Voice Assistant / Alexa on Samsung Soundbar Q950A?

LHelloKangaroo on 21/02/2022 - 21:22

Hi there,

Hope someone with a Samsung Soundbar can help me out.
I recently purchased Ozbargain's favourite Soundbar and I have been trying to connect it to Alexa without any luck.
It does not wake up to my voice command. Mic is definitely on. Everything looks fine in Smartthings - the device is linked to my Alexa account.
After a bit of googling it seems that the 'build-in' Alexa is not valid for Australia. Is this true? Has anyone managed to get it to work?

If this is truly the case, has anyone managed to have a workaround for this? i.e. using an echo dot and casting the sound to the Soundbar.

Thanks!

Electrical & Electronics Samsung Soundbar

Comments

  • trex on 21/02/2022 - 22:23

    It "works with Amazon Alexa", I can't find any where that states it has built in Alexa.

    Even stated here

    edit : hmm maybe just the US version supports it
    https://www.reddit.com/r/Soundbars/comments/mspcbj/how_to_se…

    • MS Paint on 22/02/2022 - 09:03
      -1

      I can't find any where that states it has built in Alexa.

      So OP has possibly been talking to his soundbar for no apparent reason. Would love to be a fly on the wall.

      OP - have you tried google assistant to see if that works?

      • MS Paint on 22/02/2022 - 09:20

        Does it have built in Alexa or just allows connectivity with Alexa?

    • HelloKangaroo on 22/02/2022 - 12:40

      On the user manual provided it actually has instructions for both - 'built-in' and 'works with Alexa'. :)
      It even has instruction on holding the 'o' Multi Function button to manually trigger Alexa.
      However, there's a line under both options that says that 'this function might not be supported depending on the geographical area'.

      I just called Samsung - even the support line was confused. They initially said that it's built-in, but when I pointed to the fact that it might be region locked and that I was in Au, they mentioned that it 'works with Alexa'. I think it's US only for built-in. Not sure if the lock is with the hardware or software (there was another reddit topic where another User was trying to use a VPN to get around it - but no updates on the outcome)
      In short, I would need to get an external device to enable Alexa - or a google device.

      I might need to do some investigation on what's the most seamless way to enable this and what limitations are there if it's not built in.

      • trex on 22/02/2022 - 20:58

        Check to the specs where you bought it from. If it has "built in Alexa" specified, you could ask for partial refund or a return on the basis that it is not as advertised.

  • jace88 on 20/03/2022 - 21:52

    From casual Googling when I was looking into this, I read that different regions seemed to have very different functionality - eg. there was a debate about whether Chromecast was actually built in and only Australian Samsung website seemed to reference it. shrug

    Looks like it's on clearance now on Samsung's store so guess I might as well wait for the next model.

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