The announcement was made during Google I/O
According to the company’s announcement during the Google I/O 2017 Developer conference which took place earlier today, Google Home will be getting a new feature sometime soon.
The ability to make phonecalls via Google Home is a great addition, especially since Amazon also added voice call functionality to Echo not too long ago.
In the beginning, the device will support outgoing calls. This means there will be no way to call the Home speaker itself from another smartphone or even another Home device.
This feature is quite nice to have and will certainly come in handy as you move around the house trying to clean up before guests arrive or, even better, figure out you want to grab a pizza to eat while watching shows on Netflix.
The calls will be completely free of charge to numbers in the United States and Canada, so we’re likely going to see a steep increase in usage just because of that.
It seems that when you’ll make a call, the person you’re calling will see a private number on the screen. Since it’s become a habit for people to avoid picking up the phone when private numbers are displayed, you will be able to pair your own cell number to the feature to avoid this whole issue.
If your Home device supports multiple users, then every one of them will be able to pair their own phone number and Home will tell them apart.
During the announcement, Google took the time to make a dig at Amazon by saying that it will only be supporting outbound calls to be mindful of customer privacy. This refers to Amazon’s Echo devices which don’t allow customers to block incoming calls from individuals. The company has received quite a bit of criticism over this, so much in fact that it plans to add a block feature in the coming weeks.
— Google (@Google) May 17,2017
