At its I/O conference in May, Google showed off Home , its answer to Amazon’s Echo . The voice-activated device is designed to work with Google Assistant and answer your questions, control music playback through its built-in speaker and control your home’s IoT gadgets.
Android Police reports that its sources have confirmed that Google will formally announce Home at its October 4 event , where the company is expected to unveil a ton of new hardware.
Credit: Google
The Home will reportedly be priced at $129 and will be available with personalized base covers. It’ll likely work like a voice-based version of Assistant, which is presently only available in Google’s new Allo messaging app .
It’ll be interesting to see if this hots up the market for home automation devices. At that price point, Google’s offering will come in at $40 less than Amazon’s Echo and match its lower-end Tap speaker .
Google and Amazon may not be the only ones duking it out for the chance to run your connected home: Bloomberg’s sources noted last week that Apple is building a similar gadget that integrates the company’s HomeKit platform to talk to other devices around yourhouse.
Android Police also noted that the rumored 4K-capable Chromecast , also slated to be unveiled next month, will likely get a $69 price tag, along with HDR output support. Luckily, we only have to wait a little more than a week to know for sure.