Google has today launched its latest series of smart speakers, Google Home and Home Mini, in India. The Google Home is priced at Rs 9,999 while the Home Mini will cost you Rs 4,499. Both the speakers will be made exclusively available on the e-commerce platform, Flipkart from today. They will also be available on retail stores like Reliance Digital, Croma, Vijay sales, Sangeetha, Poorvika and ACT Fibernet. Hindi support will be added to Google Home speakers later this year.
Coming to some launch offers, Reliance Jio has announced that users buying the Home speaker from Reliance Digital store will get a JioFi WiFi hotspot for free. Further, the company is offering 100GB of additional data.Jio customers with any pack starting at Rs 149 (+Prime Rs 99) gets instant additional data benefits 100GB through ten 10GB vouchers in the MyJio account. The validity of these vouchers would be 1 year from the date of credit.
The speakers allow the users to play music, cast video, control smart home, stay updated with news and ask questions. The speakers will give a stiff competition to Amazon Echo lineup including Echo Dot, Echo and Echo Plus speakers that have recently begun selling in the country.
To recall, Google introduced the Home speaker in 2016, while the Home Mini was introduced in October last year. Google Home is essentially a 6-inch x 4-inch speaker which is always listening to your voice. Apart from playing music from your smartphone or from any other device, Google can perform a bunch of other functions. The speakers have a 2-inch driver and dual 2-inch passive radiators on the sides. On top, there is a capacitive touch panel for controls and four LED’s which shows Google’s colourful language.
The touch panel can be used to adjust volume, pause or play audio, can take calls etc. It also sports two microphones on top which are always on unless you press the mute button on the side which disables the mics.
Coming to Google Home Mini, the smart speaker comes with fabric that is durable, yet transparent enough to let through both light and sound. There is an LED under the fabric, which notifies a user when the Google Assistant is hearing. The smart speaker comes with a compact design and delivers a 360-degree sound. The device comes in three colour options including Chalk, Charcoal, and Coral and it can be connected to other Google Home devices.