{"id":336947,"date":"2017-03-28T18:25:06","date_gmt":"2017-03-28T10:25:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techcrunch.com\/?p=1469590"},"modified":"2017-03-28T18:25:06","modified_gmt":"2017-03-28T10:25:06","slug":"googles-amazon-echo-competitor-and-wifi-router-launching-in-uk-on-april-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/googles-amazon-echo-competitor-and-wifi-router-launching-in-uk-on-april-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Google\u2019s Amazon Echo competitor and wifi router launching in UK on April 6"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Google has announced<\/a>\u00a0that its\u00a0Google Home connected speaker will launch in the UK on April 6, along with the Google Wifi router.<\/p>\n

The Google Home connected speaker, which started shipping in the US back in November<\/a>,\u00a0is seeking to\u00a0compete<\/a>\u00a0with the likes of Amazon\u2019s Echo (which launched in the UK last fall<\/a>) \u2014\u00a0offering a physical housing for\u00a0Google\u2019s voice assistant tech, the eponymous Google Assistant, to position its\u00a0listening ear\u00a0perpetually inside your home.<\/p>\n

The company mocked up a fake house in London this morning to demo the\u00a0device to journalists. Which may or may not be a fitting metaphor for the extensively hyped concept of the \u2018smart home\u2019.<\/p>\n

But for those Brits who\u00a0dream of sitting on an impossibly white leather couch, next to Google\u2019s\u00a0always listening microphone<\/a>\u00a0primed and\u00a0ready to tell you what the weather is\u00a0tomorrow, or add something to your to-do list, or inform\u00a0you where the nearest petrol station is and how to get there then\u00a0today is a special day indeed.<\/p>\n

Unlike the Amazon Echo, Google Home does not have such a\u00a0sprawling ecommerce back-end to plug into \u2014 and while\u00a0Google Home offers\u00a0some limited ecommerce options in the US<\/a>, it does not appear to be bringing any such services to the UK as yet.<\/p>\n

Given its head-start with the tech, the Echo has also amassed\u00a0considerably more third party app integrations<\/a> \u2014 such as services like JustEat and Uber. So you can already ask Alexa (Amazon\u2019s voice assistant) to order you a taxi or a takeaway. But won\u2019t yet get joy out of Google Assistant on that front, though JustEat is apparently planning<\/a> to support the device this year.<\/p>\n

Google Home is being priced at \u00a3130 in the UK\u00a0\u2014 so it\u2019s slightly\u00a0less expensive\u00a0than Amazon\u2019s Echo (\u00a3150).\u00a0While the app-controlled\u00a0Google WiFi router<\/a>\u00a0is priced at \u00a3130 for one unit (or \u00a3230 for two, for those with more internal real estate to blanket with wi-fi).<\/p>\n

In terms of localization, the\u00a0Google\u00a0Home speaker is able to deliver news briefings from a selection of UK\u00a0publications including\u00a0the BBC, The Guardian, The Financial Times, The Sun, The Telegraph, Huffington Post, Sky News and Sky Sports.<\/p>\n

Otherwise, it\u2019s capable of playing music on command from a\u00a0small selection of music streaming services, assuming\u00a0you\u2019re a subscriber \u2014 such as Google Play Music, YouTube Music or\u00a0Spotify Premium (subscriptions for these services are not included in the price of the device).<\/p>\n

Owners of a small number of other connected devices such as the (Google-owned) Nest thermostat, Philips Hue lightbulbs or Samsung\u2019s SmartThings hub can also control additional connected devices via Google Home voice commands. Google\u2019s\u00a0Chromecast can also be controlled via the speaker.<\/p>\n

Buyers should be aware that all voice interactions with Google Home will be data-mined by Google to build a clearer picture of your domestic life and preferences for ad targeting purposes. The company\u00a0says it stores your conversation data in perpetuity \u2014 unless you actively opt to delete it (which it says is possible).<\/p>\n

Google also appears<\/a> to retain any conversation data of users who uninstall Google Home and delete their account \u2014 you have to actively go into the setting and delete the conversation history prior to deleting your account if you want to remove your conversation data from Google\u2019s servers. And even after a deletion Google\u00a0says it\u00a0may also still retain some \u201cservice-related information\u201d pertaining to your account.<\/p>\n

While the Google Home speaker listens locally for a so-called \u201chotword\u201d \u2014 aka the phrase \u201cOk, Google\u201d \u2014 before it starts streaming your\u00a0conversations\u00a0to Google\u2019s cloud for processing and storing, it\u2019s of course trivially easy for this to be triggered accidentally, and whatever you happen to say at such moments will\u00a0also be\u00a0recorded in perpetuity on\u00a0Google\u2019s servers for data-mining and potentially passing to\u00a0third parties. Welcome to the \u2018smart home\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"\" Google has announced that its Google Home connected speaker will launch in the UK on April 6, along with the Google Wifi router. Read More<\/a><\/p>\n

\n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"\/ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5817,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[59,66,26],"class_list":["post-336947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-media","tag-techcrunch","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5817"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336947\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.utm.my\/asmawisham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}