The Google Home Mini Is Google’s $49 Answer to the Echo Dot

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/10/the-google-home-mini-is-googles-answer-to-amazons-echo-dot/

by artsandsci • 9 years ago

94 42 9 years ago

tmzt3• 9 years ago

I choose Amazon for this because they are dedicated to it, it's a contributor to thei e-commerce business, and there is plenty of reason to believe they will still work a few years from now.

I have no such belief with Google in this case, it's one hobby among many disconnected from their main business. It is search but not web search.

I'm also building a snips.co device and am very interested in offline speach recognition both for pricacy and utility reasons.

johansch• 9 years ago

Google not serious/dedicated about voice-based search?

I can buy the argument that they are not as dedicated as Amazon when it comes to selling stuff via voice, but search via voice? They have been at it for like a decade already.

untog• 9 years ago

Google has voice-based functionality pretty deeply embedded into Android - I really don't think it's going anywhere.

By contrast, I chose a Google Home over an Alexa because I think Google is better at AI - I am consistently surprised by how many random questions the Home can answer.

Klathmon8• 9 years ago

Yeah, Google is really throwing their weight behind "AI". It seems like it's the most likely candidate that could eventually replace search as their "main product".

msabalau• 9 years ago

Like Amazon stuck with their phone?

Nilef• 9 years ago

What hardware are you using with Snips?

tmzt3• 9 years ago

Pi 3 and a USB mic, I'd like to do the full build but am focused on other projects.

SriniK• 9 years ago

As a dad, my killer app on Google Home is playing youtube audio/video. Alexa can't match it. Then almost all the integrations I care are already available on Google Home - Smarthings and Nest.

I tried multiple times playing Alexa, it doesn't come close to Google Home's voice recognition capabilities.

tmzt3• 9 years ago

Well, first, this is my opinion.

I do agree that they are dedicated to AI and voice and will make that central to their search offerings.

What I haven't seen from them is dedication to one particular version or variation of anything for more than a few years. It was Google Talk, then what Hangouts, and now Hello, which is also how you talk to bots, but if you want to talk to the Assistant, that's OK, Google.

I don't want hardware were the API is just shutdown because they 'retired' this and went on to something new.

The YouTube use-case sounds useful, particularly with Chromecast, and I wish I could do that with Alexa, but then giants must always butt heads.

As far as snips, I prefer to have more control of this type of solution, but building-your-own-airplane takes time that $50 on an Echo Dot does not. (Google had no similarly priced offering at that time.)

melling• 9 years ago

Is Google twice as smart as Siri?

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/02/google-ai-has-almost-twice-t...

I’m considering adding one of these to my family of iOS devices. Siri is cool when it works, but I’d like something a little better. That, and I won’t have to watch my watch, phone, and tablet competing to answer my questions.

Finally, and most importantly, according to the article, Google appears to be improving the fastest.

arcanus• 9 years ago

I like the idea but I call foul at generalizing this result.

Google's artificial intelligence technology has a considerably higher I.Q. than Apple's Siri virtual assistant,

This is device specific, and was done with phones, not home assistants. The google home device might be less intelligent, if it has lower local compute. This is also highly dependent on the quality of the microphone.

Finally, I suspect both companies are re-training the 'nets often, so these results are in flux.

neuronexmachina• 9 years ago

The google home device might be less intelligent, if it has lower local compute.

Other than some minor sound processing, does any of the assistant behavior on either Google Home or phones actually happen locally?

hammock• 9 years ago

All requests are sent to the cloud for both services, there is no relevant local compute

Klathmon8• 9 years ago

I love and use our 2 google homes on a daily basis, but they get significantly more useful if you are in google's ecosystem and have home automation.

For me, i'd give a super rough guess at my usage like this:

* 60% home automation (turning on and off lights when hands are full, ensuring doors are locked and garage door is closed, running "shortcuts" like "i'm leaving" which will lock up and arm the alarm in 5 minutes, etc...)

* 15% playing and controlling music/tv shows on various devices in the house (tv's with chromecasts, the home itself, etc...)

* 10% as a shopping list (it makes a damn good shopping list and it's nice as hell to be able to just yell at the thing to add "frosted mini wheats to the shopping list" the second you run out and have it synced to the whole family's phones)

* 9% as a "day planner" of sorts. Generally each morning I tell it "good morning" and it tells me the weather, things on my calendar, and starts playing some news snippets I setup.

* 5% for timers/alarms (really useful while cooking to be able to shout at it to start a timer for 15 minutes then walk away)

* 1% for the dumb trivia lookups/random information. Stuff like "how many calories in X?" or "when was the Apple II released?"

r00fus2• 9 years ago

Sorry to be the luddite, but these devices just seem like first-world-only interest to me.

I have no desire to automate my house (I can see why others do). I don't have a home alarm. I have one TV in the house for several kids.

The day planner/shopping list is good, but I pull out my phone instead and speak to it (when I press home button).

Finally, is everyone really comfortable having always-on listening in their home? The convenience/creepy ratio just doesn't seem prudent for me. It's amusing to see how privacy oriented HN is yet these devices are so popular here - they're an unaudited vector into your most private moments.

casey_lang• 9 years ago

Does it have a good shopping list? I've had a Home since they were released and used to use the shopping list feature all the time when it was backed by Keep.

At one point they moved it into some web app that I could only access from my phone by spelunking through the Home app. Has that changed?

When it worked, it was great.

CobrastanJorji2• 9 years ago

Can you tell me more about this "ensure garage door is closed" thing? Is there something I can buy to make that happen, or do you have some sort of home brewed thing?

StringyBob• 9 years ago

Does it have a headphone socket? All I want from my google home devices is better control over the audio, and it seems the only way I can do that is plug it into my own amp.

Edit. Nope. However the latest software lets you change default audio device for media playback to a chromecast audio. That's halfway there - what I'd like is to redirect the entire audio stream (so spoken answers too!)

Alternatively, can we get a software update to add EQ on the google home? At moderate volumes my neighbours can hear the bass through the walls for a home :(

bmelton2• 9 years ago

It doesn't. It might support bluetooth headphones, as the tech specs indicate that it does have Bluetooth and WiFi, but the only physical port, sadly, is Micro-USB, which is weird to me that it isn't USB-C.

I keep hoping that one of these magic boxes we keep seeing is going to be implemented with an optical port so that I'll have a viable replacement for my Sonos, but I guess I'm back to waiting for Sonos to integrate Google Home or Alexa or whatever they plan to integrate for me to get everything tied in.

Edit: I guess if I'd checked my email a little bit earlier, I might have noticed that they apparently just started preorders for the Sonos One with Alexa integrated.

http://www.sonos.com/en-us/shop/one.html

deskamess• 9 years ago

Google Home Max : "it also has an auxiliary port so you can connect it to a turntable or other speaker".

NocturnalWaffle• 9 years ago

No, that's only for audio in to play with the Max's speakers. What he wants is audio out to play google's responses on something else (Which is a feature of the Echo Dot, so you can use a better speaker)

michaelbuckbee• 9 years ago

The Echo Dot does and I do exactly this Spotify (from everything) going to the dot -> amp -> speakers.

It works well.

kurtpara• 9 years ago

I want to use my Google Home more but don't because of the bass. Its been a year and the most basic features aren't even out there yet. (I should have known better)

bazizbaziz• 9 years ago

I notice on the tech spec's page that the Mini also has bluetooth [0]. Would love to know if this means all connected homes will play (the same) audio via bluetooth.

[0] https://store.google.com/product/google_home_mini_specs

wonder_bread• 9 years ago

It's unfortunate the amazing advances Google's been making with its ml software are being packaged up into a bunch of happenstance hardware offerings.

EADGBE• 9 years ago

I don't want X Company's answer to Y Company's product.

I want all this siloing to disappear and fricken make technology better.

The Google Home Mini Is Google’s $49 Answer to the Echo Dot

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