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What is Google Home?

What is Google Home?Google Home is a smart and connected  speaker powered by Google Assistant, which is a new version of Google Now.

Or, you can see Google Home is a voice-activated personal assistant. You can dictate it just using your voice.

Some owners may consider Google Home as a Chromecast Audio with a built-in speaker.

The direct competitor of Google Home is Amazon Echo.  If you are an Echo user, you can just imagine Google Home is a similar device with a smarter brain.

Anyway, Google Home can be a quite different device if you look at it with different perspectives.

This page will try to explain to you what is Google Home from 3 perspectives.

Contents hide
1) Google Home as a connected speaker
2) Google Home as a smart assistant
3) Google Home as the hub of a connected home
4) So, What is Google Home?

Google Home as a connected speaker

On the surface, Google Home is a speaker that always connects to internet.

So, in this sense, Google Home is similar to Chromecast audio + speaker. Actually, Google Home can be used as Chromecast audio: whenever you want to cast to Chromecast audio, you can cast to Google Home.

The difference between Google Home and Chromecast audio is obvious: Chromecast audio requires a speaker. And you can use 3 types of audio cables to connect Chromecast to the speaker.

While for Google Home, you cannot connect a speaker to it. You must use the built-in speaker, which is decent at that size, but usually is inferior to your HiFi systems.

So, Google Home is NOT a replacement for your Chromecast Audio.

Also, Google Home does not support Bluetooth and you cannot use it as a Bluetooth speaker as what you can do with Amazon Echo.

Google Home as a smart assistant

Google Assistant, the brain of Google Home, is actually a re-branded Google Now, which you already use it in your phone for years (since Jelly Bean).

In Android Marshmallow, Google Now was offered as Now on Tap.

You can also use Google Assistant in Allo app on your smartphones.

So, Google Home is similar to smartphone + Google Now.

Of course, as a smart assistant, Google Home can help you find info and answers (voice search), check whether, set alarms, manage calendars and shopping list.

Google Home as the hub of a connected home

Google Home can also connect to other devices and acting as the hub of your connected home.

You can use Google Home to control your TV (Chromecast),  set preferred room temperature (Nest) and turn on/off  the lights (Philips Hue).

Google Home can also control online services (IFTTT) and many other third-party smart devices (Samsung SmartThings).

So, What is Google Home?

Google Home is a combination of a connected speaker, a smart assistant, and a hub of connected home.

Do you have any questions on Google Home?

You can leave your questions or thoughts on Google Home in the comment box below.

For any specific issues of Google Home, you may check Google Home guides.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Maggie says

    November 8, 2017 at 9:02 pm

    How can I connect my Google Home to my new tablet?

    Reply
    • simon says

      November 12, 2017 at 7:13 am

      What do you want to do? Use Google Home as external (Bluetooth) speaker, or casting music to Google Home?


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      Reply
  2. James Burge says

    December 25, 2017 at 2:48 pm

    How do I connect this to my new voice actoved spesker

    Reply
    • simon says

      December 25, 2017 at 3:11 pm

      What do you want to connect? Please let us know what you want to do in detail.


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      Reply
  3. James Burge says

    December 25, 2017 at 2:55 pm

    Time wrong. 9:54 est

    Reply
  4. Joyce says

    December 26, 2017 at 9:22 am

    How do I get marine weather?

    Reply
    • simon says

      December 26, 2017 at 1:26 am

      You can use your voice to ask. Google Assistant can find the answer. Otherwise, it will tell you why it cannot get such info.


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      Reply
  5. Anonymous says

    December 27, 2017 at 12:08 am

    How do u connect my google home speaker

    Reply
    • simon says

      December 27, 2017 at 12:39 pm

      Where did you want to connect? Or, in other words, what did you want to do with Google home?


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      Reply
  6. Anonymous says

    December 27, 2017 at 6:05 am

    My goodness, all the misspellings and broken English in this Google Home Guide is disappointing. I would expect better from Google.

    Reply
  7. Angela barcelona says

    December 28, 2017 at 3:33 pm

    I have a Google home mini how do I set up

    Reply
    • simon says

      December 28, 2017 at 4:16 pm

      Open Google home app in your Android phones or iPhone, then follow the instructions inside the app.


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      Reply
  8. Tracy says

    December 31, 2017 at 5:52 pm

    I can’t get my Google home to call anyone

    Reply
    • simon says

      January 1, 2018 at 1:32 am

      Making calls through Google Home is only available in US.


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      Reply
  9. Laurel woodill says

    January 11, 2018 at 7:09 am

    Making calls through Google home only in the us of a is not fair to consumers from other countries to not be able to use it. Wtf ???

    Reply
    • simon says

      January 11, 2018 at 9:51 am

      If the feature is not advertised in your region, it means it’s not ready for some reasons.


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      Reply
  10. Bob says

    January 20, 2018 at 12:18 am

    Google home reacts to a request a lot slower than Amazon echo.

    Reply
    • simon says

      January 20, 2018 at 2:31 am

      The reaction time of Google Home (and Amazon Echo) depends on:
      1. the internet connection speed to Google and Amazon servers. This varies from time to time and location to location.
      2. the type of question. If a lot of people asks the same question, the server can cache the answer and therefore deliver answer faster.


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      Reply
  11. N wilcock says

    January 31, 2018 at 11:15 am

    Why is Google home so rubbish I ask it a question with my phone next to it. It says it can’t answer that yet Google on my phone does answer it. When I brought it I was told it would be updated and would get better a year later and still no sign of it getting better were are the updates.

    Reply
    • simon says

      January 31, 2018 at 12:46 pm

      What is exactly the question? Sometimes, it is due to voice recognition. Google Home may misunderstand your question.


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      Reply
  12. Calum scott says

    February 14, 2018 at 8:28 pm

    When will Google home assistant be able to make calls in the uk

    Reply
    • simon says

      February 14, 2018 at 11:34 pm

      Google haven’t made any commitments on the availability of the calling feature in Google Home in other regions. We have too wait.


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      Reply
  13. Kimberly schmidy says

    February 24, 2018 at 11:13 pm

    I want to set up my Google mini

    Reply
    • simon says

      February 25, 2018 at 2:42 am

      1. Power on the Google Home Mini (just plug the included power adapter and connect it to the Home Mini).
      2. Wait one or two minutes
      3. Start Google Home app in your phone (you can also set it up from a PC).
      4. The Google Home app should be able to find any nearby Google Home Mini devices that are not set up.
      5. Follow the instructions in the Google Home app.

      What are the problems you encountered?

      You may check this guide to set up a new Google Home Mini.


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  14. Anonymous says

    June 3, 2018 at 6:56 am

    What happened to the apps that you can get for the Windows10 ???? Now it seems you can not even get anything for Windows10. Not even the app for this product. I think Windows10 is really sucks instead of better. The Windows10 really has to go in the trash .That is all Tata

    Reply
    • simon says

      June 3, 2018 at 8:02 am

      On Windows machine, you just need the latest Chrome browser.


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  15. Anonymous says

    August 18, 2018 at 5:04 pm

    Google home is giving me unrequested info. Repeatedly. ie names & phone # of septic companies in the area, happened two most. How do I fix this?

    Reply
    • simon says

      August 19, 2018 at 12:33 pm

      What are you talking about? You may give more details (how, when, who, where…) so that others can help.


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      Reply
  16. Len says

    August 26, 2018 at 9:30 pm

    Cannot move phone contacts to Google home from jitterbug smart phone.

    Reply
    • simon says

      August 26, 2018 at 10:22 pm

      Google home don’t save contacts. It uses contacts on your Google account. So, on your phone, you need to sync contacts to your Google account.


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  17. Stephanie says

    October 7, 2018 at 7:12 pm

    How to get Google home to read a pacifist bible it has already been downloaded from the Google play store.? It tell me I don’t understand or it will refer me to the play store

    Reply
    • simon says

      October 8, 2018 at 6:13 am

      For audiobooks, Google Home can only read audiobooks purchased from Play Books.

      If you download the audiobook from any other sources, and you want to listen on the Google Home devices, you have at least two options:
      1. Use Google Home as a Bluetooth speaker.
      2. Use Android Audio (mirroring). It is similar to screen mirroring.

      If you only have the text of the book, you need to find an app to read it out. Then use one of the two methods mentioned above.


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  18. Lisa D Webber says

    June 11, 2021 at 3:27 pm

    I believe you would go on your settings on you iPad under Bluetooth and connect the devices there. Once you do that you can have it read audio books that you have downloaded from only Google Play. It will also play music for you via Pandora so make sure you have Pandora downloaded on you IPad. Hope this helps.

    Reply

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