A preview of Google home, the smart voice-activated speaker is finally available in the UK. Find out what it does, how it looks and how it works.
PRICE WHEN REVIEWED
- £TBA, US$129
HANDS ON WITH GOOGLE’S HANDS-FREE SPEAKER
Google announced Home last summer, showcasing the standalone device’s ability to answer questions and make things happen via voice control using the Google Assistant. Here’s our Google Home hands-on review. We’ll update the review again once we have spent more time with Home. If you choosing between this and the Echo, be sure to read our Amazon Echo review as well.
GOOGLE HOME: UK PRICE AND AVAILABILITY
Google Home is now on sale and costs £129 from Google. That’s cheaper than Amazon’s £149.99 Echo, which is the main rival to Home.
Different bases for Google Home cost £18 for fabric and £36 for metal. Only black metal is available right now with ‘copper’ and ‘snow’ coming soon.
You can buy a Google Home direct from the Google Store, as well as Argos, Currys, John Lewis and Maplin, and it will be coming soon to EE.
GOOGLE HOME: DESIGN AND BUILD
There’s no doubt that Google has been careful to make Home a subtle device that blends into your (modern) home. At first glance it can easily be mistaken for a lamp of some kind.
The mesh style base and white angled-plastic top wouldn’t look out of place in a Habitat store, such is the fresh, modern design.
Aesthetics are something Google is taking seriously with Home. Alongside the standard mesh base there will also be a number of additional models available in the Play Store that feature alternative patterns and colours.
This makes sense as unlike the Chromecast 4K or Pixel smartphones Home is meant to be seen, and therefore needs to be easy on the eye.
The bases are magnetic and snap into place to align the hole for the power cable which is neatly hidden underneath.
Home is from the minimalist school, featuring only one hardware button at the rear which is used to mute the device. Four coloured LED illuminate on the top of the plastic casing to show when the device is in operation, and this area also double as a capacitive surface for simple commands, such as silencing an alarm.
It’s an understated look, and one we like very much.
The device contains far-field microphones which can hear you from afar, just like the Echo. You don’t have to shout, but if there’s a lot of background noise – or other people speaking – it won’t always hear you accurately.
There’s are three speakers so that Home can deliver sound to almost all directions and let you know of any appointments you have coming up, respond to questions you might pose, and play streaming music.
Note that there’s no Bluetooth, so unlike the Echo and Echo Dot, you can’t stream music from your phone or tablet.
GOOGLE HOME: FEATURES
Google Home is based around the Google Assistant, so you can simply tell the device what you want to do, such as find out what’s on at the cinema, what the weather will be tomorrow, who you’re meeting on Saturday – and the device will speak back the answers. You can also schedule appointments and other daily tasks without ever picking up your phone.
Naturally, most of the native capabilities are tied into Google’s search prowess and services including Gmail, Calendar, Maps and more.
It also works with other services and products, such as the Nest thermostat, Philips Hue bulbs and Spotify. Other audio services include YouTube Music, Google Play Music, Pandora, and TuneIn. Google Home can also control Samsung SmartThings devices and you can use it with a Chromecast to send media content from services such as YouTube and Netflix directly to your TV. Nice.
The list is much shorter than all of Alexa’s Skills, but it does support IFTTT which effectively lets you control unsupported devices, such as LIFX bulbs, so long as they also have IFTTT support.
Like the Echo you can get a daily news briefing from your Home, and you can configure the news sources it uses.
If you were hoping the Google Home would address all of the Echo’s failings, you’ll be disappointed. At the moment, Home doesn’t support multiple user accounts and won’t take multiple commands at once.
You can’t set a custom wake phrase either. It’s limited to “OK Google”, “Hey Google” or “Hi Google”, none of which trip off the tongue.
How it works
Home has no discernable interface other than the voice interaction. Essentially it’s a more powerful version of Google Now that you’d find on your phone, but without the physical interaction. It’s completely hands-free.
The four LEDs on the top of the device will flash to indicate that Home is in operation, but this is primarily an aural experience.
You can request songs from a particular service by name, or set one as the default service.
Home also supports playing music through external speakers that support the Chromecast platform, and can even control multi-room setups. So saying ‘Play Bob Dylan on the upstairs speakers’ will do just that, so long as there’s a Chromecast Audio connected to them, or they support it natively.
The built-in speaker is similar in volume and sound quality to the big Echo, but if you do want to listen to music, you’ll probably prefer to use some proper hi-fi speakers.
Home is also an organisational tool which hooks into Google Calendar and Google Keep, so you can make appointments and take notes just by talking to the device.
A useful new feature that we like the look of is called My Day. This is intended to be a kind of morning brief from your assistant which reads out your schedule for the day ahead.
This is augmented with traffic conditions on the commute, weather conditions, and any reminders you have set.
GOOGLE HOME VS AMAZON ECHO
In this space the only real competitors around at the moment are Amazon’s Echo and Dot. Both of these devices feature the same voice-controlled interface, with the Echo also boasting an internal speaker which enables it to answer questions and play music.
The Dot has a speaker for voice feedback but really needs an external speaker for music, and this might be preferable if you already have a hi-fi you like, or a good Bluetooth speaker.
There are a lot of crossovers in terms of compatible services. Both Echo and Home work with Spotify, TuneIn, Spotify, Google Calendar, and Philips Hue Smart light bulbs, but as Echo came out first it has quite a few more UK focused offerings.
At the moment this gives Echo a big advantage over Home as there are Skills for Skyscanner, Uber, National Rail, various UK news outlets, and a wide range of smart home products such as Nest, Hive, Netatmo, WeMo, LIFX and Tado.
SPECS
Google Home: Specs
- Linux bases OS, dual-core ARM CPU, 4GB of RAM, and a dual band 802.11ac WiFi chip
OUR VERDICT
We’re excited by the potential of Google Home, but right now it feels like a fledgling device which will get more useful over time. Depending on the services you use and the smart home kit you have, an Amazon Echo might suit you better.
Sоurсе: pcadvisor.co.uk