Everything Google Announced at Its Made by Google Event That Really Matters
Google wants you to start seeing it as a hardware company. The company today announced new Pixel phones, a smart voice assistant speaker called Google Home, a VR platform, and more. Here are the coolest things the company announced today.
Nexus is dead, long live the pixel phones
Google has unveiled two new phones – Pixel and Pixel XL . The Pixel line of phones looks like they will replace Nexus phones as “pure Android” from now on. Unlike previous Nexus phones, which were manufactured in partnership with third-party hardware manufacturers, these phones are entirely Google-branded (although HTC is still involved in production , according to FCC filings).
The Pixel will be the first phone to feature Google Assistant (which we’ll talk about a little later). The company has spent a lot of time touting how it made “hardware and software together,” which means adding Google Assistant to older phones won’t be easy.
Pixel phones will also include unlimited photo and video backups via Google Photos. It even saves them at full resolution. This is a pretty big problem when your phone is recording in 4K . Usually Google limits you to 16 megapixels and 1080p videos, otherwise your downloads count towards your Google Drive quota . They are also the first phones to support Daydream VR (we’ll come back to that later). You can read detailed information about the characteristics of phones on Gizmodo .
The new Pixel phones will start at $ 650 (or $ 27 per month), which is significantly different from previous Nexus phones. Nexus phones used to be solid, but at least one of the models was usually much cheaper than Apple or Samsung flagships. This is a clear push towards a more premium market. Let’s see if Google can compete at this level.
Google Assistant will follow you everywhere, replaces much of Google Now
Google kicked off its event by talking about Assistant, which has been the focus of nearly every product. Many of the Assistant’s features will be familiar to you if you’re used to Google Now and Google Now On Tap . You can search for events nearby, place orders, send text messages and play music.
None of this is new, but the Assistant makes it more unified and easier to communicate. For example, you can find a restaurant and then execute this command by asking, “How far is it?” and the Assistant will know that “it” refers to the restaurant. A lot of this has been promised for a while, but finally it comes. You can even try it on Allo right now .
On your phone, the Assistant handles most of the Google functions you’re used to. You can hold the Home button to bring up the assistant for voice commands (this previously launched Google Now On Tap), or swipe up from the home screen to get contextual suggestions based on what’s on your phone screen ( this was used to open the Google Now Channel).
This is also the first time that Google’s voice assistant really seems to be funny . It might sound silly, but Siri, Cortana, and Alexa tell jokes, have funny Easter eggs, and seem a little more human than Google. While Google may have been taking smart voice commands for longer than all of them , the company struggled to make its assistant understandable. It might actually make regular people remember Google Assistant a little more, which goes a long way in getting used to using it.
Google Home will be released on November 4, will cost $ 129
We first heard about Google Home on Google I / O earlier this year . We now have a price. It will retail for $ 129 on November 4th, and you can pre-order it now . This is Google’s answer to the Amazon Echo , a small speaker that sits in your living room, kitchen, or bedroom and listens passively to voice commands. However, Google wants to take its speaker to the next level with the Google Assistant.
Just say Good Morning to Google Home and it will give you tons of information to help you get ready for the day, including the weather, what’s on your agenda, and more. You can ask more specific questions, such as when is your next meeting or what is the weather like.
Google Home can also control devices in your home. For example, you can ask him to play YouTube or Netflix videos on your Chromecast. Google will automatically find the video you are requesting, connect to your Google Cast-enabled device, and start playing the video. Google will also work with smart home providers such as Philips Hue, Samsung SmartThings and Nest (which are also owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet) to control more devices in the future.
Over time, he also learns about you. For example, the first time you ask it to play music, you may need to indicate that you want it to play through Spotify. However, when you ask again in the future, it will remember that you prefer Spotify, so you can simply ask “Play this song,” and it will automatically select your favorite app by default.
The assistant also interprets your voice commands intelligently. If you ask “Play this song by Shakira from Zootopia,” as the Google demo showed, it will first tell you that the song is called “Try everything,” and then it will start playing the song.
Perhaps the coolest feature of Google Home is that it can intelligently detect which device you’re talking to if you’re using multiple devices throughout your home. Amazon Echo users are all too familiar with this issue. If you have two devices within earshot and you shout “Alexa!” you can force multiple devices to respond to you at the same time. Google Home devices will communicate with each other (as well as your phone) to determine which speaker you are closest to and only respond to that speaker.
Chromecast Ultra brings easy, cheap casting to your 4K TV
Chromecast may be one of Google’s smartest ideas in years . Now, if you have a 4K TV , Chromecast will come to your rescue. For $ 69, you can get the new Chromecast Ultra that supports 4K video. Google says it made the device faster, but let’s be true. The only reason you get this device is the need for 4K. Otherwise, just buy a regular Chromecast for half the price.
Daydream is Google’s VR platform first on Pixel phones
Hope you’re not tired of the Pixel-exclusive features! Daydream is Google’s next step in virtual reality. The company has announced the Daydream View VR headset. It’s very similar to Samsung’s Gear VR, just a little polished. The headset is available in a variety of colored fabrics (red, gray, and white), comes with a simple controller, and retails for $ 79. Simply place your phone in your headset for an Oculus-style VR experience.
Google has showcased several new features to give you an idea of what Daydream can do. The company showed a Harry Potter game in which players can pretend to be wizards, which is arguably the best use of VR so far. Google also announced VR-ready apps for YouTube, Netflix, Hulu and more, so you can watch 360 ° videos or just watch movies in your virtual home theater.
Google WiFi makes it easy to expand your network, has parental controls and more
Google continues its attempts to get into the home networking game with the Google WiFi router . At $ 129, the device is strikingly similar to the OnHub router that the company released last year. This will allow you to control it remotely, selectively block certain devices from the network (for example, to give your kids a timeout on the Internet), and reboot your router.
The most dizzying feature, however, is that Google wants to make it as easy as possible to expand your network for large homes. Just add another Google WiFi device to your home and it expands your network. Sure, if you’re smart you can do the same with any old router , but if you’d rather spend the money to let Google do it for you, the company is offering a bundle of three of their routers (yes, really) for $ 300 .