Google on Tuesday launched the Google Home and Home Mini smart speakers in India at an event held in New Delhi. The Google Home speakers are powered by Google Assistant and take on Amazon Echo devices that were launched in India last year. The Google Home, which was announced in 2016 at the company’s hardware event, is bigger in size than the Home Mini, which debuted at Google’s last year hardware event in October. The Google Home and Home Mini currently support Play Music, Saavn, Gaana, YouTube, and Netflix.
The Google Home and Home Mini speakers will be exclusively available via Flipkart initially – sales start today. The bigger Google Home is priced at Rs 9,999 while the smaller Home Mini speaker will be available at Rs 4,499 in India. Both the price points are identical to what Amazon Echo and Echo Dot speakers costs in India at Rs 9,999 and Rs 4,499, respectively. The smart speakers will soon be available across offline retailers including Reliance Digital stores. Google is also offering six months of Google Play Music subscription free of cost with the purchase of Google Home and Home Mini.
The Google Home and Home Mini speakers take on Echo and Echo Dot in terms of pricing, specifications, and features. The Google Home has a touch-enabled surface on the top with controls for volume, music playback, and waking the Google Assistant. It has a beaker-like design with interchangeable bases that come in different colours – metallic ones include Copper and Carbon while the fabric ones are Mango, Coral, Slate, Violet, and Marine. The Google Home Mini only has the fabric colour options – Chalk, Coral, and Charcoal.
The Google Home and Home Mini speakers come with omnidirectional microphone setup that is equipped with far-field voice recognition technology that enables listening to voice from a reasonable distance. Both Google Home and Home Mini have Voice Match Technology to differentiate among the user voices. The speakers on the Google Home include a 2-inch driver and a 2-inch passive radiator. The Google Home Mini, on the other hand, touts 360-degree sound with tweeters only. The Google Home and Home Mini support Android 4.4 KitKat and higher and iOS 9.1 and later.
For the connectivity, the Google Home comes with support for Wi-Fi only while the Google Home Mini has Bluetooth, as well as Wi-Fi support. Both the speakers do not come with the battery and require AC power source via an adapter. The speakers come with support for Chromecast to allow mirroring the content on your television.
