That’s the biggest question on many peoples’ minds with the debut of Google’s (GOOG) (GOOGL) new Home smart home hub. Available for pre-order starting Tuesday for $129, Home is a direct shot at competing with Amazon’s Echo smart home hub.
Home, which was first unveiled at Google’s I/O conference in June, is a digital assistant designed to help you navigate your daily life, control your smart home devices, monitor your schedule and, of course, search the web via Google.
I spent a bit of hands-on time with Home following Google’s announcement and it looks as though it could easily give Amazon’s (AMZN) Echo a run for its money.
Styling
Home has a sleek, elegant design that’s meant to blend into your average home’s decor. The New York Times says it resembles an air freshener, and it does in the sense that it doesn’t demand your attention. It’s best described as inoffensive.
Home has a tapered cylindrical styling that’s divided into a sterile white top portion and a swappable bottom speaker grill that can be switched out for a colored metal or fabric replacement if you want to add a bit of life to the pod.
Between Home and Amazon’s full-size Echo, Home is easily more attractive thanks to a look that’s more streamlined and simple than the Echo.
In-home Assistant
The reason Home exists — besides to compete with Echo — is to serve as a hub for Google’s new voice-activated AI platform, Google Assistant. Already available through Google’s Allo messaging app, Google Assistant is designed to let you have a direct conversation with Google via voice or text. Basically, Assistant pulls all of Google’s disparate services including Gmail, Google Photos, search, voice recognition and others together in one place.
By Daniel Howley.
Full story at Yahoo News.
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