Google announces $50 Home Mini, $400 Home Max, $160 Pixel Buds

Matching Amazon with a barrage of new product announcements, Google has released information on new Home smart devices as well as a new Chromebook, a new lifecam and headphones that translate foreign languages in real time.

In addition to the $130 Google Home standalone device, the $50 Home Mini is Google’s answer to the Amazon Echo Dot. Of course, it will be difficult to match sale prices on the Echo Dot since the Home Mini hardware is brand new. Expect the Home Mini to fall to a minimum of $40 during November’s Black Friday sales while the Echo will fall to $30 to $35.

The Google Home Max is a much larger speaker designed to match up against the $500 Sonos PLAY:5. In addition to being a smart home device, users can connect to the speaker wirelessly via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Google is bundling it with 12-months of YouTube Music.

The $160 Pixel Buds are a new device that includes Google Assistant in the earbuds. Basically, you just touch the earbud on the right and say something like “Help me speak Spanish.” It also has one-touch controls, tapping it for play / pause or swiping for changing the volume.

The other devices include a $250 lifecam called Google Clips. It includes 16GB of storage and connects directly to your smartphone to offload the photos and videos. There’s a new high-end Chromebook, the $999 Google Pixelbook, and a new smartphone, the $650 Pixel 2.

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One Comment

1. 

   Doug Dingle

   October 6, 2017 at 2:59 pm

   The Chromecast Ultra does not support Amazon Prime, according to the Google site.

   While it looks like a nice little device, that lack of support means I’m never buying or deploying one here, even if it’s free.

   Just infantile, whichever one of the two decided that this was OK to annoy the other. It’s not OK.

   Also, people should be aware that since a wired Ethernet connection comes in through the power adapter USB cable, it is “Ethernet-over-USB” which, by definition, can only go so fast because it’s restricted by USB(2?) speed constraints. Streaming UHD with DV and top end audio is going to seriously strain that connection (and wireless isn’t going to be any better for most people).

   I don’t understand what the 20-somethings who design stuff are thinking. Some really stupid decisions being made by witless people with little life experience and the technical acumen of a goldfish.

   Reply