Google Home reportedly has many of the same components as the Chromecast
At Google I/O 2016, the highlight of the show was arguably Google Home. The competitor to Amazon’s Echo, Google Home is a intended to be the central hub for all of your connected devices, including Google’s Chromecast devices. Interestingly enough, a new report from The Information gives a little insight as to the similarities between Google’s Chromecast and Home devices.
Although Google spent quite a bit of time on stage to show us all what will be coming later this year, the company said very little as to what’s actually going into Google Home. Thanks to this new report, it seems the technology powering home isn’t really that new at all.
Google Home is little more than Google’s Chromecast device innards combined with LED lights, casing, microphone and a speaker. In fact, the processor and Wi-Fi chip are supposed to be the same ones that can be found on the current generation Chromecasts.
The fact that Chromecasts are only $35 or so, we’re hoping that the first-gen Google Home costs less than the Amazon Echo. Then again, we wouldn’t be surprised if this was priced at the $200 price point, but one can hope. We’ll have to wait until this Fall to see what Google has planned.
There’s always the off chance that this report is based off the developer version of the Google Home and the full version will have different components, but that’s a long shot.
What do you think about Google Home? Do you think it matters that the innards are that of the Chromecast, just repackaged with a few important additions?