At the MadeByGoogle hardware event, Google announced two smarthome speakers in addition to its Google Home. The Google Home Mini will be priced at $49, while a larger speaker called the Google Home Max will be priced at $399. The Google Home Max will come with a 12-month ad-free subscription for YouTube Music, and the Google Home Mini will be available with a Pixel 2 device as an introductory offer. The Google Home Mini is a competitor to Amazon’s Echo Dot, which just launched in India at an introductory price of Rs 4,499.
The new features on the new Home Devices include the ability to recognise people by their voices, and customise the experience for that user. Users can now use Google Home devices to initiate hands free calling from their numbers. The device can initiate a call through the mobile number of that user, and if a person is mentioned, pull up the individual from the contact list of the user who made the request.
Google Home has expanded functionality that now allows you to preset a series of functions that get triggered by a single command. These are called routines, and saying good morning or good night can trigger a series of events. For example, after you say “Good Morning”, Google Home will pull out information from your calendar, set the connected smart home devices to the appropriate settings, read out the weather information, and even play a “get out of bed” playlist.
The Google Home Max is the loudest Google Home device, and has been made to deliver the ultimate audio experience. The speaker can understand where it is positioned in the room, at a height, in a corner, or in the middle of a large open space, and adjust the sound dynamically to deliver the best audio experience. This means that no matter where the speaker is placed, the sound will be close to what the producers intended when the track was put together in a studio. The tuning on the speakers also incorporates the time of the day (music will be softer in the early morning), as well as the type of content being played (audio for music and a movie will be tuned differently).
The Google Home devices connect to over 1,000 smarthome devices. A number of Google Home devices in various rooms can work together, for example playing the same music throughout the house. A broadcast feature triggers the routines in all the Google Home speakers in the home. Google is also partnering with Disney to bring exclusive content that will only be available through Google Home devices.
There are two woofers and two tweeters housed within the speaker. Two Google Home Max speakers can be configured as the left and right speakers. The Google Home Mini will be available in three colours, choral, white and black while the Google Home Max will be available in white and black.
