Tech Trend 247

The first thing you notice about Google's Amazon Echo killer is how small it is. The second is that it actually looks pretty good. 

In fact, Google Home, which isn't much taller than the company's larger Pixel phone, looks better than most Bluetooth speakers and far better than Amazon's Echo. It's sleek and mostly white, though it comes with swappable bases. If it weren't for the LED lights that look like patterns for Google Assistant, you could easily forget it's a Google product. 

There is only one button on Google Home, a mute button on the back that stops its always-on listening. Everything else, however, is controlled via the touchpad on top of the speaker or through voice commands, which you initiate by saying "OK Google."

The speaker itself has a range of about 10 to 15 feet, according to Google, so its mics should be able to cover most medium-sized rooms, though I didn't get a chance to test it out at a distance. The touchpad on top controls the volume and music playback and you can also hold it down to say a command if you don't feel like saying "OK Google." 

The speaker gets surprisingly loud for its size. The demo space wasn't exactly quiet but the speaker didn't sound underpowered. I'm not an audiophile by any means but the music played through Google Home sounded at least as good (if not better) than the Amazon Echo.

Additionally, if you have a soundbar or other speaker setup you already like, you can connect it to Google Home via a Chromecast Audio (the speaker doesn't support Bluetooth). This could be a decent workaround for those who want the convenience of Google Home without giving up their existing speaker. 

The brains of the speaker are powered by Google Assistant, the same software baked into Google's new Pixel phones and its messaging app Allo. And you can use many of the same commands with Google Home as you can with the Assistant in other products. 

Google Home can provide calendar and flight info, news headlines, sports scores, translations, directions and answers to simple queries like "When is the sunrise?" or "How old is the president of the United States?" 

But Google stopped short of integrating all of its services into it. For example, it can scan your inbox for flight information but it can't read you your emails (at least, not yet). It can tell you about what's on your calendar but can't add a new event to it. Some of this will likely change over time but I could easily see how it could get frustrating to not have access to more of your Google services.

Home will also work with third-party services, though Google has only announced a handful so far, including Spotify, Pandora, IFTTT and Phillips. This too will likely ramp up in the coming months once the device goes on sale. 

But, at $129, Google Home looks to be a more than able Amazon Echo competitor. As good as the Echo is, it's far easier to make the case for having access to Google search and services in your home than Amazon shopping (as convenient as it is).

And, unlike Google's Pixel phones, it comes at a price that will be hard to beat.

We just witnessed Google’s moonshot. They’re ready to play hard(ware) ball at an Apple level. No more half measures or product designs inspired by- or influenced by Google. The Pixel phone, which Google officially unveiled on Tuesday in San Francisco, is developed, designed and built by Google; it even has a “G” embossed on back.

The radical nature of this event cannot be understated. It’s a hardware move, a competitive move, a brand move, a risky move.

There is, for perhaps the first time ever in Google’s hardware history, a vision and it’s not actually built around search.

Okay, it is, but not in the way Google tried before. Google search and all the incredible artificial intelligence and machine learning it currently feeds moves to the forefront in the form of Google Assistant, which is rapidly becoming Google’s most important invention.

On the Pixel phone (and larger Pixel XL), Google search is still present, but instead of a persistent search bar, we get the Google “G”, ready to jump to action with a tap. Google Assistant is activated by holding the home button and asking a question. It’s the faster and more intelligent way to search and it was the theme of Tuesday’s presentation.

Google Assistant is also so much more than just a search front end. It is the intelligence, personality and voice that will follow you from one piece of new Google hardware to another. It’s the code that will add value and reason for owning more than one Google gadget.

The vision of Google in your life is anchored by Google Assistant.

To pull this off, though, Google needs not just competitive hardware, but truly lust-worthy devices that will inspire the masses to join the Google Assistant movement.

Handsets with a capital G

Google's Pixel phone is almost, but not quite that. The two handsets, the 5.1-inch Pixel and 5.5-inch Pixel XL are good-looking devices. They promise the best that Google has to offer in Android software, Nougat, and instant access to every update after that. The screens are HD, and almost bezel-free. The ports are, with the exception of USB-C nothing special. The body is interesting, if not innovative: A mix of materials (glass and metal) is either genius or a very big mistake. 

Aside from potentially over-reaching camera phone promises (“Best smartphone camera anyone has ever made”? Really, Google?), the phones do not appear to break any new ground. It’s also unclear if they’re water-resistant and can handle wireless charging.

I am impressed, though, that Google will let you store all of your full-resolution photos and videos in Google’s cloud for free. Apple offers some free storage to iCloud members, but I have yet to meet an iPhone owner who isn’t constantly running out of back-up space. Google and Pixel will handily solve that problem. (I will be carefully checking the fine print on this one, though.)

More impressive, though is the clean experience that will set the Pixel phones apart from virtually all other Android Handsets. The reason Google is launching the Pixel first on Verizon is probably quite similar to why Apple launched the iPhone only on AT&T. It was the only carrier back then that would agree to Apple’s strict terms. Now, with the Pixel on Verizon (only), history is repeating itself. Verizon will not be able to dump “VZ” bloatware on the handset. Instead, this will be Google’s curated handset experience, complete with pre-loaded apps like Maps and the FaceTime equivalent Allo (which smartly and unlike FaceTime is cross platform), and most of Google’s other key apps and services — a Google experience through and through that every other carrier will have to agree to before Google agrees to add them as Pixel partners.

You might wonder why Google didn’t beat the competition on price. The 32 GB entry-level Pixel is $649, just like the smaller iPhone 7. More importantly, though, Google’s pricing doesn’t undercut partners, many of which sell a range of affordable devices in emerging markets and, yes, some in developed nations like the U.S. By sticking to the premium phone class, Google may be trying to assuage some partner fears about Google encroaching on Android handset turf. (Good luck with that.)

I know people are excited about Google Home, but it doesn’t exactly blow Amazon Echo out of the water. There are, though, some smart touches that Amazon might choose to replicate. The stop listening button, for instance, will curtail false-calls to Google Assistant. Though I’m not sure how I’ll know the right moment to use it. How often do I cry out, “Ok, Google!” and not intend to address a Google or Android device?

Google Wifi is an important piece of the Google Assistant ecosystem puzzle: Walking into a room and loosing Wi-Fi connectivity on your new Google hardware would be frustrating and potentially cut you off from access to Google Assistant. An ecosystem only works if it’s ubiquitous. Better connectivity in all corners of your homes gets you closer to that ideal. However, like the rest of Google’s hardware, Google Wi-Fi is not a wholly new idea. Wi-Fi network extenders are becoming increasingly popular and mesh technology has made products like Eero home connectivity saviors.

A much better and more comfortable, dare I say cozy, VR headset is welcome for those who think they'll be consuming a lot of virtual reality through their new Pixel handset. But VR has yet to captivate the majority of consumers. The Dreamdream View is still a gamer play that will not inspire Google hardware converts. 

The brand

Google did not just launch a new ecosystem; it essentially relaunched its hardware brand with “Google” and the “G” as a logo at the center (Nexus is dead. Done. Buried without a funeral). When I spoke to brand experts earlier this week about the possibility of Google going “full Apple” and branding hardware with the Google name or logo, they told me it was a risky or even bad idea.

“I don’t know if they want to copy Apple and put their whole company name on it,” said Kathleen Carroll, CEO and founder of the Branding Clinic. The risk in the kind of branding Google is now engaged in is that the parent brand (Google, not Alphabet) loses the protection of a product line brand. If Pixel phone fails, Google’s name will get a black eye right along with it.

There is, obviously, another way of looking at it. Google’s belief in its new gadgets is so strong that anything short of Google branding would have been interpreted as tepid support for their own hardware initiative.

Whether or not these products are good enough to launch a new hardware brand, Google faces more challenges in its quest than, say, Apple did almost a decade ago.

Tough odds

Google launches its Pixel phones in a very different world than Apple did the iPhone nine years ago. In 2007, Apple had the benefit of appearing to price the device at $199. The end of contracts and subsidies means that every flagship and premium phone launched today (including Apple’s) sounds incredibly expensive (even though most of us pay them off monthly).

Back then, smartphones were special. They looked different than feature phones and, among the few companies that were producing data-sucking smartphones, different than each other. Nowadays, every smartphone looks like a slab. Commenters on social media complained on Tuesday that Google’s Pixel phones were boring. Really? How many of today’s smartphones look alike and a little dull? Yes, Apple has become the materials king (jet black!), but step away from those finishes and you’re quickly reminded that this year's iPhone 7 looks almost exactly like last year's iPhone 6S. The best smartphones almost have to be slabs of metal and glass to bring the functionality on the screen to life. 

What ultimately sets Google apart is, obviously, not the hardware. Yes, designing and building these devices gives Google control, but the end game for Google is not you owning all their hardware (they want you to, but it's a means to an end). It’s you using all their software and services through the all-important Google Assistant. It’s consumers deriving answers from the Google data universe wherever they are and whatever they’re doing. 

Will Google ultimately become Apple? No. But perhaps that was never the goal in the first place.