At this morning’s Google Hardware event in New York City, the company officially unveiled the Google Home Hub, a smart display integrated with Google Assistant that will provide a visual element to augment its smart speaker and will be available October 22 for $150.
The Google Home Hub is now official. The smart display with Google Assistant voice assistant was confirmed this week at Google’s Hardware event, and it comes in four different colors.
Unlike the Amazon Echo Show, the device doesn’t have a camera and relies heavily on Nest smart home integration and YouTube functionalities as features. The device is now available for pre-order for $150, a price that is heavily competitive with the Echo Show ($230) and the Lenovo Smart Display, which starts at $199. It will ship on October 22. Here’s what else we know.
Like most smart speakers, it handles a lot of everyday entertainment and productivity functions like issuing commands, making shopping lists, and placing audio calls to friends and businesses. Like other Google Assistant-supported devices, it uses a voice-matching function to identify separate users and deliver their calendar, commute, and reminders, augmented by the new screen visuals.
More importantly, it will integrate seamlessly with Nest’s ecosystem of products as well as Philips Hue lightbulbs and August smart locks, among others. As with similar Google devices, the Google Home Hub supports more than 10,000 products across more than 1,000 popular brands. Those with a Nest Hello video doorbell will be able to answer the door using the Google Home Hub.
One interesting feature is that it has a pull-down menu that gives users instant access to smart home devices.
The Google Home Hub will also allow access to Google photos, allowing users to enable “Live Albums” to create slideshows by identifying people that the user wants to see regularly, such as friends or family members. Users can also simply albums on the fly with voice commands like, “Hey Google, show me my photos from New York City.” The HD display will also play videos from YouTube, and the Hub will come with free six months of a YouTube Premium subscription.
The touch screen is a bit smaller than competitors at seven inches, and it looks a bit like a mini TV propped up by a fabric block. Google officials note that the Hub is “small enough to fit into any space in your home,” while also being “big enough to enjoy your photos from across the room.”
It weighs about 17 ounces, and its dimensions run about 7 inches by 4.5 inches with a surprisingly robust depth of 2.65 inches. It weighs the same as the standard Google Home, which means the engineers have been tinkering with its guts to make it lighter.
There are two physical controls: a volume rocker and a privacy switch to turn off the microphone to stop the device from listening for “OK, Google” voice commands. It turns out the Google Home Hub will be available in four colors: chalk, charcoal, aqua, and sand (read: white, dark grey, light blue and pink).
A smart home dashboard called “Home View” means that Hub users can swipe down on the touchscreen to access to every smart home gadgets, such as lights, locks, plugs, thermostats, cameras and speakers. It’s also available on the new Pixel 3 phone.
Possibly the most interesting feature of the Home Hub is what it doesn’t have: a camera. In a week when Facebook unveiled its Facebook Portal and Portal+ smart speakers with cameras which allows users to chat with Facebook friends, Google’s decision seems counter-intuitive but also wise for consumers who are concerned about privacy. Users may be more likely to use the Google Home Hub as a bedroom clock or nightlight. Google officials said the lack of a camera was intentional for privacy reasons, so people feel comfortable placing it in a bedroom or even the bathroom.
The nightlight feature may be especially attractive given the news that the device has a new feature called Ambient EQ, which uses a dedicated light sensor to fine-tune the color and brightness of the display. Whether in the bedroom, kitchen or living room, the display will adjust its brightness in accordance with daytime sun or evening home lighting. When it’s time for bed, the Hub will also automatically dim the screen so users can sleep.
Finally, Google is looking out for the family market in consciously building in family-friendly filters not only for voice commands but also for content. In addition to a “downtime mode” that prevents it from interacting with anyone, other than alarms, the Hub also has parental control settings to block explicit content including images and audio content like lyrics in music.
Updated October 9,2018 to publish the details of the Google Home Hub as reported at the Google Hardware event.
