Google Stepping Up To Challenge Amazon Echo With Voice-Activated Google Home Device

Digital assistants have proven handy companions for daily activities and reminders, and not just on smartphones, but more recently in standalone form as well. Amazon was first to really capitalize on the latter, and now Google's getting in the game—it's expected to announce a device similar to Echo called Google Home later today.

Google Home will be able to answer questions and perform basic tasks. The full extent of its capabilities will be made known when Google makes an official announcement, but you can expect that it will be able to play music, look up the weather, search the web for answers to questions, and more. And whether right out of the gate or sometime down the road, Google would be wise to bake in smart home integration, giving Google Home the ability to communicate with smart home products to control lighting, temperature, and so forth.


In the less than two years that Echo's been on the market, Amazon's sold around three million of them. And on the mobile front, digital assistants like Siri (Apple), Cortana (Microsoft), and Google Now (Google) are used daily by millions of people. Now we're starting to see A.I. companions move beyond the realm of mobile handsets.

Rumor has it Google's home appliance will resemble its OnHub wireless router. Google designed the OnHub so that users wouldn't shy away from displaying it as part of their home decor, as opposed to tucking it in the closet or someplace out of sight like most home routers.