Google Home, with Google Assistant now available on pre-order for $129

By Ashwini Kuldeep on Oct 04, 2016 07:11 PM Email

google home announced

After showcasing the device at I/O, Google has officially announced its Amazon Echo competitor, the Google Home priced at $129. Not only has the company been able to under-cut Amazon on price, it is also offering a lot more in terms of functionality out of the box.

Google Home comes with a speaker built-in which can play music wirelessly through various online sources including Spotify, Google Play Music, YouTube, Pandora, TuneIn and iHeartRadio. It responds to "OK Google" voice command allowing you to control playback and ask questions. You can also stream music from your phone using Google Cast which is baked into several apps. With Home, you can answer messages, make calendar events or even modify them.

You can also ask Google Home your daily calendar, and it learns based on your habit. Say, you ask it to play tracks from your favorite artist, it will automatically choose the source which you use to listen to music most. You will also be able to control devices around your house with Google Home such as Chromecast.

google home design built

Coming to the device itself, there are notification LEDs up top which glow in Google Assistant colors and the entire top is a touchpad which lets you control music playback, increase/decrease volume or start voice control. There is a single front-firing speaker under the replaceable base, with one passive radiator on each side. On the connectivity front, you have dual-band WiFi ac and support for both Android/iOS devices.

Google Home is now available on pre-order for $129 from the Google Store, and you will also be able to buy it through BestBuy, Wallmart and Target. It will start shipping November 4th. There are a lot of options to choose from for the base including, Mango, Marine, Violet as fabric options while you can also go with matte metal finish in carbon, snow and copper.