It’s been six long years since Google loyalists were last treated to a new smart speaker, but that wait will soon be over: the new Google Home Smart Speaker is finally up for pre-order, and devices will start shipping as early as next week.
The compact speaker, which was built from the ground up for Google’s smarter Gemini voice assistant, was first revealed back in October. In that time the firm has been hard at work on adding conversational AI that can compete with Amazon’s Alexa+ and better integrating the assistant with its other hardware.
Each compact, almost-spherical speaker will of course work with Google Home to control any connected smart gadgets. It can also act as a Matter hub. But now it’ll be able to provide a spoken summary of what your Nest camera just saw and let you “Go Live with Gemini” for a more interactive, back-and-forth experience rather than the voice activated kitchen timers and light switches many of us use our smart speakers for right now. Google reckons early access users speak to Gemini for Home twice as often as they did Google Assistant.
There’ll be multiple voice ‘personas’ to pick from, a bit like how there is on the latest Google Pixel smartphones. More powerful internals promise to speed up thinking time, while three far-field microphones should clearly pick up your voice from across the room. There’s of course a mute switch for privacy. A light ring at the base of the speaker then indicates when it’s listening, thinking or responding.
A lot of features will be locked behind one of two Google Home Premium subscriptions, which are partly geared towards Nest camera owners. A standard membership includes Gemini Live and 30 days of event video history for £8 per month, while premium subscribers get a searchable 60 days of video history and a daily recap of recorded events for £16 per month.
A six month trial of the standard tier is being thrown in with every Google Home Speaker until September 30, while anyone already signed up to Google’s top-level AI bundles have them included already.
The Google Home Speaker’s single 58mm full-range driver promises omni-directional listening, courtesy of a downward-firing design. You’ll be able to add multiple Home Speakers to speaker groups, either as stereo pairs or as part of a wider multi-room setup. New is the ability to pair one – or two – with a Google TV Streamer, for spatial audio conversion that claims to do a convincing impression of full surround sound.
The Google Home Speaker is launching at $100/£100/€120 in Berry, Porcelain, Hazel and Jade colours; the latter two are US exclusives. Each one is made from 37% recycled materials, including a yarn wrap made using a 3D knitting process that reduces fabric waste. Pre-orders are open right now via the Google store, with speakers shipping from June 25.
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