Table of contents:
- Turn Bixby on or off, and the various options
- Hide Widgets and pin them
- Bixby and third-party apps
- Bixby Vision, the most interesting of Samsung
- Use the physical button for other commands
Bixby is Samsung's smart assistant that came with the Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8 +. A different way of organizing our tasks, with characteristics very similar to the Google assistant, but with very interesting options and settings. Bixby doesn't just have voice commands, like Siri does. Bixby has a panel located on the left side of the desktop, where we can add very interesting Widgets. Over time, this assistant has been improving little by little. Next, we will tell you all the settings and tricks you should know if you have a Samsung Galaxy Note 8 or Samsung Galaxy S8 and S8 +.
Turn Bixby on or off, and the various options
Samsung gives us different options for disabling Bixby. You most likely know that Bixby has a dedicated button on the left side of the device, just below the volume button. Sometimes, when we want to lower the volume of the device, we accidentally press the Bixby button. This causes the wizard to open. If we do not want to deactivate it, but we want to make the physical button not call the wizard, we must enter the main panel and click on the wheel. We will see a Bixby key notice, if we deactivate it, the button on the left is deactivated. Even so, the assistant continues to work with a left-to-right gesture on the Home button.
Option to disable button dedicated to the Samsung assistant in the right image. Appears in Bixby Home
On the other hand, if we want to deactivate Bixby Home (the Bixby panel), we will have to go to the main screen and access the home settings menu, Widgets and Wallpapers. There, the different screens will appear. The one on the left belongs to Bixby, and if you look closely, a tab appears to activate or deactivate it. If we slide from right to left Bixby Home is completely deactivated.
In addition, we can also disable Bixby Voice. This option allows us to talk to the assistant and ask for commands. Unfortunately the voice commands are in English. If you want, you can deactivate them and keep Home active. To do this, go to the three points in the upper right. Then go to Settings and in the voice section, uncheck the Bixby Voice box.
Hide Widgets and pin them
Another feature that Bixby allows us is to temporarily hide the Widgets that we want. For example, the Assistant's Home incorporates a Gallery Widget by default. If we want it to disappear for a while, we will have to click on the three points in the right area, and click on the hide option for now. If we don't want to show it again, we give the last option and the Widget will disappear.
Hide Widgets Option and Pin Widget are in the same menu.
On the other hand, we can set Widgets in the upper area. We go to the Widget menu that we want to set, and click on the option called ”˜Fix Up” ™. Once done, the Widget will appear at the top, and even if we add more, it will not move from there.
Bixby and third-party apps
The truth is that we do not have to deactivate the Samsung assistant. There are very, very interesting settings and options. The first is the ability to add different Widgets to Bixby Home. For example, add a Spotify player, with suggested lists and music. Also a weather widget. There are many applications compatible with the Samsung assistant.
Bixby Vision, the most interesting of Samsung
Vision working. For Vision to allow you to access the purchase, there will be more possibilities if you show the label or brand of the product when performing the scan
The most interesting thing about Bixby is surely Vision. This feature recognizes objects and searches us for images or items to buy. Just go to the camera and slide to the named option . We center the object and Vision will do everything else. Once recognized, we can either search for images in Painters, translate text or find a purchase on Amazon.
Use the physical button for other commands
Samsung officially does not allow us to activate the physical button for other commands, only for its assistant. Fortunately, there are several applications in the Google Play Store that allow you to activate this button for certain functions. One of the most interesting is Byxby Actions. It is an application with a very intuitive design, and that allows us to add a command to the button. The most interesting is to apply the Bixby button to launch the Google Assistant, which is now available in Spanish.
We will see if in the future Samsung adds new functions and features to its Assistant. It is a very interesting tool, which will surely gain strength little by little. We are looking forward to making voice commands available in Spanish. We miss some features, such as better integration with Google, or more compatibility with applications.
