What are the Samsung voice commands?

Samsung’s voice assistants, especially Bixby, have grown in popularity and capabilities in recent years. Voice commands allow users to control their Samsung devices hands-free, enabling convenient features like launching apps, setting reminders, or getting information. According to one report, the global voice assistant market is projected to reach a valuation in the multimillion-dollar range by 2030, demonstrating the rising adoption of this technology (Voice Assistant Market Share 2024-2030). Bixby is Samsung’s flagship virtual assistant, first introduced in 2017 on the Galaxy S8. It can understand natural language requests to access phone functions and services. Samsung has integrated Bixby across its product ecosystem, from phones to TVs to refrigerators. Voice commands are an intuitive and hands-free way for users to control devices. This content will explore Samsung’s most widely-used voice commands for their devices.

Activating Voice Commands

To start using voice commands on your Samsung device, you first need to activate and invoke the built-in voice assistant called Bixby. The main way to activate Bixby is by pressing and holding the Bixby button or Side key on your device, depending on the model (source).

When you press and hold the dedicated Bixby button, you will hear a prompt indicating Bixby is activated and ready for your voice commands. Alternatively, you can say the wake phrase “Hi Bixby” to invoke Bixby without pressing any buttons (source).

On some Samsung phones, you can also activate Bixby by swiping right from the home screen to access the Bixby page. From here, you can tap the Bixby icon or say “Hi Bixby” to start using voice commands.

Overall, activating Bixby on Samsung devices is quick and straightforward – just press the Bixby button or Side key, say “Hi Bixby”, or open the Bixby page from the home screen. Once activated, Bixby will listen for your voice commands.

Core Voice Commands

Bixby can perform many basic tasks through voice commands. You can open apps by saying things like “Hi Bixby, open YouTube” or “Hi Bixby, open camera” ¹. Bixby can also set alarms and timers – say “Hi Bixby, set an alarm for 7am” or “Hi Bixby, set a timer for 5 minutes.”

You can check the weather by asking “Hi Bixby, what’s the weather?” or your schedule by asking “Hi Bixby, what’s on my calendar today?” Other useful commands include “Hi Bixby, take a selfie” to open the camera app or “Hi Bixby, call Mom” to directly call a contact.

Bixby understands natural language, so you can phrase requests conversationally like “Hi Bixby, show me Italian restaurants nearby” or “Hi Bixby, how long will it take to get to work?” This makes it easy to access Bixby’s capabilities.

Smart Home Commands

One of the most useful features of Bixby is the ability to control your smart home devices and appliances using just your voice.^[1] This allows you to turn lights on and off, adjust the thermostat, lock doors, and more without having to lift a finger. To get started, you’ll first need to connect your Samsung device to compatible smart home devices like SmartThings, Philips Hue, Ring, Nest, and others. Once connected, you can say commands like:

“Hi Bixby, turn on the living room lights.”
“Hi Bixby, set the thermostat to 72 degrees.”
“Hi Bixby, lock the front door.”

You can customize the specific device names and create quick commands to control multiple devices at once. For example, you could say “Hi Bixby, goodnight” to turn off all the lights, lock the doors, and adjust the temperature for sleep. Bixby learns your usage patterns over time and will even start suggesting helpful smart home actions. Overall, Bixby voice control makes it simple and convenient to manage your connected home.

Camera & Photos

Bixby offers various voice commands for controlling the camera and photos on Samsung devices. Some key commands include:

“Hi Bixby, open camera” – Opens the camera app

“Hi Bixby, take a picture” – Takes a photo using the rear camera (1)

“Hi Bixby, take a selfie” – Takes a selfie photo using the front-facing camera (2)

“Hi Bixby, record a video” – Starts recording a video using the rear camera

“Hi Bixby, switch to wide angle” – Switches the rear camera to wide angle mode

“Hi Bixby, switch to front camera” – Switches from the rear to the front-facing camera

“Hi Bixby, show me the last photo” – Displays the most recent photo in the gallery

“Hi Bixby, open gallery” – Launches the photo gallery app

“Hi Bixby, edit photo” – Allows editing the currently displayed photo

These allow for hands-free control of the camera for taking photos, videos, and selfies using just your voice. Bixby can open the camera apps, switch between modes, start recording, and display recent photos.

Messages & Calls

With Bixby voice commands, you can easily send text messages and make calls hands-free on your Samsung Galaxy device. According to Samsung, if you say “Hi Bixby, send a text message to John”, Bixby will confirm the contact and ask what you want to say. You can then dictate your message and Bixby will send it.

Bixby can also help if you get an incoming call at an inconvenient time. According to Samsung support, you can say “Hi Bixby, answer call” and Bixby will answer and convert the call to a text conversation. This Bixby text call feature allows you to communicate by text without needing to speak on the phone. You can continue your normal activities while responding by text.

In addition to texts and calls, you can use Bixby to send emails, schedule appointments, set reminders, and more all through voice commands. Bixby makes it quick and convenient to communicate hands-free on your Samsung device.

Entertainment Commands

Bixby can be used to control media playback and open entertainment apps on Samsung devices. Some common entertainment voice commands include:

To control music playback:

“Hi Bixby, play some music” – Starts playing music from the default music app.

“Hi Bixby, next song” – Skips to the next track.
“Hi Bixby, turn up the volume” – Increases media volume.

To open entertainment apps:

“Hi Bixby, open YouTube” – Launches the YouTube app.
“Hi Bixby, open Netflix”- Opens the Netflix app.
“Hi Bixby, play Spotify” – Starts playing music on Spotify.

Bixby is integrated with many popular media apps and can be used to start playback, control media, and launch entertainment services just by using your voice. The capabilities depend on the apps installed on your Samsung device.

Personal Assistant Features

One of the most useful aspects of Bixby is its ability to act as a personal assistant to help you manage your daily tasks and get things done more efficiently. Bixby can schedule events and set reminders by integrating with your calendar and to-do lists. For example, you can say “Bixby, set a meeting with John at 2pm tomorrow” and it will add the event to your schedule. You can also tell Bixby to “Remind me to call Mom at 7pm tonight” and it will create a reminder notification at the requested time.

Bixby also excels at looking up information from the web to answer your questions. You can ask Bixby questions like “How tall is the Empire State Building?” or “What’s the weather forecast for this weekend?” and it will provide an answer by searching the internet. Bixby uses natural language processing to understand full sentences and questions, rather than just keywords. This allows you to speak conversationally as you would to a real assistant.

Other personal assistant features include the ability to dictate and send text messages, place calls, launch apps, control smart home devices, play music, get sports scores, and more. Bixby aims to provide a centralized voice interface so you can access many phone functions without needing to tap and swipe on the screen.

Overall, Bixby’s personal assistant capabilities allow you to minimize time spent on mundane tasks and focus on what matters most. It brings convenience and efficiency to managing your busy life. (https://www.samsung.com/us/apps/bixby/)

Customization

Bixby allows for extensive customization so you can tailor the voice assistant to suit your preferences. You can change the wake-up command to launch Bixby from the default “Hi Bixby” to whatever phrase you want. This is done through the Bixby settings. You can also customize the accent, gender, and language of Bixby’s voice. There are several built-in options to choose from, like American English female or British English male.

In addition, Bixby supports voice training to help it better recognize your unique speech patterns over time. You can go through a brief enrollment process where Bixby will analyze your pronunciation of certain words and sentences. This allows it to continue improving speech recognition accuracy the more you use Bixby. According to Samsung (source), voice training can reduce recognition errors by over 15%.

Furthermore, you can remap the dedicated Bixby button on supported Samsung devices to launch other apps instead. This lets you access your most commonly used features and apps quicker. Overall, the high degree of customizability allows you to really personalize Bixby as your own virtual assistant.

Conclusion

In summary, the main Samsung voice commands allow you to open apps, make calls, send messages, control your smart home devices, take photos, play music and more using just your voice. Some of the most useful Samsung voice commands include “Hi Bixby” to activate the voice assistant, “Open [app name]” to launch apps, “Call [contact name]” to make calls hands-free, and smart home commands like “Turn on the lights” or “Set the thermostat to 72 degrees.”

With customization options in Bixby and Bixby Routines, you can personalize Samsung voice commands and automations to suit your preferences. While Bixby may not have the depth of capabilities as other virtual assistants, it provides helpful hands-free control for Samsung devices.

For more on getting the most from Samsung voice features, visit the company’s official accessibility site here: https://www.samsung.com/us/accessibility/galaxy-mobile-voice-assistant/