Google Home

No device partners as of yet.

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Good point, although the actual devices were available to independent reviewers at the time of the announcement. So the devices were finalized, they were just waiting on demand to start the supply chain.

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Note that it is Google’s nature to ship an unfinished device to enlist developers and user feedback. Wear and Auto are no different.

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This will be replacing my echo really quick if they can get smartthings integration. The conversational dialog with google now in miles ahead of alexa. I love my echo but it does not hold a candle to google now when asking questions.

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No IFTTT at launch? That might hurt.

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I just hope this comes to the UK. It’s painful to not have echo here yet so first one to get to the UK will get my order (providing Google competes on price too)

Kraeg

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True, although echo had a very limited set of features when it was first released. IFTTT came in two phases and not until much later. Of course google home will have to compete with what echo already has, but I’m OK if the features rollout overtime as long as they are valuable and work well when they do arrive.

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I am okay with that as well, but with Google’s experience working with IFTTT already (Android and OnHub channels specifically), I was hoping to see it at launch, even if partially neutered to just get the idea out there and get some basic interactions with the other services.

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Well to be fair, Google announced 20 launch partners, I don’t believe they said they were the only 20 launch partners. It’s my hope that some of these missing partnerships come to light soon.

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Want! Want! Want! In the UK :joy:

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Google has a pretty good history of opening their products to run on both Google and Apple ecosystem. They could have kept many apps for the Android ecosystem and they never have. So I don’t think they will do the same with Home. The whole key is always integration with other “things” as much as possible. Opposite to the Apple model, of only allowing tio run their products with their hardware (with the exception of a few products like iTunes and Apple Music)

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Google has been working on multi-language voice recognition with context aware, predictive correction for almost a decade. using huge samplings from services like Google Voice, GOOG411, and Now. From the standpoint of the voice aspect of this, Amazon is still in pre-school.

The integrations and API? We’ll have to wait and see, but after all, that is the easy part. It simply depends on who and what Google wants to include. I would love to see Google services integrated into my smart home, making it actually smart rather than automated (aware of my schedule, location history, travel plans, and entertainment choices, etc.). While my fingers are crossed for an eventual SmartThings integration, TBH they haven’t done all that well at anything over the past couple of years so who knows.

Because of this, it wouldn’t take too much for me to move on to something else if many of the currently missing pieces are included. This represents a huge new data market for Google in a world where many mobile markets are nearing saturation. I am willing to bet that, in their own way, they’re going all in on this and that is exciting for someone that is invested in their services as heavily as I am.

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I was referring to the ongoing rift between Amazon and Google that was born out of content discrimination. Can’t remember where it started, but you won’t see Amazon content on Google or Android TV, and I think the reverse can be said for Fire (with the undeniable exception of the behemoth YouTube). And there is the fork of Android that Amazon is using for their devices, and their own app store; clearly Amazon does not want to play nice with Google (or vice versa), even though it would greatly improve the customer experience for both sides.

This represents a huge new data market for Google in a world where many mobile markets are nearing saturation.

Are you talking about data collection or market penetration? TBH, I don’t see this device as contributing much to either in the near term. It won’t be as cheap as chromecast, and won’t provide the same utility of a phone/tablet. It is essentially an accessory to your phone, much like Google Wear.

I think what could make this product great is the developers, given a decent API.

I hope to also see Apple enter this market come WWDC, but they REALLY need to revamp Siri.

What? I remember waiting months for an invite to buy the echo, and that was as a prime member only.

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Data. I don’t know about you, but since having an Echo, I ask far more from it than I do my phone (exponentially so), even though it is many times less useful. I just don’t have to find my phone and unlock it. This device will provide the thing that Google is in business for; like the Chromecast, Chrome, and Android. They don’t need to profit from sales of the device.

As for how well it will sell, the echoes did pretty well, and if you remember they were not much more than a novelty item/toy at launch. Given the number of Android users currently searching Google with voice, I think this is gonna be big. Hopefully they won’t do something stupid and price it like the OnHub, and I don’t think they will as this thing will come out of Google’s hardware team (R. Osterloh) and not from third party OEMs.

In any event, I am standing by
 credit card in hand.

Yeah, I don’t know what I was thinking.

I asked Alexa, “Alexa, what do you think about Google Home?” and she said something to the effect of “I don’t know. Search me. Or search Google - they’re pretty good at it” :slight_smile:

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Amazon needs to drop Bing as the search engine, that is half why it sucks.

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I just re-watched the Home video they showed this morning (as it seems I am becoming a little obsessed about this gadget). The scene with the wife/mom in her bedroom
 was that a push notification she got about her flight delay?

Sweet.

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