Google’s New Household Gadget Is All About Search

During a press event Tuesday, Google executives showed off a series of gadgets in rapid succession.

The Amazon Echo can perform numerous same functions: It plays music, controls other devices and enables users to search with their voice.

The Home can be used to all Chromecast connected home devices – including televisions and speakers – allowing you to play music in different rooms at the same time! WiFi specs are 802.11ac (2.4GHz/5Ghz).

Google said Home would cost $129 and be available at retailers in the US beginning November 4.The price undercuts Amazon’s Echo speaker, which costs $180. “If you step back and think about it, computing has had big shifts every 10 years or so”, said Google CEO Sundar Pichai, before adding, “we’re evolving from a mobile first, to an AI-first world”.

But beyond allowing our imitations of Tony Stark or holding us hostage on our couches and beds, Google Home, to the contrary, may do some public good – particularly in the medical field. Users can ask Alexa to play music, dim the lights or call for a ride. However, as Chromecast has aged and matured, Google’s made for a bigger push of the ability to be able to cast all sorts of media to your TV through the little Chromecast dongle.

The article promises Netflix and Google Photos for “the near future” and mentioned Home was now functioning with PhilipsHue, Nest, Samsung SmartThings and IFTTT.

So just to review, Google says it wants to install microphones all over your house. That’s a feature already offered by larger, more expensive streaming devices such as the $100 Amazon Fire TV. More people are expected to integrate voice assistants into their lives over the next four years, although only 3.3% of households will have a voice-activated device, Gartner said. But in order to stay competitive against all the other technology companies that have (or will eventually have) AI-powered assistants, Google has no choice. Also, Amazon Echo doesn’t now support multiroom audio.

It is available in November for $129, or three routers can be bought for $299. At $129, The Home is $50 cheaper than Echo.

This is a real toss up. Facebook Messenger also has opt-in encryption, and uses what is widely regarded as the gold standard for encrypting messages, just like Google does.

The new aluminum phone, available for order today, will come in 5-inch and 5.5-inch models. On the flipside, Google Home didn’t sound particularly loud. Take a look at its specs, Assistant, camera and more. That’s where these speakers really differ. The top of Google Home features multi-colored LEDs when it’s operating and listening to voice activations.

Google, in taking a leaf from Apple’s playbook to design both hardware and software from the ground up, gives itself a chance to break through in this second leg of the hardware relay race and lead the next one.

To use the Google Home, users will first have to say “OK, Google” or “Hey, Google“.because Google holds.information on users from their Google accounts and apps, the Google Home will be able to perform functions such as telling users what is on their calendar for the day and how long the commute to work will take. The helper will respond to spoken questions such as “How do you remove wine stains out of the carpet?” and commands to control the volume of the television and other home appliances with internet connections.