Google I/O 2016 has begun and one of the announcements from the list includes the announcement of Google Home, the voice-activated home device that will compete against Amazon Echo, which is said to have sold to about three million customers so far. The way Amazon Echo is picking up with the sales shows why Google got interested in making a virtual agent.
Not just carrying out some basic tasks for the users, but Google Home will be able to answer simple questions asked by them. All this will be carried out by Google Assistant, which they call as a conversational assistant, having an ongoing two-way dialogue with Google.
Sending music from your Android to Google cast, which allows setting up and controlling the other speakers in the house. Google Home will be a control centre for several functions in the home and not just an answering machine.
For the design, this is a cylindrical body with LED lights on the top, and the Home has a modular case that can have different base shells to match the decor of the room. The LED lights blink to show that the device is active. It can be run by a single Google account for now, but Google says that the support for multiple accounts will be added later.
There will be a lot controlled using Google Home, including ordering food from the selected services, controlling smart home products like Thermostats, smart bulbs, alarms, etc. Several questions that you were able to ask Google Voice can be now asked with Google Home, but that is not limited here. One can book an Uber cab, order a table for dinner on OpenTable, and also change the timing of the dinner by just giving a voice command.
Google Home will be available later this year, and the company is looking to partner with developers to get a lot of features refined and added to make the platform better and smarter.
