Google Home Follows Amazon's Echo Into Voice-Controlled Speaker Market
Google was taking email addresses Wednesday from those seeking more information on its answer to Amazon’s Echo -- Google Home -- due out later this year. But Google didn’t offer price or availability for the multitasking speaker it launched at the Google I/O event in Mountain View, California. Google described the Wi-Fi device as “a voice-activated home product that allows you and your family to get answers from Google, stream music, and manage everyday tasks.”
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The device will be available in a choice of base colors -- in metal or fabric to match a room -- topped by a white body with a slanted top -- and dotted with four tiny LEDs in red, blue, yellow and green.
In an online presentation, Mario Queiroz, Google vice president-product management, said users will be able to send music from Android and iOS devices by voice command to other wireless speakers in the house, call up a YouTube video or a Google image on a connected TV and access content from Chromecast. Users can ask the device to send an email or text, get the latest traffic information -- and any route updates -- sent to their smartphone and receive answers to questions using the Google search engine, the company said. Google Home also will have smart home features for controlling devices including lights and thermostats, it said.
Strategy Analytics analyst David Watkins called Google Home “another key building block” in Google’s effort to establish itself as “a primary platform player in the Connected Home.” Amazon’s Echo holds an edge with a two-year head start on what Strategy Analytics calls the in-home digital voice assistant market, but Google has a “key advantage” in being able to leverage the broad base of smartphones and tablets running the Android OS, along with users of its mobile-based voice assistant software, Google Now, said Watkins.
But Google’s strategy for the connected home “appears scattered given the number of new products it is launching for the home,” said Watkins. Nest has been trying to position itself at the center of the smart home experience, but products such as OnHub and Google Home "only serve to confuse the company’s overall strategy for the home,” Watkins said.
“Contextual voice-recognition technology is emerging as a key competitive differentiator” for companies looking to build out intelligent home automation platforms, Watkins said, but mainstream acceptance of digital assistants will depend on “compelling use cases and a strong roster of third party application integrations.”
On Twitter, observers called into question security issues resulting from products like Google Home. Said MediaPost reporter Laurie Sullivan: “Google Home brings privacy, security questions into play.” PC Magazine columnist John Dvorak tweeted: “The company is making a clone of the Amazon Echo calling it Google Home. #creepy NSA dream come true.”