Samsung has owned the electronic devices history for the past several decades. From TVs and washing machines to refrigerators and mobile phones, their legacy of high quality and revolutionizing technology has impacted the world unlike any company ever has before.

Samsung recently unveiled the Bixby, its virtual assistant, along with their premium smartphones, The Samsung Galaxy S8. Intended to challenge other virtual assistants such as Apple’s Siri, Google Assistant, Window’s Cortana and Amazons Alexa, Bixby has had a slow start. The future, however, looks bright.

Replacing the S Voice, which was a major flop, Bixby hopes to integrate not only into the Samsung Galaxy S8 but also in all other new generation Samsung appliances. That’s right! Samsung is starting to bring Bixby to all other appliances as well, converting your house into a smart home. Obviously that can happen with Samsung appliances only. Although Bixby was released for the Samsung S8 it can also be integrated in other smartphones such as the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge and many others as long as they have the latest Android Nougat.

“Hello Bixby” these simple words need to be uttered to activate your virtual assistant. You can also simply hold down the Bixby key to activate the app. Bixby runs through your entire smartphone to familiarize itself with all the installed apps as well as your set schedule, creating a seamless experience. Samsung’s objective with Bixby is to make voice commands as effective as your touchscreen. As it goes with most virtual assistants the “open this and do that” format works here as well but Bixby excels in figuring out what you are saying and piecing it all together to provide the best solutions. From downloading apps and opening photos to browsing searches and sending messages. Bixby has one of the best developed voice controls which makes navigation smooth. When it comes to downloading apps, Bixby can not only search that specific app but can also download it automatically.

One of the most exciting features of Bixby that has everyone talking is Bixby Vision. Using Bixby Vision you can extract or translate text, search for images similar to what your camera sees, shop for those items, and plenty more.

Let’s face it though, voice controls and virtual assistants is not everybody’s cup of tea, some people prefer the traditional search and touchscreen control. For them, it is quite convenient to disable Bixby. Bixby will still operate as an app but will no longer have a pop up voice command option until you enable it again. That app is known as Bixby Home, the central hub where Bixby summarizes all its operations and delivers to you stats and information regarding your integrated apps and devices. Bixby is also customizable both in terms of design and system operations.

Samsung is still an android phone and if you’re just not feeling Bixby, then you can always get yourself Google Assistant.

Whilst it’s true that Samsung’s Bixby has an impressive system that will elevate voice controls to the next level, it still has a long way to go. With updates and fixes in the future, the future for Bixby looks bright!