Patently Apple posted a report on Wednesday titled "Samsung's President of Mobile Communications has confirmed that a Smart Speaker is in fact coming to Market." We first reported on this possibility back in early July. Samsung had also been granted design patents for a possible future smart speaker that we covered in a previous report. Then yesterday a utility patent from Samsung came to light that revealed a new radical smart speaker system in detail. The system includes a master unit designed to communicate with a series of secondary units spread throughout the home. The interactive smart speaker includes a video projector that's in sync with its digital assistant called 'Bixby.' The system is designed in a certain way to resemble the head and face of a robot which enables the device to physically move when spoken to as well as redirect video responses or the playing of video content unto a nearby wall with its built-in projector.

Samsung's patent FIG. 6 illustrated below depicts an exemplary device with FIGS. 8A and 8B depicting the rotational range of the device's shelled-head.





More specifically, Samsung notes that patent FIG. 6 depicts the exemplary interactive device #10 which is shown to include a head #11 and a body #12. The head includes a head shell #13 and the internal projector screen #80 that includes a user interface (UI).

The sensor #30, which is a camera in this particular embodiment, is positioned behind and on the inside of the internal projector screen. The microphone #150 is positioned to the side of the internal projection screen to resemble 'ears.' In this particular embodiment, the speaker #160 is positioned at the bottom of the body.

Samsung notes in their patent filing that their multi-modal display device system configured to project visual content on a large surface or a small screen display. One set of projection system is used to display visual content (e.g., images, video) on different manners to satisfy user's need under various situations.

In one embodiment, when a user is close to the device, content is displayed on a small internal screen of the device. When the user is far from the device, content is displayed on a larger external surface via projection, e.g. on a wall, tabletop, or floor. The switch between the small-display mode and the large-display mode may be manual or automatic.

For more details regarding this major Samsung invention, read our full Patently Mobile report here.

Samsung filed their latest patent application for a smart speaker back in Q4 2016. Considering that this is a patent application, the timing of such a product to market is unknown at this time.





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