Google Home

It’s Tuesday!, Technology day and today we’re talking about Google Home! Google Home, an Amazon Echo rival, was announced on 18 May 2016 at Google's I/O 2016 keynote event. It's a speaker which lets you have a conversation with the Google Assistant - another new feature announced at the launch.I really wish Google would give its Assistant a pretty name. But oh well, here’s what we know about it so far:

It's a small speaker you plug into the wall with always-listening, far-field microphones that can hear you from across the room. It'll answer your questions, play your music, and control some of your home automation gadgets.

Google Home was announced on 18 May 2016 and Google didn't give a specific date of release. However, the plan is to release it later this year, probably in time for Christmas, but potentially earlier. Android N will most likely be launched with the 2016 Nexus phones (between September and December) if previous trends are followed, and all of the services and platforms Google just announced - including Daydream VR Mode - will be baked into the OS. This means Google Home could be ready at a similar time, although nothing was mentioned about which countries would get it.

Naturally, at this early stage price was not mentioned. However given that the Amazon Echo in the US costs $179.99 (NGN63,720) we expect Google to rival Amazon's product, not least because Google CEO Sundar Pichai said "all credit to Amazon for creating interest in this space" during the unveiling. Furthermore, we hope to see it available worldwide, unlike the Amazon Echo which is limited to the US at present. We hope PCadvisor’s speculation about the cost of Google Home being under NGN76,500 in Nigeria is about right, which we think is a reasonable price to pay for a multi-functional smart-home device. And who knows, the Naira just may get stronger

We wouldn’t be surprised if Google Home actually costs a lot less, though: as we'll explain below the specification is very similar to the company's $35 Chromecast streaming stick with some additions to the design.

Sources: pcadvisor; verge.com