At its annual hardware event, Google today unveiled a cheaper and smaller variant of its smart speaker – Google Home Mini. Google has included what they are calling a “Smart Sound” system into this device, which can supposedly optimize the sound of the speaker depending on where it is sitting in the room.
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Google’s live event at San Francisco is now commencing as we speak.
Google Home Max or Apple’s HomePod?
To improve the sound even further the Home Max can actually tune itself to make sure the best listening experience is achieved no matter which room it’s placed in.
In fact, the Google Home Max is quite a bit larger than the standard Google Home.
Alongside Google’s product reveals today, including the new Pixelbook and the Pixel 2 phone, the company has made considerable effort to improve its voice assistant speaker lineup. It works with Chromecast to play video from YouTube or Netflix on any TV in your house.
Perhaps the most intriguing new feature is Smart Sound. Both speakers are due to hit stores in December.
Google has another web-connected speaker to join its family of Google Home speakers. The speaker has Google Assistant with Voice Match built in, making it “your own personal DJ”. The top has a touch surface with volume controls, playback controls, assistant activation, and microphone on and off. The ability to use Google Home devices as a speakerphone is coming to the United Kingdom later this week, and users will be able to associate their Google Home with their mobile phone number for caller ID.
Really, the only real reason to pick the HomePod is if you’re already tied into Apple’s ecosystem (which many of us are).
Retailing for $399, Google says its 20 times more powerful than the original speaker. Both the Echo Dot and Home Mini support Stuff’s favourite streaming service, but this is where your setup comes in.
The Home Max, which comes in chocolate and charcoal colors, is available in the United States at launch and will come to more countries in 2018.
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Neither of these smart speakers is created to play room-filling music.
