21 ms·

Google Home

577 points by stuartmemo 10y ago

koolba 10y ago
RFP - Request For Project 1. Train Google Home to recognize Amazon Echo's voice as its owner. 2. Train Amazon Echo to recognize Siri's voice as its owner 3. Train Siri to recognize Google Home's voice as its owner 4. Kick start some kind of endless loop between the three of them.
- mevile 10y ago
  Amazon's Echo doesn't have an owner concept. I didn't think Siri did either. My Echo can take commands from anyone, there's no authentication at all outside of initial set up with your Amazon account. My daughter and I have completely different voices and we use it without problems.
  - koolba 10y ago
    > Amazon's Echo doesn't have an owner concept. I didn't think Siri did either. My Echo can take commands from anyone, there's no authentication at all outside of initial set up with your Amazon account. My daughter and I have completely different voices and we use it without problems. By owner I mean the voice that it's trained to respond to (not in an authentication sense). See [1] and [2]. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201601940 https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=... [2]: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/83995/20150913/ios-9-includes-voice-training-for-siri-to-help-her-recognize-your-voice.htm http://www.techtimes.com/articles/83995/20150913/ios-9-inclu...
  - Merad 10y ago
    Siri learns your voice if you activate the "Hey Siri" option. AFAIK it doesn't affect normal [manual] commands.
  - 4684499 10y ago
    https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204389#hey https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204389#hey
- jslakro 10y ago
  What about Watson?
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    Can you buy a Watson and put it on your shelf?
    - PeCaN 10y ago
      About as much as you can buy Amazon Echo or Google Home actually. At least IBM makes very clear what the usage conditions of Watson are, and it's fully extensible.
      - TeMPOraL 10y ago
        So you're saying IBM offers something that could be turned into an Echo-like system? Do you have any links on how to do that? I'm interested.
        PeCaN 10y ago
        Watson's basically a "bring-your-own-knowledge-base" NLP platform. There's the developer site[1] if you can manage to read through IBM's marketing speak[2]. The docs are pretty good. -- 1. http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibmwatson/developercloud/ http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibmwatson/developercl... 2. It's rather amusing, but IBM has a ton of really smart people making cool stuff, then a ton of marketing people seemingly pitching at someone other than the target audience and making it sound dumb. If you can wade through the marketing BS, Watson is very cool.
- allemagne 10y ago
  I think you just wrote Friday's xkcd
  - tlrobinson 10y ago
    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11270758 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11270758
- ComodoHacker 10y ago
  Cortana gets jealous for being out of the party.
struct 10y ago
Looks neat, let's hope Google leads in 3rd party applications too and not just in appearance. Also interesting that they specifically gave a shout out to the Alexa team.
beilharz 10y ago
This gives me a 404.
- stuartmemo 10y ago
  Weird, can a mod change the link to https? That seems to be working - https://home.google.com/ https://home.google.com/
  - adamqureshi 10y ago
    This URL works. The main link returns a 404
pbnjay 10y ago
I find it odd that Google is going to take so long to get this out the door - "later this year" seems like ages. Did they start on the hardware that late? Amazon has what, 6 months to get more competitive on the search/trivia front? or this is going to kill it.
- martincmartin 10y ago
  The hardware for this is the easiest part. Understanding voice that's far from the microphone (sound gets muffled, echos off walls, etc.), with other sounds in the background, is significantly harder than understanding speech near the microphone.
  - harigov 10y ago
    Didn't they already solved that problem for implementing "OK Google"?
  - pbnjay 10y ago
    "OK Google", Google Now, their voice recognition tech, and NLP recognition are far far past Echo's version. So if the hardware is that easy this should have been out yesterday. The even mentioned earlier in the keynote how they've been training it Google assistant with background noise.
    - hiddencost 10y ago
      Speech recognition is a lot harder than you'd think, and the problems of far field speech recognition especially. All of google's in-house ASR (and wakeword) has been dedicated to near-field devices. Speech is not a "solve it once and it works everywhere" kind of problem. I would ballpark that Google needed to collect 10k hours of _far-field_ speech to train this to a level that was acceptable for the enormous variety of noise conditions and accents that a far-field system needs to work on. That scale of data collection takes time and a lot of trench-warfare effort.
      - pbnjay 10y ago
izolate 10y ago
Looks like something that should've been under the Nest brand. Whatever happened to that?
- cookiecaper 10y ago
  This is competing with the Amazon Echo. It's more oriented toward the Google brand because it's about searching for information. Obviously, Google still wants people to think of Google whenever they want to know something, even if the search is conducted by voice.
- demian0311 10y ago
  You're right. When I got the Nest products I assumed Google would foster integration with them. If I can't raise my Nest thermometer by voice with this then that'll be Google training me once again to not invest in their platforms.
  - angryasian 10y ago
    During the presentation they specifically mentioned integration with Nest and other at home integrations
  - chrisper 10y ago
    You know that you can already do this right? https://nest.com/support/article/How-do-Google-voice-actions-and-Google-Now-work-with-the-Nest-Thermostat https://nest.com/support/article/How-do-Google-voice-actions...
    - danellis 10y ago
      I didn't know that. Thanks for the link!
- makomk 10y ago
  Apparently Nest are having trouble actually releasing anything. There were rumours in the press about this being developed outside of the Nest group for that reason a while back.
bbunqq 10y ago
You too can bring a slice of 1984 into your home with this lovely crafted listening device!
- Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
  It's scary how close this is to being one of 1984's telescreen devices. I might even argue that it basically _is_ a telescreen considering Google's previous dealings with state actors, though with some of the 451-style "you asked for this" as opposed to the 1984-style "this is forced on you".
  - SmellyGeekBoy 10y ago
    Surely a laptop is closer? What with webcams being standard equipment and all.
    - Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
      Well, the laptop doesn't necessarily send everything you say near it to Google HQ.
      - ryandrake 10y ago
        Don't give them any more ideas, jeez.
- dominotw 10y ago
  Google phone can now do 'ok google' behind lock screen.
  - chinathrow 10y ago
    And it can screen capture any app it likes to. So, it could read SMS, Signal chats etc etc.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    Only if the phone is connected to a charger, at least on mine. If it could always do "ok Google" on a phone regardless of whether or not it is connected, it would be infinitely more useful. Since I opted in to use Google Now in the first place, I actually want that.
xiphias 10y ago
,,Always on call'' - it just got the worst memories for me of waking up at 3am
free2rhyme214 10y ago
Competition against Amazon Echo is always positive for consumers.
- vox_mollis 10y ago
  Perhaps, but bear in mind that Google is a PRISM partner, whereas Amazon is not. The NSA will likely record every sound from your house, if you own this. Edit: Downvoters, please educate me on where I am wrong. Thanks.
  - profmonocle 10y ago
    > The NSA will likely record every sound from your house, if you own this. It would be very easy to detect something fishy was going on. Even if the device was locked down and the connection was encrypted, they couldn't hide it if the device was uploading large volumes of data with no explanation.
    - vox_mollis 10y ago
      There is a very simple out, here. Google could simply claim that they do all audio processing in the cloud. They wouldn't need to hide it.
      - profmonocle 10y ago
        Siri, Google Now, and the Amazon Echo do audio processing in the cloud, but only after they've been triggered by "OK Google" "Hey Siri", or "Alexa". (Or by hitting a button.) It'd be pretty odd, and terribly inefficient, if the Google Home did hotword detection in the cloud.
    - hellbanner 10y ago
      Eh, the NSA can get it from Google instead of bothering with each individual device.
    - ricardobeat 10y ago
will_brown 10y ago
When Windows10/Cortana was released my buddy attached a mixer/switch to his PC allowing him to wire input mics and sound speakers to every room in his house. And though I can't see any personal uses for such a device, he swears it has changed his life, and the only thing I believe he does with it is tells Cortana to play Van Halan first thing when he wakes up.
- Roritharr 10y ago
  I love the image of an old stasi officer seeing the current trend of people paying good money to effectively bug their own appartments. It must be surreal to them.
  - nisa 10y ago
    Stasi used people to bug on people as early as in high school - it was at least in my opinion much more nefarious than passive mass surveillance - at least it's different. I'm from the former GDR and they wreaked havoc over countless families over seemingly bullshit things. So it's difficult to compare IMHO. But I guess it's not an impossible technical problem to train some machine learning algorithm to classify the voices and the conversation in the room and detect typical behavior patterns of a crime and be it smoking weed with friends.
- Morgawr 10y ago
  >the only thing I believe he does with it is tells Cortana to play Van Halan first thing when he wakes up This is pretty much my usage at the moment with the Google Assistant. I tried it this morning for the first time. I sleep with my tablet on the bed next to me (I have a very big bed and a very small room, so I use half of my bed as a makeshift shelf). I woke up and went "Ok Google, play me some music, please" and then I gently woke up with the sound of whatever I had in my library. Then I went to take a shower and realized that voice commands are really super useful for that situation. I used them to change songs or tell Google to play me different songs. The only annoying thing at the moment is that the microphone input seems to be calibrated to a much higher volume than conversational voice so I end up shouting "OK GOOGLE" multiple times to get it to register and I'm pretty sure my flatmates aren't thrilled at that idea.
romanovcode 10y ago
Haha, no thank you. i don't want google to listen to everything I say in my house. Next thing you know it's going to tell me is "Smith! Put more effort in those crunches!".
- Grazester 10y ago
  You say that like its a bad thing. I busted my back yesterday at the gym with improper form on a dead lift. If I had some kind of assistant watching me to correct my form then I would not be eating pain killers now trying to get an appointment to see a doctor all while having tingling sensations in my feet.
  - mod 10y ago
    The difference is requesting it or not. You should probably work with a trainer until your form is correct.
  - glitch003 10y ago
    Someone's building a product for this: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/biometrix-an-evolution-in-athletic-rehab https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/biometrix-an-evolution-in...
jredwards 10y ago
Google Nope
cheald 10y ago
When I was younger, I dreamed of something like this. Voice control for my home! A Star Trek computer that I can interact with conversationally! I just say what I want and it happens! Now, I just see an internet-connected microphone in a software black box which I can only interpret as a giant frickin' security liability. I want this, but unless it's open source top-to-bottom, I won't ever actually put one in my home. We know too much about how these things can be abused for me to ever seriously consider it without being able to verify for myself what it's doing and why.
- surge 10y ago
  MyCroft? https://mycroft.ai/ https://mycroft.ai/
  - niutech 10y ago
    or Jasper.
- jff 10y ago
  You probably have on in your pocket already, is the thing. (I agree though, I don't want this in my house, and I turned off the "Ok Google" functionality on my phone)
  - cheald 10y ago
    I do. And I recognize the hypocrisy of that. I think the difference for me is that my phone isn't a permanent fixture in my house - it's not explicitly a surveillance device. Echo/Home are explicitly audio surveillance devices, though ostensibly benevolent in their design. I can stick my phone in a Faraday bag easily enough if I want to. I guess what it comes down to is that while I recognize that I sacrifice a measure of potential for privacy with my phone, I judge the benefits to be worth it. I can't say the same for Echo/Home, and it somehow feels qualitatively different in that phones aren't designed to be always-on microphones constantly processing audio to send it off to a server somewhere else for analysis. To be honest, I trust that Google and Amazon are probably acting in my best interests with these products, for the most part. I don't think it's all an evil conspiracy to get microphones and cameras into my inner sanctum or anything. I believe it's very possible for a product like this to be mutually beneficial for provider and consumer. And hey, if a state actor wants to surveil me, it's going to happen regardless of these devices being in my house. But as we've learned just how fragile security is, it seems foolish to me to rush off to install black-box monitoring devices all over and just hope that they do what we think they are doing. I love the idea of these things, but they are such potentially powerful windows into our lives that I think that we have to be really sure the value they provide is worth the security risk they entail.
fizzbatter 10y ago
I'm dying for an Echo / Home that is fully api friendly and allows custom keywords. I want to buy an interface to my own home assistant. I want a hackers friend. Sure, offline-capable would be great too, but for now just give me the damn api hooks. :s edit: Note that i believe Echo has a pretty good API. I just don't want to talk to echo haha. I want to talk to my system.
- ewindisch 10y ago
  The Echo not only allows you to extend its vocabulary, Amazon offers the Echo functionality as as a service that any developer can use from their own hardware. If you wanted to use your own voice recognition and natural language processing, you could easily tie that into open source vocabulary that has been written for Echo.
  - fizzbatter 10y ago
    Yea, i hear the API is quite good - i should have been more clear, it sounds like for me the main blocker is the trigger word. But yea, what i would want is to literally take all input from the Echo, have amazon/echo transcribe it to text, and then send it to my code. Echo would then read the english response back.
    - nysska 10y ago
      Sorry, I might be totally off the base here but why not use IBM Watson for that? It's free for a thousand minutes in a month and it's speech-to-text looks quite good on the first glance. I was just looking around for a custom solution to have something listening, send it off somewhere to get the text out of the voice command and then respond to keywords/contexts with appropriate custom-made actions. All you need then is to process that and read out the response.
      - fizzbatter 10y ago
        No idea, does IBM Watson have a good in-home hardware device? I'm not talking about using Echo to do any complex work, i want echo to just be my middle man taking in speech and sending my program the text. With of course, a customizable wake word. I wasn't aware of IBM Watson having an Echo or Home like device. If it matches my needs, i'm very interested :)
jayfuerstenberg 10y ago
I'm not so lazy that I can't hold my phone and google for something. Pass.
dmritard96 10y ago
I think the most interesting thing in the echo and now google home narrative is that these are subsets of phones. Speakers, microphones and internet connections with only two substantial differences - they are powered 100% of the time and they have better speakers/acoustics. It will be interesting to see if those are substantial enough to overwhelm the obviousness of doing these through the phone in your pocket.
- mod 10y ago
  I've toyed around a bit with making a phone very capable with voice commands and it's not easy. Lots and lots of tinkering. I would love for there to be something out there akin to what echo has, with programmable skills, and hopefully able to put things onto a chromecast. I would have a lot of fun tinkering with that.
xenihn 10y ago
Hey, I have that pasta strainer. The one that's being used to store citrus fruits for some reason...
deprave 10y ago
A company that makes money by collecting and selling access to personal information about people is offering to put a microphone in your home. If you need a product like this, for the sake of your privacy, buy an Echo.
- angryasian 10y ago
  Lets stop this nonsense. They don't sell access to your personal information. There is nowhere that I can buy your personal information from google. What they sell is access to your attention. When advertising, I'm looking for people that match these characteristics, and what I'm purchasing is the possibility to show you an ad if you match certain criteria.
  - soared 10y ago
    They sell the ability to use your data, not to access/see/download it. I can use all the data for ad targeting, but in no way I can actually see it. Advertisers buy the attention, Publishers sell it. Google is the intermediary that connects the right advertiser to the right publishers, and charges x%.
    - vthallam 10y ago
      Yes! I find it so hypocritical of people who seems to be extra careful about their personal information. I understand this makes sense for some people, but for most of the others, Google using your meta-data to show things which might interest you and by also helping you with great applications is cool. Not everyone wants to pay for things to get privacy.
      - narrowrail 10y ago
        You appear to be saying that people who value privacy are hypocritical because you want free stuff and do not care about privacy. I can't find the logic in your comment.
        10y ago
bache 10y ago
price?
- angryasian 10y ago
  Amazon echo is about 179 right now. I'm really hoping google can get this to be about 100 - 125. Based on their history of low cost devices with the two chromecasts, I think its possible.
  - prawn 10y ago
    They'd only need to be friendlier to international buyers than the Echo (which you can use elsewhere, but with some mucking around) and they'll do well. The best and easiest features of Amazon Echo don't need the most difficult local support. Things like the shopping list sans buying, timers, weather, timezones, traffic, etc.
t0mbstone 10y ago
Please, please, please be a completely open, extensible platform... I want to be able to control my Apple TV with my Google Home device. I want to be able to control my Phillips Hue and LiFX bulbs. I want to be able to build my own custom home automation server endpoints and point my Google Home commands at them. I want to be able to remote start my car with a voice command. I want to be able to control my Harmony remote, and all of the devices connected to my Harmony hub. I want to be able to access my Google calendar. I want to be able to make hands-free phone calls to anyone on my Google contacts. If my grandmother falls, I want her to be able to call 911 by talking to the Google Home device. I want to be able to ask wolfram alpha questions by voice. I want to be able to have a back-and-forth conversation to arrive at a conclusion. I don't want to have to say a perfectly formulated command like, "Add an event to my calendar on Jan 1, 2016 at 2:00 pm titled go to the pool party". I want to be able to say, "Can you add an event to my calendar?", and then answer a series of questions. I hate having to formulate complex commands as a single sentence. I want to be able to have a Google Home device in each room, without having to give each one its own wake-up word. Just have the closest one to me respond to my voice (based on how well it can hear me). I want to be able to play music on all of my Google Home devices at the same time, and have the music perfectly synchronized. This is my wish list. I am currently able to do more than half of these items with Amazon Echo, but I had to do a bunch of hacking and it was a pain in the ass. If Google Home can deliver on these points, I would switch from Amazon Echo in a heartbeat.
- supercanuck 10y ago
  I would love for it to connect my sonos and my spotify together, rather than having to run a node.js server for the purpose
  - surfaceTensi0n 10y ago
    Doesn't sonos already have integration with spotify? Or is that only available if you're paying for spotify?
    - djloche 10y ago
swalsh 10y ago
As somoene who runs a small ecommerce company i'm really hoping the next platform is open, and not owned by Amazon (or Google). I sell products where purchasing them would be fantastic via a voice interface. If Amazon owns it though, there's no way I'm going to get any fraction of that business. The ownership of these voice platforms is a huge risk for market competition. The voice interface naturally lends itself to "choose the first choice that fits my paramters, and let's go with it". If you say "Alexa, book me a taxi to the airport". Alexa chooses who takes you. Being the priority choice is a huge advantage for whoever wins that. It's just so much power in the hands of so few. It's the opposite of what the internet should've been.
- jluk 10y ago
  Sounds like what happened with messaging platforms in China. WeChat became the single bundled platform for mobile and thus got to play kingmaker with default service providers. I agree with your opinion, although it feels like a natural progression as the sheer number of services grows at a rapid pace and its the attempt to remove friction built up from the excessive overhead of choice.
  - swalsh 10y ago
    That "excessive overhead of choice" is what allows capitalism to function properly.
pbreit 10y ago
Please support 3rd party streaming audio.
lazyjones 10y ago
What's the business model for Google Home? Will it suddenly splurt out an advertising message in the middle of the night, or will it rather include subtle product placements in otherwise harmless answers? Remember, it's made by a company that thinks it's appropriate to put text ads on the first spots of your search results, in increasingly confusing ways.
- danielvf 10y ago
  I doesn't have to have a business model. If voice activated devices turn out to be the future of search, and the voice device in your home is not made by Google, than Google is dead. Roughly speaking of course.
- soared 10y ago
  They get more data, same with free (80% or whatever is unmonetized) youtube uploads.
- heptathorp 10y ago
  The business model is they sell the device.
- Oletros 10y ago
  > What's the business model for Google Home? Do they give them away for free?
nkg 10y ago
This morning a friend of mine got his gmail hacked, which means his Play, Maps, Music and everything got hacked also. With Google Home, add your "everyday tasks" and voice history to this! ^^
- poozer305 10y ago
  Sounds like your friend's fault for not using two factor auth.
  - dredmorbius 10y ago
    Blame the victim? Really?
zitterbewegung 10y ago
I'm confident that Amazon won't kill off Alexa (due to its success). I am not so confident that if this isn't widely successful or even in the future this will be killed off just like Revolv and bricking the device . It is good that Alexa is getting competition though.
ck2 10y ago
So it's echo/alexa by Google? http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00X4WHP5E http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00X4WHP5E Is there going to be a patent war?
swasheck 10y ago
kinda looks like my wife's essential oil diffuser. it'd fit right in if i wanted one.
pluc 10y ago
It's blocked in Canada. https://i.imgur.com/TsItIkD.png https://i.imgur.com/TsItIkD.png
- namlem 10y ago
  I'm getting that in the US. I think it's just down.
  - NobleSir 10y ago
    Was going to post a sarcastic "looks awesome" with the same image
  - pluc 10y ago
    Tried on a US-East VPN and worked fine..
- jszymborski 10y ago
  WWBM to the rescue! https://web.archive.org/web/20160518172856/http://home.google.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20160518172856/http://home.googl...
- benhoyt 10y ago
  Odd -- SSL URL of https://home.google.com/ https://home.google.com/ seems to work
djloche 10y ago
Voice controlled computer interactivity doesn't appeal to me, and double unappealing is the skynet factor to the whole thing. Home automation doesn't need nor should it require signing over your privacy.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
grownseed 10y ago
The page linked here is basically an ad with no content (yet it manages to have a scrollbar no matter the window size...). Tried to look for actual specs but couldn't find anything, does anybody have anything more substantial? On another note, is there a way to just get some sort of remote microphone array (I think that's what it's called on the Echo) and set up Alexa/Google/Cortana/... directly on a PC?
- xyzzy_plugh 10y ago
  Amazon provided this, which doesn't necessarily have to run on a Raspberry Pi, and could be used to build what you want: https://github.com/amzn/alexa-avs-raspberry-pi https://github.com/amzn/alexa-avs-raspberry-pi
  - grownseed 10y ago
    Thanks! One of the points for me is also to be able to customize the software, so that looks like an excellent start. The hardware is still a problem, I've tried to find microphones like the one on the Echo, but the few that seem to meet the requirements basically cost half of the Echo. I'm not particularly knowledgeable when it comes to microphones, so I may very well be looking in the wrong places.
sickbeard 10y ago
Remember when voice commands for your computer came out? It was cool but nobody talks to their computer. They won't be talking aimlessly in their kitchen either.
- solomone 10y ago
  This is such an odd statement as it's already been proven false. The Echo is already quite popular. I gave one to my 70 year old technophobe mom and she uses it in the kitchen all the time. I use mine everyday.
blabla_blublu 10y ago
Competition in this space is welcome! Can't wait to see what their difference / what sets them apart from Echo. Given Google's propensity to sell Ads, it will be interesting to see if customers are willing to put a device like this in their house. Reminded me of a humidifier for some reason - http://www.amazon.com/Aromatherapy-Essential-Oil-Diffuser-colors/dp/B014SF6MBI/ref=sr_1_1_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1463596713&sr=8-1&keywords=scent+humidifier http://www.amazon.com/Aromatherapy-Essential-Oil-Diffuser-co...
JarvisSong 10y ago
ITT smart hackers asking for more features and noting the privacy implications. Unfortunately, this, Echo, and others are coming for the masses, the masses who have everything public on Facebook and won't really understand the issues until it's too late. Give it a few years and 'everyone' will have a Star-Trek-like home computer experience. What can we do to turn the tide in favor of privacy and security? Or do we just trust Google/Amazon will do the right thing?
- dclowd9901 10y ago
  My mom just got an Echo for Mother's Day. She's always been very apprehensive about government encroaching, so when I explained to her that the microphone was always on, at first she was surprised. Then I explained how could it know she needed something without always being on? Then I explained to her that we already know for a fact that the government records all data over the wire. And since Echo is plugged into the internet, we have to assume it's sending back every way she interacts with it. Now she's a bit more apprehensive about it. I feel like I did my job.
  - tremon 10y ago
    Sadly, it is not the previous generation that you need to convince, it is the next.
gopher2 10y ago
Yeah, I'm sticking with Echo because business model.
bobwaycott 10y ago
Can we get the link changed to https://home.google.com/ https://home.google.com/? Non-HTTPS just 404s.
alexc05 10y ago
I really don't want to come off as super negative here ... but am I the only one who finds this one UGLY? Compare to some of the other devices from previous years, and competitors: https://www.google.ca/search?q=google+nexus+sphere&tbm=isch https://www.google.ca/search?q=google+nexus+sphere&tbm=isch https://www.google.ca/search?q=amazon+echo&tbm=isch https://www.google.ca/search?q=amazon+echo&tbm=isch https://www.google.ca/search?q=amazon+echo+short&tbm=isch https://www.google.ca/search?q=amazon+echo+short&tbm=isch It sort-of looks like a cheap air freshener. Maybe it'd grow on me, but I kinda think it is ugly. Someone should manufacture a range of "tchotchke skins" https://www.google.ca/search?q=tchotchke&tbm=isch https://www.google.ca/search?q=tchotchke&tbm=isch so it could sit on your counter and look like something that you'd be happy to mix in with the rest of your decor. (angels, golden lucky-cats, porcelain hands, googly-eyed-wooden-owls https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/78/b5/80/78b580270c6d1b0686afb2b8b5a0f024.jpg https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/78/b5/80/78b580270...) Anything to stop that thing from lookling like a plug in air freshener really.
- rkangel 10y ago
  No, you're not on your own with that thought.
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  You're not the only one, I think your "[looking] like a plug in air freshener really" comment is pretty close to my perception of it. The render looks really goofy to me, not half as nice as Echo. However, I like the idea of the slanted top so you can see the lights (which presumably are information bearing and not just branding?). Presumably the top part, at least, would quickly be a target for aftermarket accessory companies so it could match your home interior.
raajg 10y ago
Another Amazon Echo. Not at all interested. I wish there was a text box: Please never send me the latest updates about Google Home.
Kinnard 10y ago
Why wasn't this done under Nest?
- wan23 10y ago
  It's primarily a frontend to Google search and music. It seems very appropriate for it to be under Google proper.
SalimoS 10y ago
" 404. That’s an error. The requested URL / was not found on this server. That’s all we know." is it only me who can't see the webpage ? //EDIT: weird now it's working :S
partiallypro 10y ago
Microsoft, where are you? Cortana on a device that is similar to the chip Master Chief has would be incredibly popular, and it done right could also be just as popular. Especially since Cortana is on every platform and completely agnostic unlike Google Home and Echo. Give it the same extensible API as Cortana has on Windows 10, etc and it could be a home run. Don't let Google and Amazon eat your lunch here. I do wonder though how Google/Microsoft/Apple will handle there being multiple instances of their devices able to take commands. So if I say "Hey Cortana" or "Ok Google" will each device have to sort of communicate with the other to only activate the one that is closest?
Oletros 10y ago
And I suppose it will be another US only product/service from Google
la6470 10y ago
What a RIP off on amazon echo
Roritharr 10y ago
I love how they put the LG MusicFlow Speaker on the Home presentation. I've been suffering that malpurchase for about a year now. I can rely on it not working 70% of the time, seemingly crashing, creating a mesh wifi although plugged into ethernet or attached to my home wi-fi... If they can't get the third party vendors to get their Google Cast integration up to the reliability level of a Chromecast Audio, they should stop supporting this.
protomikron 10y ago
Ok, controversial opinion: "[...] and manage everyday tasks" What exactly do we want to automate at home? I think this whole home automation and smart home stuff is complete bullshit. Obviously there are some nice things, like "play me song xyz", but IMHO it is completely oversold. There are just not that much things to automate at home. And this does not mean that I think 640K are enough memory for everyone.
- dandare 10y ago
  I came here to ask people of examples of use cases because I just can not see how this can be useful in this decade.
  - sf_rob 10y ago
    I mean, all the turn-key stuff is terrible right now, but I've seen some awesome DIY stuff with Homeseer + IFTTT + bash scripts. My friend's house turns on the front porch light when he gets home, auto-locks the front door if unlocked for more than X minutes, alerts of outside doors that have been open for more than X seconds, dims the lights when he turns on the TV, alerts him when his wife is almost home (she hates that), yells at the dog if he goes into his office, and a hell of a lot more. That said, he's logged dozens of hours getting everything working.
    - protomikron 10y ago
      That is funny. So the motive of your friend is security for himself and surveillance of his wife. The motive of cloud home automation stuff (e.g. Homeseer) is surveillance of its customers, e.g. your friend. It is like turtles all the way down.
    - tamana 10y ago
      Why does his wife let him track her movements?
      - sf_rob 10y ago
lamein 10y ago
People don't care about their privacy anymore. Many of us do care about it, but we are not the majority. This project relies on that fact.
imh 10y ago
In what world is "Always on call" an appealing phrase?
dharma1 10y ago
looking forward to replacing my Echo Dot with this
irrational 10y ago
So to use it I have to get up and go to wherever it is plugged in? Why wouldn't I just use my phone which is always on me?
frik 10y ago
Google, thanks for shutting down Freebase.com on 2 May 2016. By taking it offline, and using it (Knowledge Graph) for Google Home you effectively locked out all competitors. WikiData is a far cry and a fraction of the size of what was Freebase. Freebase was a large collaborative knowledge base consisting of data composed mainly by its community members. It was an online collection of structured data harvested from many sources, including individual, user-submitted wiki contributions. Freebase aimed to create a global resource that allowed people (and machines) to access common information more effectively. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebase Google is using a lot of data collaborative collected data from closed Freebase and Wikipedia without giving it back.
- artpar 10y ago
  Freebase data dump is available for download for free. And so is Wikipedia and Dbpedia. And so i common crawl and webdatacommons dumps What are you doing with that ? - https://developers.google.com/freebase/#freebase-rdf-dumps https://developers.google.com/freebase/#freebase-rdf-dumps - http://wiki.dbpedia.org/ http://wiki.dbpedia.org/ - http://webdatacommons.org/ http://webdatacommons.org/ - https://dumps.wikimedia.org/ https://dumps.wikimedia.org/
  - frik 10y ago
    How useful is an aging Freebase dump from last year? How useful is it next year? Old outdated data isn't that useful? There is no alternative to Freebase, and oth companies bought companies to have access to an alternative. Microsoft bought Powerset company for Bing, IBM bought Wekko company for Watson, Googe closed down Freebase to use it in-house. And everone else is very "happy" about Google.
    - artpar 10y ago
      Frankly, I have used freebase in one of the project and I then moved to Dbpedia because its content seemed better. I would like to understand how you are using it that Freebase seems the only alternative ?
zozo123 10y ago
Alexa...
kristianc 10y ago
The search queries that get sent to Google are probably the least interesting part of this to them. Sure, Google will get some additional search queries and be able to target you slightly better, but it's a rounding error in terms of the data they already have. The interest in this on Google's side is on having a permanently connected 'listener' on your network to identify which devices you're running and when. If it's running through your WiFi network, Google is going to know about it.
58028641 10y ago
till google disables it ...
paulftw 10y ago
Amazon has Echo, Google has Nest and now Home. What could Apple's Project Titan be if not a smart home device?
educar 10y ago
Seriously, never in my wildest dreams did I think that technology would come down to this. Like many others, I dreamed a future where I could have an automated assistant at home. Just not this way! It's really all about ads and mining data, isn't it.
shogun21 10y ago
I am impressed Amazon was able to make a new product category. It's only a matter of time before Apple announces their take on Siri Home.
walrus01 10y ago
How many months from release until the FISA court issues a secret order to turn one of these on 24x7x365 in a suspect's home, and stream the audio to the FBI "counter terrorism" people investigating a subject?
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > How many months from release until the FISA court issues a secret order to turn one of these on 24x7x365 in a suspect's home, and stream the audio to the FBI "counter terrorism" people investigating a subject? Google Home isn't the first entry into this market (Amazon Echo is a thing), and neither of those is the first network-connected microphone-bearing device in people's homes that might be targeted, so its kind of weird to focus on this particular product for that question.
  - walrus01 10y ago
    It might be the first one to pass some sort of critical mass of consumer adoption, and within a few years have 10x the market share of Amazon Echo. Depends how much Google subsidizes the hardware and how much they advertise/push it in their other platforms.
wodenokoto 10y ago
What is this? All I get is: 404. That’s an error. The requested URL / was not found on this server. That’s all we know.
- hanula 10y ago
  Use HTTPS: https://home.google.com/ https://home.google.com/
evolve2k 10y ago
There's no way I'm putting something like this, collecting data directly for Google in my house. Anyone else have privacy concerns?
- sixothree 10y ago
  It seems every google product is more invasive than the last. It makes me wonder if google sees a golden opportunity or is pushed into this themselves. I get the feeling people aren't really clamoring for these types of invasive products. It reminds me of webcams in laptops. Overnight it appeared that manufacturers were including them as a non-optional component. Yet it never seems to be something the public really cares for at all.
ilaksh 10y ago
Only one sentence explanation unless I missed something. Its an Echo competitor.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
Joof 10y ago
Initially after snowden I thought, "the government and governments around the world will crack down on this behavior now". I was naïve. Nobody cares. Now they viciously support such practices. As long as that exists, I can't buy into datamining devices. And it will always exist.
gcr 10y ago
Will they offer a rebate for this device to burned Revolv users? Doing that would be a great gesture. As it stands, I would be wary of purchasing one of these. How long would it last before Google tires of it?
theideasmith 10y ago
The website is down now. For those who want to check it out, here's the link: https://web.archive.org/web/20160518173022/https://home.google.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20160518173022/https://home.goog...
King-Aaron 10y ago
Sucked in, anyone who bought a Nest.
mattmaroon 10y ago
I love my Echo but it has a couple weak points, all of which could be solved by a competent platform. I can't, for instance, just tell Alexa to play new podcasts from my lists or directly from the net (except through TuneIn, which sucks.) It doesn't work with many home automation devices. It's AI is not that great when it comes to non-Amazon services. I'm hopeful the Android platform will make this a better device.
machbio 10y ago
Hope this is not as disappointing as Onhub, it would be helpful if they have a rich api to start with and not promise that the APIs are coming later...
exodust 10y ago
That page is so simple, yet even Google devs are "powering" these simple pages with multiple JS files. Why? Is it laziness? Or just some belief that Angular is required now for even "hello world"? When viewing source I initially thought 'great, a nice clean HTML page'... after all, it's just 3 images fading between each other and a simple form. But then at the bottom we see Angular, Angular Animate, Angular Scroll, and a fourth Main JS file. Way to set an example Google.
sgnelson 10y ago
How long before we find out the NSA has access to this and the Amazon Echo?
tempodox 10y ago
Now, we can volunteer for the Big Brother experience.
enibundo 10y ago
Does anyone else feel as this kind of stuff (I'd put it in the same bag as the apple Watch, and the amazon something) is completely useless? Personally, I feel we need to use less technology in everyday life.
mathpepe 10y ago
When the danger is so near we admire the foresight of those warning about it. Kudos to the FSF.
jug 10y ago
This is interesting but to be honest I already have this on my phone, which is with me not only in my living room, but even in the street.
conjectures 10y ago
How is this different to having a smartphone on your person? Other than using an additional plug socket.
csrm123 10y ago
What happened to "Don't be Evil"?
ComodoHacker 10y ago
Next step: chemically analysing your kitchen fumes and flavors in nearly real time to profile your gastronomic habits.
gambiting 10y ago
In 4 years Google will drop support for it leaving you with a pretty paperweight. Not interested, not from Google.
fuck_google 10y ago
Sometimes I think Google executives didn't get the point of Orwell's book 1984, but thought they could definitely do better than Big Brother. Like it's evil not to do it, if you have the means.

577 points by stuartmemo 10y ago

RFP - Request For Project 1. Train Google Home to recognize Amazon Echo's voice as its owner. 2. Train Amazon Echo to recognize Siri's voice as its owner 3. Train Siri to recognize Google Home's voice as its owner 4. Kick start some kind of endless loop between the three of them.

mevile 10y ago
Amazon's Echo doesn't have an owner concept. I didn't think Siri did either. My Echo can take commands from anyone, there's no authentication at all outside of initial set up with your Amazon account. My daughter and I have completely different voices and we use it without problems.
- koolba 10y ago
  > Amazon's Echo doesn't have an owner concept. I didn't think Siri did either. My Echo can take commands from anyone, there's no authentication at all outside of initial set up with your Amazon account. My daughter and I have completely different voices and we use it without problems. By owner I mean the voice that it's trained to respond to (not in an authentication sense). See [1] and [2]. [1]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201601940 https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=... [2]: http://www.techtimes.com/articles/83995/20150913/ios-9-includes-voice-training-for-siri-to-help-her-recognize-your-voice.htm http://www.techtimes.com/articles/83995/20150913/ios-9-inclu...
- Merad 10y ago
  Siri learns your voice if you activate the "Hey Siri" option. AFAIK it doesn't affect normal [manual] commands.
- 4684499 10y ago
  https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204389#hey https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204389#hey
jslakro 10y ago
What about Watson?
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Can you buy a Watson and put it on your shelf?
  - PeCaN 10y ago
    About as much as you can buy Amazon Echo or Google Home actually. At least IBM makes very clear what the usage conditions of Watson are, and it's fully extensible.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      So you're saying IBM offers something that could be turned into an Echo-like system? Do you have any links on how to do that? I'm interested.
      - PeCaN 10y ago
        Watson's basically a "bring-your-own-knowledge-base" NLP platform. There's the developer site[1] if you can manage to read through IBM's marketing speak[2]. The docs are pretty good. -- 1. http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibmwatson/developercloud/ http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibmwatson/developercl... 2. It's rather amusing, but IBM has a ton of really smart people making cool stuff, then a ton of marketing people seemingly pitching at someone other than the target audience and making it sound dumb. If you can wade through the marketing BS, Watson is very cool.
allemagne 10y ago
I think you just wrote Friday's xkcd
- tlrobinson 10y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11270758 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11270758
ComodoHacker 10y ago
Cortana gets jealous for being out of the party.

struct 10y ago

Looks neat, let's hope Google leads in 3rd party applications too and not just in appearance. Also interesting that they specifically gave a shout out to the Alexa team.

beilharz 10y ago

This gives me a 404.

stuartmemo 10y ago
Weird, can a mod change the link to https? That seems to be working - https://home.google.com/ https://home.google.com/
- adamqureshi 10y ago
  This URL works. The main link returns a 404

pbnjay 10y ago

I find it odd that Google is going to take so long to get this out the door - "later this year" seems like ages. Did they start on the hardware that late? Amazon has what, 6 months to get more competitive on the search/trivia front? or this is going to kill it.

martincmartin 10y ago
The hardware for this is the easiest part. Understanding voice that's far from the microphone (sound gets muffled, echos off walls, etc.), with other sounds in the background, is significantly harder than understanding speech near the microphone.
- harigov 10y ago
  Didn't they already solved that problem for implementing "OK Google"?
- pbnjay 10y ago
  "OK Google", Google Now, their voice recognition tech, and NLP recognition are far far past Echo's version. So if the hardware is that easy this should have been out yesterday. The even mentioned earlier in the keynote how they've been training it Google assistant with background noise.
  - hiddencost 10y ago
    Speech recognition is a lot harder than you'd think, and the problems of far field speech recognition especially. All of google's in-house ASR (and wakeword) has been dedicated to near-field devices. Speech is not a "solve it once and it works everywhere" kind of problem. I would ballpark that Google needed to collect 10k hours of _far-field_ speech to train this to a level that was acceptable for the enormous variety of noise conditions and accents that a far-field system needs to work on. That scale of data collection takes time and a lot of trench-warfare effort.
    - pbnjay 10y ago

izolate 10y ago

Looks like something that should've been under the Nest brand. Whatever happened to that?

cookiecaper 10y ago
This is competing with the Amazon Echo. It's more oriented toward the Google brand because it's about searching for information. Obviously, Google still wants people to think of Google whenever they want to know something, even if the search is conducted by voice.
demian0311 10y ago
You're right. When I got the Nest products I assumed Google would foster integration with them. If I can't raise my Nest thermometer by voice with this then that'll be Google training me once again to not invest in their platforms.
- angryasian 10y ago
  During the presentation they specifically mentioned integration with Nest and other at home integrations
- chrisper 10y ago
  You know that you can already do this right? https://nest.com/support/article/How-do-Google-voice-actions-and-Google-Now-work-with-the-Nest-Thermostat https://nest.com/support/article/How-do-Google-voice-actions...
  - danellis 10y ago
    I didn't know that. Thanks for the link!
makomk 10y ago
Apparently Nest are having trouble actually releasing anything. There were rumours in the press about this being developed outside of the Nest group for that reason a while back.

bbunqq 10y ago

You too can bring a slice of 1984 into your home with this lovely crafted listening device!

Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
It's scary how close this is to being one of 1984's telescreen devices. I might even argue that it basically _is_ a telescreen considering Google's previous dealings with state actors, though with some of the 451-style "you asked for this" as opposed to the 1984-style "this is forced on you".
- SmellyGeekBoy 10y ago
  Surely a laptop is closer? What with webcams being standard equipment and all.
  - Sir_Cmpwn 10y ago
    Well, the laptop doesn't necessarily send everything you say near it to Google HQ.
    - ryandrake 10y ago
      Don't give them any more ideas, jeez.
dominotw 10y ago
Google phone can now do 'ok google' behind lock screen.
- chinathrow 10y ago
  And it can screen capture any app it likes to. So, it could read SMS, Signal chats etc etc.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Only if the phone is connected to a charger, at least on mine. If it could always do "ok Google" on a phone regardless of whether or not it is connected, it would be infinitely more useful. Since I opted in to use Google Now in the first place, I actually want that.

xiphias 10y ago

,,Always on call'' - it just got the worst memories for me of waking up at 3am

free2rhyme214 10y ago

Competition against Amazon Echo is always positive for consumers.

vox_mollis 10y ago
Perhaps, but bear in mind that Google is a PRISM partner, whereas Amazon is not. The NSA will likely record every sound from your house, if you own this. Edit: Downvoters, please educate me on where I am wrong. Thanks.
- profmonocle 10y ago
  > The NSA will likely record every sound from your house, if you own this. It would be very easy to detect something fishy was going on. Even if the device was locked down and the connection was encrypted, they couldn't hide it if the device was uploading large volumes of data with no explanation.
  - vox_mollis 10y ago
    There is a very simple out, here. Google could simply claim that they do all audio processing in the cloud. They wouldn't need to hide it.
    - profmonocle 10y ago
      Siri, Google Now, and the Amazon Echo do audio processing in the cloud, but only after they've been triggered by "OK Google" "Hey Siri", or "Alexa". (Or by hitting a button.) It'd be pretty odd, and terribly inefficient, if the Google Home did hotword detection in the cloud.
  - hellbanner 10y ago
    Eh, the NSA can get it from Google instead of bothering with each individual device.
  - ricardobeat 10y ago

will_brown 10y ago

When Windows10/Cortana was released my buddy attached a mixer/switch to his PC allowing him to wire input mics and sound speakers to every room in his house. And though I can't see any personal uses for such a device, he swears it has changed his life, and the only thing I believe he does with it is tells Cortana to play Van Halan first thing when he wakes up.

Roritharr 10y ago
I love the image of an old stasi officer seeing the current trend of people paying good money to effectively bug their own appartments. It must be surreal to them.
- nisa 10y ago
  Stasi used people to bug on people as early as in high school - it was at least in my opinion much more nefarious than passive mass surveillance - at least it's different. I'm from the former GDR and they wreaked havoc over countless families over seemingly bullshit things. So it's difficult to compare IMHO. But I guess it's not an impossible technical problem to train some machine learning algorithm to classify the voices and the conversation in the room and detect typical behavior patterns of a crime and be it smoking weed with friends.
Morgawr 10y ago
>the only thing I believe he does with it is tells Cortana to play Van Halan first thing when he wakes up This is pretty much my usage at the moment with the Google Assistant. I tried it this morning for the first time. I sleep with my tablet on the bed next to me (I have a very big bed and a very small room, so I use half of my bed as a makeshift shelf). I woke up and went "Ok Google, play me some music, please" and then I gently woke up with the sound of whatever I had in my library. Then I went to take a shower and realized that voice commands are really super useful for that situation. I used them to change songs or tell Google to play me different songs. The only annoying thing at the moment is that the microphone input seems to be calibrated to a much higher volume than conversational voice so I end up shouting "OK GOOGLE" multiple times to get it to register and I'm pretty sure my flatmates aren't thrilled at that idea.

romanovcode 10y ago

Haha, no thank you. i don't want google to listen to everything I say in my house. Next thing you know it's going to tell me is "Smith! Put more effort in those crunches!".

Grazester 10y ago
You say that like its a bad thing. I busted my back yesterday at the gym with improper form on a dead lift. If I had some kind of assistant watching me to correct my form then I would not be eating pain killers now trying to get an appointment to see a doctor all while having tingling sensations in my feet.
- mod 10y ago
  The difference is requesting it or not. You should probably work with a trainer until your form is correct.
- glitch003 10y ago
  Someone's building a product for this: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/biometrix-an-evolution-in-athletic-rehab https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/biometrix-an-evolution-in...

jredwards 10y ago

Google Nope

cheald 10y ago

When I was younger, I dreamed of something like this. Voice control for my home! A Star Trek computer that I can interact with conversationally! I just say what I want and it happens! Now, I just see an internet-connected microphone in a software black box which I can only interpret as a giant frickin' security liability. I want this, but unless it's open source top-to-bottom, I won't ever actually put one in my home. We know too much about how these things can be abused for me to ever seriously consider it without being able to verify for myself what it's doing and why.

surge 10y ago
MyCroft? https://mycroft.ai/ https://mycroft.ai/
- niutech 10y ago
  or Jasper.
jff 10y ago
You probably have on in your pocket already, is the thing. (I agree though, I don't want this in my house, and I turned off the "Ok Google" functionality on my phone)
- cheald 10y ago
  I do. And I recognize the hypocrisy of that. I think the difference for me is that my phone isn't a permanent fixture in my house - it's not explicitly a surveillance device. Echo/Home are explicitly audio surveillance devices, though ostensibly benevolent in their design. I can stick my phone in a Faraday bag easily enough if I want to. I guess what it comes down to is that while I recognize that I sacrifice a measure of potential for privacy with my phone, I judge the benefits to be worth it. I can't say the same for Echo/Home, and it somehow feels qualitatively different in that phones aren't designed to be always-on microphones constantly processing audio to send it off to a server somewhere else for analysis. To be honest, I trust that Google and Amazon are probably acting in my best interests with these products, for the most part. I don't think it's all an evil conspiracy to get microphones and cameras into my inner sanctum or anything. I believe it's very possible for a product like this to be mutually beneficial for provider and consumer. And hey, if a state actor wants to surveil me, it's going to happen regardless of these devices being in my house. But as we've learned just how fragile security is, it seems foolish to me to rush off to install black-box monitoring devices all over and just hope that they do what we think they are doing. I love the idea of these things, but they are such potentially powerful windows into our lives that I think that we have to be really sure the value they provide is worth the security risk they entail.

fizzbatter 10y ago

I'm dying for an Echo / Home that is fully api friendly and allows custom keywords. I want to buy an interface to my own home assistant. I want a hackers friend. Sure, offline-capable would be great too, but for now just give me the damn api hooks. :s edit: Note that i believe Echo has a pretty good API. I just don't want to talk to echo haha. I want to talk to my system.

ewindisch 10y ago
The Echo not only allows you to extend its vocabulary, Amazon offers the Echo functionality as as a service that any developer can use from their own hardware. If you wanted to use your own voice recognition and natural language processing, you could easily tie that into open source vocabulary that has been written for Echo.
- fizzbatter 10y ago
  Yea, i hear the API is quite good - i should have been more clear, it sounds like for me the main blocker is the trigger word. But yea, what i would want is to literally take all input from the Echo, have amazon/echo transcribe it to text, and then send it to my code. Echo would then read the english response back.
  - nysska 10y ago
    Sorry, I might be totally off the base here but why not use IBM Watson for that? It's free for a thousand minutes in a month and it's speech-to-text looks quite good on the first glance. I was just looking around for a custom solution to have something listening, send it off somewhere to get the text out of the voice command and then respond to keywords/contexts with appropriate custom-made actions. All you need then is to process that and read out the response.
    - fizzbatter 10y ago
      No idea, does IBM Watson have a good in-home hardware device? I'm not talking about using Echo to do any complex work, i want echo to just be my middle man taking in speech and sending my program the text. With of course, a customizable wake word. I wasn't aware of IBM Watson having an Echo or Home like device. If it matches my needs, i'm very interested :)

jayfuerstenberg 10y ago

I'm not so lazy that I can't hold my phone and google for something. Pass.

dmritard96 10y ago

I think the most interesting thing in the echo and now google home narrative is that these are subsets of phones. Speakers, microphones and internet connections with only two substantial differences - they are powered 100% of the time and they have better speakers/acoustics. It will be interesting to see if those are substantial enough to overwhelm the obviousness of doing these through the phone in your pocket.

mod 10y ago
I've toyed around a bit with making a phone very capable with voice commands and it's not easy. Lots and lots of tinkering. I would love for there to be something out there akin to what echo has, with programmable skills, and hopefully able to put things onto a chromecast. I would have a lot of fun tinkering with that.

xenihn 10y ago

Hey, I have that pasta strainer. The one that's being used to store citrus fruits for some reason...

deprave 10y ago

A company that makes money by collecting and selling access to personal information about people is offering to put a microphone in your home. If you need a product like this, for the sake of your privacy, buy an Echo.

angryasian 10y ago
Lets stop this nonsense. They don't sell access to your personal information. There is nowhere that I can buy your personal information from google. What they sell is access to your attention. When advertising, I'm looking for people that match these characteristics, and what I'm purchasing is the possibility to show you an ad if you match certain criteria.
- soared 10y ago
  They sell the ability to use your data, not to access/see/download it. I can use all the data for ad targeting, but in no way I can actually see it. Advertisers buy the attention, Publishers sell it. Google is the intermediary that connects the right advertiser to the right publishers, and charges x%.
  - vthallam 10y ago
    Yes! I find it so hypocritical of people who seems to be extra careful about their personal information. I understand this makes sense for some people, but for most of the others, Google using your meta-data to show things which might interest you and by also helping you with great applications is cool. Not everyone wants to pay for things to get privacy.
    - narrowrail 10y ago
      You appear to be saying that people who value privacy are hypocritical because you want free stuff and do not care about privacy. I can't find the logic in your comment.
      - 10y ago

bache 10y ago

price?

angryasian 10y ago
Amazon echo is about 179 right now. I'm really hoping google can get this to be about 100 - 125. Based on their history of low cost devices with the two chromecasts, I think its possible.
- prawn 10y ago
  They'd only need to be friendlier to international buyers than the Echo (which you can use elsewhere, but with some mucking around) and they'll do well. The best and easiest features of Amazon Echo don't need the most difficult local support. Things like the shopping list sans buying, timers, weather, timezones, traffic, etc.

t0mbstone 10y ago

Please, please, please be a completely open, extensible platform... I want to be able to control my Apple TV with my Google Home device. I want to be able to control my Phillips Hue and LiFX bulbs. I want to be able to build my own custom home automation server endpoints and point my Google Home commands at them. I want to be able to remote start my car with a voice command. I want to be able to control my Harmony remote, and all of the devices connected to my Harmony hub. I want to be able to access my Google calendar. I want to be able to make hands-free phone calls to anyone on my Google contacts. If my grandmother falls, I want her to be able to call 911 by talking to the Google Home device. I want to be able to ask wolfram alpha questions by voice. I want to be able to have a back-and-forth conversation to arrive at a conclusion. I don't want to have to say a perfectly formulated command like, "Add an event to my calendar on Jan 1, 2016 at 2:00 pm titled go to the pool party". I want to be able to say, "Can you add an event to my calendar?", and then answer a series of questions. I hate having to formulate complex commands as a single sentence. I want to be able to have a Google Home device in each room, without having to give each one its own wake-up word. Just have the closest one to me respond to my voice (based on how well it can hear me). I want to be able to play music on all of my Google Home devices at the same time, and have the music perfectly synchronized. This is my wish list. I am currently able to do more than half of these items with Amazon Echo, but I had to do a bunch of hacking and it was a pain in the ass. If Google Home can deliver on these points, I would switch from Amazon Echo in a heartbeat.

supercanuck 10y ago
I would love for it to connect my sonos and my spotify together, rather than having to run a node.js server for the purpose
- surfaceTensi0n 10y ago
  Doesn't sonos already have integration with spotify? Or is that only available if you're paying for spotify?
  - djloche 10y ago

swalsh 10y ago

As somoene who runs a small ecommerce company i'm really hoping the next platform is open, and not owned by Amazon (or Google). I sell products where purchasing them would be fantastic via a voice interface. If Amazon owns it though, there's no way I'm going to get any fraction of that business. The ownership of these voice platforms is a huge risk for market competition. The voice interface naturally lends itself to "choose the first choice that fits my paramters, and let's go with it". If you say "Alexa, book me a taxi to the airport". Alexa chooses who takes you. Being the priority choice is a huge advantage for whoever wins that. It's just so much power in the hands of so few. It's the opposite of what the internet should've been.

jluk 10y ago
Sounds like what happened with messaging platforms in China. WeChat became the single bundled platform for mobile and thus got to play kingmaker with default service providers. I agree with your opinion, although it feels like a natural progression as the sheer number of services grows at a rapid pace and its the attempt to remove friction built up from the excessive overhead of choice.
- swalsh 10y ago
  That "excessive overhead of choice" is what allows capitalism to function properly.

pbreit 10y ago

Please support 3rd party streaming audio.

lazyjones 10y ago

What's the business model for Google Home? Will it suddenly splurt out an advertising message in the middle of the night, or will it rather include subtle product placements in otherwise harmless answers? Remember, it's made by a company that thinks it's appropriate to put text ads on the first spots of your search results, in increasingly confusing ways.

danielvf 10y ago
I doesn't have to have a business model. If voice activated devices turn out to be the future of search, and the voice device in your home is not made by Google, than Google is dead. Roughly speaking of course.
soared 10y ago
They get more data, same with free (80% or whatever is unmonetized) youtube uploads.
heptathorp 10y ago
The business model is they sell the device.
Oletros 10y ago
> What's the business model for Google Home? Do they give them away for free?

nkg 10y ago

This morning a friend of mine got his gmail hacked, which means his Play, Maps, Music and everything got hacked also. With Google Home, add your "everyday tasks" and voice history to this! ^^

poozer305 10y ago
Sounds like your friend's fault for not using two factor auth.
- dredmorbius 10y ago
  Blame the victim? Really?

zitterbewegung 10y ago

I'm confident that Amazon won't kill off Alexa (due to its success). I am not so confident that if this isn't widely successful or even in the future this will be killed off just like Revolv and bricking the device . It is good that Alexa is getting competition though.

ck2 10y ago

So it's echo/alexa by Google? http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00X4WHP5E http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00X4WHP5E Is there going to be a patent war?

swasheck 10y ago

kinda looks like my wife's essential oil diffuser. it'd fit right in if i wanted one.

pluc 10y ago

It's blocked in Canada. https://i.imgur.com/TsItIkD.png https://i.imgur.com/TsItIkD.png

namlem 10y ago
I'm getting that in the US. I think it's just down.
- NobleSir 10y ago
  Was going to post a sarcastic "looks awesome" with the same image
- pluc 10y ago
  Tried on a US-East VPN and worked fine..
jszymborski 10y ago
WWBM to the rescue! https://web.archive.org/web/20160518172856/http://home.google.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20160518172856/http://home.googl...
benhoyt 10y ago
Odd -- SSL URL of https://home.google.com/ https://home.google.com/ seems to work

djloche 10y ago

Voice controlled computer interactivity doesn't appeal to me, and double unappealing is the skynet factor to the whole thing. Home automation doesn't need nor should it require signing over your privacy.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

grownseed 10y ago

The page linked here is basically an ad with no content (yet it manages to have a scrollbar no matter the window size...). Tried to look for actual specs but couldn't find anything, does anybody have anything more substantial? On another note, is there a way to just get some sort of remote microphone array (I think that's what it's called on the Echo) and set up Alexa/Google/Cortana/... directly on a PC?

xyzzy_plugh 10y ago
Amazon provided this, which doesn't necessarily have to run on a Raspberry Pi, and could be used to build what you want: https://github.com/amzn/alexa-avs-raspberry-pi https://github.com/amzn/alexa-avs-raspberry-pi
- grownseed 10y ago
  Thanks! One of the points for me is also to be able to customize the software, so that looks like an excellent start. The hardware is still a problem, I've tried to find microphones like the one on the Echo, but the few that seem to meet the requirements basically cost half of the Echo. I'm not particularly knowledgeable when it comes to microphones, so I may very well be looking in the wrong places.

sickbeard 10y ago

Remember when voice commands for your computer came out? It was cool but nobody talks to their computer. They won't be talking aimlessly in their kitchen either.

solomone 10y ago
This is such an odd statement as it's already been proven false. The Echo is already quite popular. I gave one to my 70 year old technophobe mom and she uses it in the kitchen all the time. I use mine everyday.

blabla_blublu 10y ago

Competition in this space is welcome! Can't wait to see what their difference / what sets them apart from Echo. Given Google's propensity to sell Ads, it will be interesting to see if customers are willing to put a device like this in their house. Reminded me of a humidifier for some reason - http://www.amazon.com/Aromatherapy-Essential-Oil-Diffuser-colors/dp/B014SF6MBI/ref=sr_1_1_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1463596713&sr=8-1&keywords=scent+humidifier http://www.amazon.com/Aromatherapy-Essential-Oil-Diffuser-co...

JarvisSong 10y ago

ITT smart hackers asking for more features and noting the privacy implications. Unfortunately, this, Echo, and others are coming for the masses, the masses who have everything public on Facebook and won't really understand the issues until it's too late. Give it a few years and 'everyone' will have a Star-Trek-like home computer experience. What can we do to turn the tide in favor of privacy and security? Or do we just trust Google/Amazon will do the right thing?

dclowd9901 10y ago
My mom just got an Echo for Mother's Day. She's always been very apprehensive about government encroaching, so when I explained to her that the microphone was always on, at first she was surprised. Then I explained how could it know she needed something without always being on? Then I explained to her that we already know for a fact that the government records all data over the wire. And since Echo is plugged into the internet, we have to assume it's sending back every way she interacts with it. Now she's a bit more apprehensive about it. I feel like I did my job.
- tremon 10y ago
  Sadly, it is not the previous generation that you need to convince, it is the next.

gopher2 10y ago

Yeah, I'm sticking with Echo because business model.

bobwaycott 10y ago

Can we get the link changed to https://home.google.com/ https://home.google.com/? Non-HTTPS just 404s.

alexc05 10y ago

I really don't want to come off as super negative here ... but am I the only one who finds this one UGLY? Compare to some of the other devices from previous years, and competitors: https://www.google.ca/search?q=google+nexus+sphere&tbm=isch https://www.google.ca/search?q=google+nexus+sphere&tbm=isch https://www.google.ca/search?q=amazon+echo&tbm=isch https://www.google.ca/search?q=amazon+echo&tbm=isch https://www.google.ca/search?q=amazon+echo+short&tbm=isch https://www.google.ca/search?q=amazon+echo+short&tbm=isch It sort-of looks like a cheap air freshener. Maybe it'd grow on me, but I kinda think it is ugly. Someone should manufacture a range of "tchotchke skins" https://www.google.ca/search?q=tchotchke&tbm=isch https://www.google.ca/search?q=tchotchke&tbm=isch so it could sit on your counter and look like something that you'd be happy to mix in with the rest of your decor. (angels, golden lucky-cats, porcelain hands, googly-eyed-wooden-owls https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/78/b5/80/78b580270c6d1b0686afb2b8b5a0f024.jpg https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/78/b5/80/78b580270...) Anything to stop that thing from lookling like a plug in air freshener really.

rkangel 10y ago
No, you're not on your own with that thought.
pbhjpbhj 10y ago
You're not the only one, I think your "[looking] like a plug in air freshener really" comment is pretty close to my perception of it. The render looks really goofy to me, not half as nice as Echo. However, I like the idea of the slanted top so you can see the lights (which presumably are information bearing and not just branding?). Presumably the top part, at least, would quickly be a target for aftermarket accessory companies so it could match your home interior.

raajg 10y ago

Another Amazon Echo. Not at all interested. I wish there was a text box: Please never send me the latest updates about Google Home.

Kinnard 10y ago

Why wasn't this done under Nest?

wan23 10y ago
It's primarily a frontend to Google search and music. It seems very appropriate for it to be under Google proper.

SalimoS 10y ago

" 404. That’s an error. The requested URL / was not found on this server. That’s all we know." is it only me who can't see the webpage ? //EDIT: weird now it's working :S

partiallypro 10y ago

Microsoft, where are you? Cortana on a device that is similar to the chip Master Chief has would be incredibly popular, and it done right could also be just as popular. Especially since Cortana is on every platform and completely agnostic unlike Google Home and Echo. Give it the same extensible API as Cortana has on Windows 10, etc and it could be a home run. Don't let Google and Amazon eat your lunch here. I do wonder though how Google/Microsoft/Apple will handle there being multiple instances of their devices able to take commands. So if I say "Hey Cortana" or "Ok Google" will each device have to sort of communicate with the other to only activate the one that is closest?

Oletros 10y ago

And I suppose it will be another US only product/service from Google

la6470 10y ago

What a RIP off on amazon echo

Roritharr 10y ago

I love how they put the LG MusicFlow Speaker on the Home presentation. I've been suffering that malpurchase for about a year now. I can rely on it not working 70% of the time, seemingly crashing, creating a mesh wifi although plugged into ethernet or attached to my home wi-fi... If they can't get the third party vendors to get their Google Cast integration up to the reliability level of a Chromecast Audio, they should stop supporting this.

protomikron 10y ago

Ok, controversial opinion: "[...] and manage everyday tasks" What exactly do we want to automate at home? I think this whole home automation and smart home stuff is complete bullshit. Obviously there are some nice things, like "play me song xyz", but IMHO it is completely oversold. There are just not that much things to automate at home. And this does not mean that I think 640K are enough memory for everyone.

dandare 10y ago
I came here to ask people of examples of use cases because I just can not see how this can be useful in this decade.
- sf_rob 10y ago
  I mean, all the turn-key stuff is terrible right now, but I've seen some awesome DIY stuff with Homeseer + IFTTT + bash scripts. My friend's house turns on the front porch light when he gets home, auto-locks the front door if unlocked for more than X minutes, alerts of outside doors that have been open for more than X seconds, dims the lights when he turns on the TV, alerts him when his wife is almost home (she hates that), yells at the dog if he goes into his office, and a hell of a lot more. That said, he's logged dozens of hours getting everything working.
  - protomikron 10y ago
    That is funny. So the motive of your friend is security for himself and surveillance of his wife. The motive of cloud home automation stuff (e.g. Homeseer) is surveillance of its customers, e.g. your friend. It is like turtles all the way down.
  - tamana 10y ago
    Why does his wife let him track her movements?
    - sf_rob 10y ago

lamein 10y ago

People don't care about their privacy anymore. Many of us do care about it, but we are not the majority. This project relies on that fact.

imh 10y ago

In what world is "Always on call" an appealing phrase?

dharma1 10y ago

looking forward to replacing my Echo Dot with this

irrational 10y ago

So to use it I have to get up and go to wherever it is plugged in? Why wouldn't I just use my phone which is always on me?

frik 10y ago

Google, thanks for shutting down Freebase.com on 2 May 2016. By taking it offline, and using it (Knowledge Graph) for Google Home you effectively locked out all competitors. WikiData is a far cry and a fraction of the size of what was Freebase. Freebase was a large collaborative knowledge base consisting of data composed mainly by its community members. It was an online collection of structured data harvested from many sources, including individual, user-submitted wiki contributions. Freebase aimed to create a global resource that allowed people (and machines) to access common information more effectively. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebase https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebase Google is using a lot of data collaborative collected data from closed Freebase and Wikipedia without giving it back.

artpar 10y ago
Freebase data dump is available for download for free. And so is Wikipedia and Dbpedia. And so i common crawl and webdatacommons dumps What are you doing with that ? - https://developers.google.com/freebase/#freebase-rdf-dumps https://developers.google.com/freebase/#freebase-rdf-dumps - http://wiki.dbpedia.org/ http://wiki.dbpedia.org/ - http://webdatacommons.org/ http://webdatacommons.org/ - https://dumps.wikimedia.org/ https://dumps.wikimedia.org/
- frik 10y ago
  How useful is an aging Freebase dump from last year? How useful is it next year? Old outdated data isn't that useful? There is no alternative to Freebase, and oth companies bought companies to have access to an alternative. Microsoft bought Powerset company for Bing, IBM bought Wekko company for Watson, Googe closed down Freebase to use it in-house. And everone else is very "happy" about Google.
  - artpar 10y ago
    Frankly, I have used freebase in one of the project and I then moved to Dbpedia because its content seemed better. I would like to understand how you are using it that Freebase seems the only alternative ?

zozo123 10y ago

Alexa...

kristianc 10y ago

The search queries that get sent to Google are probably the least interesting part of this to them. Sure, Google will get some additional search queries and be able to target you slightly better, but it's a rounding error in terms of the data they already have. The interest in this on Google's side is on having a permanently connected 'listener' on your network to identify which devices you're running and when. If it's running through your WiFi network, Google is going to know about it.

58028641 10y ago

till google disables it ...

paulftw 10y ago

Amazon has Echo, Google has Nest and now Home. What could Apple's Project Titan be if not a smart home device?

educar 10y ago

Seriously, never in my wildest dreams did I think that technology would come down to this. Like many others, I dreamed a future where I could have an automated assistant at home. Just not this way! It's really all about ads and mining data, isn't it.

shogun21 10y ago

I am impressed Amazon was able to make a new product category. It's only a matter of time before Apple announces their take on Siri Home.

walrus01 10y ago

How many months from release until the FISA court issues a secret order to turn one of these on 24x7x365 in a suspect's home, and stream the audio to the FBI "counter terrorism" people investigating a subject?

dragonwriter 10y ago
> How many months from release until the FISA court issues a secret order to turn one of these on 24x7x365 in a suspect's home, and stream the audio to the FBI "counter terrorism" people investigating a subject? Google Home isn't the first entry into this market (Amazon Echo is a thing), and neither of those is the first network-connected microphone-bearing device in people's homes that might be targeted, so its kind of weird to focus on this particular product for that question.
- walrus01 10y ago
  It might be the first one to pass some sort of critical mass of consumer adoption, and within a few years have 10x the market share of Amazon Echo. Depends how much Google subsidizes the hardware and how much they advertise/push it in their other platforms.

wodenokoto 10y ago

What is this? All I get is: 404. That’s an error. The requested URL / was not found on this server. That’s all we know.

hanula 10y ago
Use HTTPS: https://home.google.com/ https://home.google.com/

evolve2k 10y ago

There's no way I'm putting something like this, collecting data directly for Google in my house. Anyone else have privacy concerns?

sixothree 10y ago
It seems every google product is more invasive than the last. It makes me wonder if google sees a golden opportunity or is pushed into this themselves. I get the feeling people aren't really clamoring for these types of invasive products. It reminds me of webcams in laptops. Overnight it appeared that manufacturers were including them as a non-optional component. Yet it never seems to be something the public really cares for at all.

ilaksh 10y ago

Only one sentence explanation unless I missed something. Its an Echo competitor.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

Joof 10y ago

Initially after snowden I thought, "the government and governments around the world will crack down on this behavior now". I was naïve. Nobody cares. Now they viciously support such practices. As long as that exists, I can't buy into datamining devices. And it will always exist.

gcr 10y ago

Will they offer a rebate for this device to burned Revolv users? Doing that would be a great gesture. As it stands, I would be wary of purchasing one of these. How long would it last before Google tires of it?

theideasmith 10y ago

The website is down now. For those who want to check it out, here's the link: https://web.archive.org/web/20160518173022/https://home.google.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20160518173022/https://home.goog...

King-Aaron 10y ago

Sucked in, anyone who bought a Nest.

mattmaroon 10y ago

I love my Echo but it has a couple weak points, all of which could be solved by a competent platform. I can't, for instance, just tell Alexa to play new podcasts from my lists or directly from the net (except through TuneIn, which sucks.) It doesn't work with many home automation devices. It's AI is not that great when it comes to non-Amazon services. I'm hopeful the Android platform will make this a better device.

machbio 10y ago

Hope this is not as disappointing as Onhub, it would be helpful if they have a rich api to start with and not promise that the APIs are coming later...

exodust 10y ago

That page is so simple, yet even Google devs are "powering" these simple pages with multiple JS files. Why? Is it laziness? Or just some belief that Angular is required now for even "hello world"? When viewing source I initially thought 'great, a nice clean HTML page'... after all, it's just 3 images fading between each other and a simple form. But then at the bottom we see Angular, Angular Animate, Angular Scroll, and a fourth Main JS file. Way to set an example Google.

sgnelson 10y ago

How long before we find out the NSA has access to this and the Amazon Echo?

tempodox 10y ago

Now, we can volunteer for the Big Brother experience.

enibundo 10y ago

Does anyone else feel as this kind of stuff (I'd put it in the same bag as the apple Watch, and the amazon something) is completely useless? Personally, I feel we need to use less technology in everyday life.

mathpepe 10y ago

When the danger is so near we admire the foresight of those warning about it. Kudos to the FSF.

jug 10y ago

This is interesting but to be honest I already have this on my phone, which is with me not only in my living room, but even in the street.

conjectures 10y ago

How is this different to having a smartphone on your person? Other than using an additional plug socket.

csrm123 10y ago

What happened to "Don't be Evil"?

ComodoHacker 10y ago

Next step: chemically analysing your kitchen fumes and flavors in nearly real time to profile your gastronomic habits.

gambiting 10y ago

In 4 years Google will drop support for it leaving you with a pretty paperweight. Not interested, not from Google.

fuck_google 10y ago

Sometimes I think Google executives didn't get the point of Orwell's book 1984, but thought they could definitely do better than Big Brother. Like it's evil not to do it, if you have the means.