you can either long press the side button on your phone or just say “Hello Bixby”.
Before you try to activate Bixby Voice with voice activation, make sure that you have registered your voice. The first time you hold the side button, Bixby will ask you to say “Hello Bixby” several times to get used to how you sound.
When you’re done with setup, you can start asking Bixby basic questions about the weather, movie times, and your schedule. But these simple commands don’t unlock the true power of Bixby Voice. This AI assistant can perform two-part commands and even complete application-specific requests.
You can send text messages, set reminders, read emails and make phone calls completely hands-free. Tell Bixby to “Read my last text message,” and it will read your most recent message out loud, while also giving you the option to listen to the last 20 messages from him. In order for Bixby to read your messages, you’ll need to use the default Samsung Messages app.
Want to start diving into some of the more advanced Bixby commands? Ask Bixby to upload a selfie to Instagram, create a photo album with a name of your choice, play a specific artist on Spotify, and even rate your Uber driver.
You can also use Bixby in conjunction with various apps. To see the full list of available apps, open Bixby and tap the Discover icon in the lower right corner of the screen. From here, select the More ways to use Bixby option. A list of all the apps installed on your phone and how you can use Bixby voice commands with them will be displayed.
With Bixby, you can use your voice to seamlessly control other apps and navigate to particular system settings. This isn’t possible with Google Assistant or Siri – they don’t provide granular control like the ability to upload a selfie to Instagram or block a specific number.
Plus, you can use Bixby to quickly control your SmartThings-enabled devices. This includes asking the voice assistant to change the TV channel, turn off the lights, or find the location of your SmartTag. You can also use Bixby to enable accessibility features using your voice. For example, you can say “Turn on screen reader” to activate the feature.
However, this not all. There are also Bixby quick commands that you can use to activate a set of tasks with just a simple voice command. For example, you can tell Bixby “Goodnight” and set it to turn on Do Not Disturb, start playing a relaxing Spotify playlist, and dim your phone’s brightness. Set up Bixby quick commands to get the most out of Samsung’s digital assistant.
bixby vision
When you want to start using Bixby Vision, open the Camera app, touch Moreand select bixby vision in the upper left corner of the screen (or open it through the Bixby Vision app). With Bixby Vision, you no longer have to struggle to discover the identity of an object or animal. Bixby’s huge database of knowledge can match an image of almost anything to a search result.
You can interact with Bixby Vision in several different ways. Scroll through the menu bar at the bottom of the screen to get an idea of ​​Bixby’s capabilities. Bixby translates text, identifies images, finds shopping results from major retailers, locates nearby attractions, scans QR codes, identifies foods and their calories, and discovers new wines.
Identifying items, food, and shopping results is as easy as it sounds. Point your camera at whatever you want to identify, and Bixby will automatically scan it and get the results. However, you don’t always need to point your phone’s camera at an object to use Bixby Vision. You can also scan images in your gallery and give you relevant information.
Similarly, you can use Bixby Vision to translate text in real time or even copy text from images. All you need to do is point your Galaxy phone’s camera at the subject or scan the relevant image.
Modes and Routines
Formerly known as Bixby Routines, Modes and Routines allow you to trigger certain tasks on your phone based on time, location, or event. If you use Google Assistant routines or IFTTT, you’ll quickly learn this feature.
Let’s say you always connect your phone to Bluetooth and use Google Maps when you get in your car. When you enable Bixby Routines, you can “teach” Bixby to launch Google Maps when you connect your phone to your car’s Bluetooth. Similarly, you can use Routines to automatically put your phone into power saving mode when you go to sleep.
Bixby Routines was one of the most useful aspects of Samsung’s voice assistant. With One UI 5, Samsung removed the Bixby branding, signaling that it no longer wants the feature to be associated with its voice assistant. Check out our guide on how to use modes and routines in One UI 5 on your Samsung phone to get the most out of the new feature.
What devices are compatible with Bixby?
Bixby made its debut on the Galaxy S8 series in 2017. Since then, it has been available on all major mid-range and premium smartphones released by Samsung, including the Galaxy S10, S20, S21, S22, Note20, and the Fold/ Flip. of devices
Initially, the company included a dedicated Bixby button on its devices to quickly activate it. However, since the voice assistant was unresponsive, it merged this functionality with the side key/power button. If you’re not a fan of the voice assistant, here’s how you can turn off Bixby on your phone.
Phones aren’t the only devices that come equipped with Bixby: You’ll find the smart assistant in Samsung’s newest smart TVs and smart fridges.
What is the future of Bixby?
Samsung has made some big improvements to Bixby since its debut in 2017. These changes haven’t been enough, however, and Bixby still lags behind Google Assistant and Siri in terms of voice recognition and features.
Worse yet, the voice assistant hasn’t received any noticeable new features or improvements in recent years, and it hasn’t gotten any media attention either. If anything, this shows that Bixby might not be the Google Assistant and Siri alternative that it was initially promised to be.