The company announced a new home assistant called Google Home, a small speaker with always-listening microphones that integrates into a broad range of services.
The obvious comparison is Amazon’s Echo, and Home will answer questions and execute commands in a similar way, relying on Google’s Assistant technology to make sense of the queries.
The device itself is a small cylinder with a rounded top and a speaker at the base, available in a number of different shells to match your decor.
Unlike Echo, it’s designed to be used with multiple devices in multiple rooms, so you can ask a single query and not have to worry about three different devices answering back.
Home is built on the Chromecast standard, which lets it push media to other Cast-compatible speakers and screens, change temperature or lighting through Nest devices, and integrate with services like Spotify.
Google hasn’t opened Home’s API to developers yet, so Home can’t communicate with as many outside services as Echo, but Google says those integrations will become possible as the platform develops.
