Google Home
Far more ambitious than the Echo, this is the home-helper device for the Google generation
There’s one reason for the Google Home’s existence: to help you out in the home. (Well, three reasons if you count Google reaching its tendrils into every corner of our lives and then making lots of money in the process.) It’s designed to be the hub of your family’s life, so you can stay on top of what’s going on while also answering those burning IMDB queries about that bit-part actor in
Total Recall. It won’t mop your floors or clean your car, but it will let you know if your eldest has football practice after school tomorrow.
The cylinder in the room is the Amazon Echo. It’s a similar product aiming to do similar things, but it isn’t as well connected when it comes to smart home applications. Google Home, on the other hand, is designed from the ground up to be the beating heart of the home of the future, and while it’s great today it also has bags of potential – for instance, a future update means it will recognise up to six voices.
The G word
Google Home’s other big advantage is the G word. Got a Gmail account? Google Home is for you. Use an Android phone? You’ll get something out of Google Home. Likewise if you use Google Calendar, Chrome, Drive, Docs, Play Music or YouTube.
Say, “Tell me about my day” and Home will pull all of your appointments from Gmail and Calendar, and even check the weather for you without you needing to ask separately. Assuming you were organised enough to enter the information in the first place, Home will tell you where your appointments are happening and give you a rough estimate of how long it will take to get there.
It’s so contextually aware (far more than Amazon Echo) that you will occasionally think there’s some sort of trickery going on in that air freshenershaped ornament.
Google Home isn’t just good with people, though, it also excels at talking to other bits of tech in your home. Controlling Chromecast devices is a breeze, allowing you to stream Netflix to your TV by simply telling it to cast whatever you fancy watching. You’ll need to have Netflix installed on your phone, though, just as you would if you were casting by swiping and tapping (how oldfashioned). Because everything is controlled by your phone, which can stay in your pocket the entire time you’re using Home, apps such as iPlayer, YouTube and Now TV all also work right away.
Spotify is a dream to use with Google Home. Say “play Daft Punk,
Discovery” and Home will fire it up and play it either out of its speaker or any Google Cast-enabled speaker you own. Just note this doesn’t work with plain Bluetooth speakers.
For now, one disadvantage of Home compared to the Echo is a lack of third-party integrations. That should change over time, however, with developers able to produce their own integrations via Conversation Actions and the Conversation API that’s currently used for developing commands for Google Assistant.
Google Home can also connect to many IoT devices, meaning you can get it to turn your lights on with a simple voice command or prescribed phrase. Naturally, if you own a Nest thermostat then you can tell it to turn to a set temperature, but the Home goes well beyond Google’s own products.
During a Google demo inside a completely connected smart home, I experienced being able to say “Okay Google, start my day” and have Home turn up my lights, knock the thermostat up to a more palatable 20 degrees and start an internetconnected kettle boiling. (Sadly, it’s not clever enough to fill the kettle itself. Yet.) Saying “Okay Google, I’m leaving now” saw it drop the temperature back down again to around 15 degrees and switch off all the lights and nonessential connected electronics.
It’s not perfect, however, as it did stumble on occasion when trying to recognise my requests. It also feels like we’re constantly playing catch-up with the US in terms of features. Ask it to play your YouTube “Watch later” playlist and it will say it’s locked behind the paid-for YouTube Red service – something we still don’t have in the UK. Likewise, US
“Google Home is so contextually aware that you will occasionally think there’s some sort of trickery going on”