Samsung launched the Galaxy S8 and S8+ with Bixby front and center, but some users are reporting that the dedicated Bixby button included on the devices has started becoming temperamental.
Bixby is Samsung’s new virtual AI assistant aimed at allowing a user to completely control the actions that would otherwise be done with a touch input with your voice. Currently, Bixby is neither using AI or much good at being an assistant, with much of the functionality disabled due to it not being ready for launch. However, the hardware button dedicated to launching Bixby remains fully functional.
In light of the reduced functionality of Bixby, developers took to finding a way to remap the button to launch Google Assistant instead, and succeeded, only for Samsung to push an update to the S8 and S8+ rendering the method useless. Now it seems that some users who employed this workaround method are reporting that pushing the Bixby button only succeeds in launching the Samsung assistant on occasion.
Of those users affected, it seems a single press yields less of a success rate than double pressing the button and also incurs less lag.
It could be that the update Samsung pushed to users to address the remapping of the Bixby button has somehow interfered with the method used to implement the workaround rather than it being a genuine hardware failure of the Bixby button itself. With that said, there is always the possibility.
If you’re experiencing issues launching Bixby via the dedicated button on the Galaxy S8 or S8+, you should try and factory reset your device to see if it fixes the issue. Drop us a comment below and let us know if you’re seeing a similar issue with the Bixby button and if a reset resolved it for you.