Google Home

Google Home
Category	Intelligent Personal Assistants
Developer	Google, Inc.
Announced	4th October 2016
Released	Developers: N/A Consumers: 4 November 2016
Price	129 USD
Operating system	Android, iOS
Controls	voice, button
Data available	good
Risk factor
Not offline
Device
https://madeby.google.com/home/

Google Home is a "smart home" device developed by Google, Inc.. Similarly to Amazon Echo, it is a voice-activated intelligent personal assistant speaker designated as a standalone device for use in households, unlike other personal assistants, such as Cortana or Siri, which require a smartphone or a computer to work. It is powered by Google's own intelligent personal assistant software, Google Assistant.

It provides the user with various services, ranging from alarm, calculator, or a weather forecast, through translator, daily news, playing music, or TV streaming, to traffic and travel information, shopping, thermostat and light control, as well as many others. It also offers access to a number of partner services, including YouTube, Spotify, Netflix, IFTTT, WeMo, Google Calendar and Google Photos.

Google Home was released on 4 November 2016 in the United States of America for $129, and on 6 April 2017 it was also made available in the United Kingdom for £129. On 2 June 2017 it became available for pre-order in Canada for $179.00 CDN with a retail date of 26 June 2017. So far, it has not been released in any other countries, but Google aims to expand it soon also to Australia, as well as Germany, France and Japan. In addition to English, it is also gaining support for multiple languages: French, German, Brazilian Portuguese and Japanese soon with Italian, Spanish and Korean coming later.

Main characteristics

Google Home is a cylindrically shaped device approximately 14.3 centimeters high, and 9.6 centimeters in diameter. The top surface of the device has a touch-capacitive control panel and four multi-colored LED lights indicating that it is working. The device consists of two parts: first, the main white-colored body equipped with the control panel, two microphones with far-field voice recognition, and an integrated high-excursion speaker (2" driver with dual 2" passive radiators), and second, the base that can be customized with different colors and finishes to reflect the user's personal style (the default base comes in slate fabric, while the other colors need to be bought separately). The device connects to the Internet via Wi-Fi and cannot work offline. It is not battery-powered and thus needs to be connected to a power outlet.

The user can activate the device either by pressing the top panel for a couple of seconds or saying the wake word ("OK Google" or "Hey Google"). If done correctly, the four LED lights on the top of the device turn on indicating that it has caught the user's attention and is ready to listen to his or her demands. After that the user can begin issuing commands using plain language. These are received by the device's two microphones, and processed by its software, which then generates appropriate response in synthetic voice and, if the user asks for more than just some sort of information, performs the desired action.

Unlike its rival, Amazon Echo, it is even capable of recognizing different voices, and thus generating personalized answers for different people. In the official video provided by Google, this is illustrated by a young man coming to kitchen in the morning saying "OK Google, tell me about my day", with the device responding with "Good morning, Alex. Traffic to work is heavy. It is forty-five minutes by car", and then his partner saying "Hey Google, tell me about my day", followed by the device's response "Good morning, Ross. By 10 a.m. you have your first meeting". It is possible to link up to six accounts to the Google Assistant built into the device via the Home app. When adding a new account, the device needs first to learn to recognize the new voice, which is done by saying "OK Google" and "Hey Google" - the wake words for the Home - two times each. Google Home will then use this training to distinguish between voices when receiving a command and respond accordingly. It can play customized playlists, in addition to telling the user about his or her schedule and commute. Non-recognized voices can of course still ask the device to look up information, play trivia, set a timer, control smart home devices etc.

Google Home is setup by the Home app in Android or iOS. After that it could be controlled by voice, app or remote control. It is linked with the devices via Bluetooth. It is supposed to work well even in a noisy environment due to its microphones' far-field voice recognition tech, but according to the review on TechRadar, its performance in this regard is a little weaker than Amazon Echo's, possibly due to its reliance on two microphones rather than its Amazon rival's five, meaning that the user may "end up repeating [himself or herself] or raising [his or her] voice to get its attention more". The review on CNET including a video demonstration of the two devices' listening and voice-recognition skills speaks otherwise, however, so their comparative performance is probably dependent on various factors and the overall differences are mostly negligible.

Similarly to Amazon Echo, Google Home can also be used to control other compatible household appliances such as the smart lightbulbs from Philips or Belkin, or the smart WeMo coffee maker, in addition to its personal assistant functions.

Since its release on 4 November 2016, the device has received several new features, such as the multi-user support mentioned above, and further upgrades are currently under development. These include hands-free calling, proactive assistance (e.g. warning the user of bad traffic before a commute), visual responses (via the user's smartphone or television), shortcuts (triggering multiple app commands and devices at once with a single command), and various entertainment upgrades.

Purpose

Google Home is a voice command-driven household smart speaker that allows the user to search for information, play music, stream TV, set tasks, make hands-free calls, shop, control various household appliances etc., as well as access various partner services, such as YouTube, Spotify, Netflix, IFTTT, WeMo, Google Calendar, Google Photos, and several others.

Company & People

Google Home has been developed by Google, Inc. based in Menlo Park, California, a leading subsidiary of Alphabet, Inc. based in Googleplex, Mountain View, California.

• Larry Page - co-founder of Google and CEO of Alphabet

• Sergey Brin - co-founder of Google and President of Alphabet

• Sundar Pichai - CEO of Google

• Mario Queiroz - VP of product management at Google, "the man behind Google Home"

Important Dates

4 October 2016 - the announcement of Google Home at the company's hardware-announcing event

4 November 2016 - the release date of Google Home for the United States of America

6 April 2017 - the release date of Google Home for the United Kingdom

26 June 2017 - the release date of Google Home for Canada

Enhancement/Therapy/Treatment

One feature of the enhancement provided by Google Home is the control of smart devices. While a considerably large amount of these is already available for households, such as "smart" lightbulbs, thermostats, coffee machines, or various switches, Google Home provides a solution to control them all at once via a single device. Since the development of "smart home" devices is still in its beginnings, one can expect that the variety of these will grow even further in the future. Similarly to Amazon Echo, Google Home also supports the IFTTT (if-this-then-that) app. This app allows the user to create even more complex commands than those available in the original list, such as "open the garage when my car enters a drive way" or "read the news headlines every day at 8 a.m.".

Another enhancing feature of Google Home is that it can provide various kind of information just after the voice command. It includes the weather forecast, the density of a traffic on the supposed way, the recipe, which its user requires for cooking and more. It could read headlines from the news and it could answers user's questions. Moreover, if asked to do so, it can also link the original online sources of the provided information (e.g. the recipe in question) on smartphone or computer. It is also capable, among other things, of converting currency, tuning musical instruments, booking flights, or translating between various languages.

Even though Google Home does not have an equivalent of Amazon Echo's "Skills", it supports a number of third party services, such as Uber or Domino's, thus enabling the user to order a taxi or purchase pizza by a single voice command. Other documented third party services supported by Google Home include 21 Blackjack, Best Dad Jokes, Product Hunt, Tender, or Todoist.

Google Home also offers a very helpful feature of remembering things. The user can simply ask the device to remember anything, preferably something about specific items, like "where you put it" or "what it is" (e.g. "OK Google, remember that I put my passport in the bottom drawer of my filing cabinet"), Google Home will confirm that it remembers what it has been told it by speaking it back to the user, and the user can then ask the device where that particular item is or what he or she said about it (e.g. "OK Google, where is my passport?"). While the remember feature of Google Home works best for items, the user is free to get creative and use it to remember other things, such as when he or she last did something (e.g. "OK Google, remember that I watered the hermit crabs this morning"; or "OK Google, remember that I called mom today"). In these cases, the feature is less reliable, however, and recalling the desired thing may prove to be somewhat difficult, because the user has to pay special attention to how he or she phrases the command. While it does not necessarily pose a problem in some cases ("OK Google, what did I tell you about the hermit crabs?"), in others it can get quite tricky and the exact phrase required can feel unnatural to say and can be even grammatically wrong ("OK Google, what did I tell you about 'called mom'?"). Thus, recalling the items Google Home has been told to remember can be finicky at times, especially if the user can't remember how he or she originally phrased the commands. To recall everything Google Home has been told to remember, however, the user can simply say "OK Google, what did I tell you to remember?". Google Home can be also asked to forget anything that it has remembered - for example, saying "OK Google, forget what I told you about my passport" will stop the device from storing anything it has been told to remember about the user's passport. However, as reported by CNET, managing everything Google Home has been told to remember is clunky at best. The only way to find out everything the user has had Google remember is apparently to ask. There's no way to manage it in the Google Home app. Moreover, the reminders for each remembered item have to be deleted individually, so it may take some time.

Because of voice control, Google Home can be very helpful for elderly and disabled people. Furthermore, it provides many new possibilities for disabled people, especially quadriplegic, and makes them more independent. It could be also easily controlled by visually impaired people.

Public & Media Impact and Presentation

https://www.cnet.com/news/google-home-vs-amazon-echo/

Public Policy

We have not recorded any public policy that regards Google Home yet.

Related Technologies, Projects or Scientific Research

http://www.techradar.com/news/buying-a-google-home-here-are-the-best-smart-home-products-to-go-along-with-it

https://www.wareable.com/google/google-home-august-smart-lock-logitech-harmony-4190

https://www.cnet.com/products/google-home/compatibility/