Google Home Guides

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

  6. Anonymous says

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

    Reply

  9. Laurel woodill says

    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

  11. N wilcock says

    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

  14. Anonymous says

    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

  15. Anonymous says

    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

  17. Stephanie says

    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

  18. Lisa D Webber says

    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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