Google shows Home speaker with voice control

Google announced the speaker Google Home at its developer conference I/O. Home allows users to control music with voice control. Home also has support for Assistant, Google’s new digital assistant.

With the wireless speaker, Google wants to get a place in the living room. The search giant is now present on computers and phones, but its presence in living rooms is limited to the Chromecast in the TV. Home can communicate with other speakers and equipment to control music in various parts of the house. In addition, it can play videos via Google Cast TVs and has integration with Nest thermostats. Nest is a sister company of Google.

In addition, Home has support for Google Assistant, an addition to Google Now that makes the search giant a competitor to Apple’s Siri and Microsoft’s Cortana. The Assistant will exist in combination with Google Now, which offers unsolicited information via maps via Chrome and smartphones. Despite the presence of Now and voice search, Google didn’t yet have a digital assistant like Siri and Cortana. Assistant will be available on multiple devices, such as smartphones, wearables, cars and in the living room.

At the moment, Amazon already has such a product with the Echo. The Echo has seven microphones to recognize remote voice commands. According to Amazon, the Echo can provide answers to frequently asked questions. The user can also make todo lists, set an alarm clock and request the latest news or weather forecast via voice control. It is also possible to use the Echo with fitness exercises. The speaker communicates via WiFi with Amazon cloud servers to perform the Alexa voice recognition.

Google Home should be released later this year. The search giant did not mention a price for the speaker during the presentation. It is also unknown whether it will be immediately available in the Benelux upon release.