
Google Home - stuartmemo
http://home.google.com/
======
cheald
When I was younger, I dreamed of something like this. Voice control for my
home! A Star Trek computer that I can interact with conversationally! I just
say what I want and it happens!

Now, I just see an internet-connected microphone in a software black box which
I can only interpret as a giant frickin' security liability. I _want_ this,
but unless it's open source top-to-bottom, I won't ever actually put one in my
home. We know too much about how these things can be abused for me to ever
seriously consider it without being able to verify for myself what it's doing
and why.

~~~
mbrock
The Free Software Foundation, in its texts, often uses the phrase "the free
world" to mean the realm of computing without proprietary restrictions,
surveillance, etc.

Approximately since Snowden, I've become more and more convinced about both
the fragility and the value of this free world.

And today, I basically see the tech giants as colossal enemies.

Career-wise, henceforth I will avoid proprietary systems and dedicate myself
to working on privacy-enabling free software, even if I make less money.

Many people in the free software movement have had more foresight and ethical
intelligence than me, and I salute them! It's only recently that I'm able to
start formulating my techno-political views in a coherent and strong way.

Now, looking at a device like this, I automatically compare it to something
like a tractor or plow. It demands constant connectivity to Google HQ... it's
full of secret code... it requires, for its basic paradigm, a private
company's acquisition of staggering amounts of surveillance... and so on.

When I think about what to work on, a guiding question for me now is "What
would Google _not_ do?"

I look forward to contributing to the free world!

(Sorry for this quasi-manifestoish tone...)

~~~
amelius
But do you think that free software can keep up against these giants? In the
near future, it will all be about having large amounts of data, and processing
power; it will be less and less about the actual algorithms.

I'm afraid the only way out will be to rethink the economy.

~~~
scalio
I think a neat solution is home-serving. A little box with big storage which
acts as a hub for your family's digital life. It relays all your devices,
gathers all info they're spitting out, and works on it. Results are fed back
to the UIs.

When you're out and about, your devices tunnel home automatically, knowing the
endpoint is trustworthy (which is more than can be said about traditional
VPNs). All your photos, tweets, posts, and all other brain farts straying into
the open world are never sent out directly by the device they were produced
on, but by the server at home instead.

Tor could finally work as intended, with millions of boxes in the network, all
handling each other's traffic. Add new projects like IPFS, and the whole
centralised cloud bullshit starts to crumble. Not just from a privacy pov, but
features. Your home box talking to the neighbours' home boxes by itself is a
whole lot more powerful than all parties meeting on some obscure server
somewhere, although I find myself quickly coming back to privacy when thinking
about advantages. I do hope there is room for other big features, otherwise
getting this box into peoples' hands will prove difficult.

I see it as a kind of decentralised centralisation: your whole digital life is
based on this one machine, but it's in your home, you own it, and you can do
with it whatever the heck you want. No ads (!), no monetization of your
private data, which stays in your hands at all times, except of course once
you share. Still, then it will be in the hands of those you shared it with,
and hopefully not huge corporations with little incentive to _do no evil_ (who
the hell thought this was an appropriate company motto?).

Most everything for which we turn to Google and Facebook can be done much more
privately at home (office things, communication, sharing shit...), except
maybe search. I have little problem in keeping Google as a search machine
(they _do_ a great job) once they stop waiting for me at every. single.
corner, and following me around the bits inbetween. Decentralised search is
hard, but I'm fairly optimistic once a basis is laid out, someone smart takes
on the challenge (and is able to solve it, too!).

Regarding your last sentence, rethinking our economy isn't a bad idea in any
case. Capitalism is fundamentally unfit to be a fair system, and if a socially
fair system is what we want, we have to get rid of some ideas (like this
infinite growth nonsense, or that education is obsolete. Education, in
whatever shape or form, is the only way I know of how humanity is not going to
spiral to its (intellectual) death).

~~~
mbrock
Search is cool, but Google-style universal search might be a bit overrated.

Google still relies on institutions to provide data in indexable form, and
those institutions build their reputations in ways that only partially rely on
Google traffic.

I mean, a competent librarian has a kind of expertise that Google's algorithms
don't, so that's one situation to explore for a post-Google idea of finding
information (of course it's also pre-Google).

The social aspect of information discovery is something that Google and
Facebook are kind of fighting over, but fundamentally it doesn't belong to
them—it belongs to "us" intrinsically.

They shut down Google Reader but they can't shut down the human tendency to
share information!

And the panopticon information provided by Google is often just a mesmerizing
massive overload with no curation, weight, intelligence...

Wikipedia is the top hit for so many searches that one could see Google as an
interface for it. Add Wikivoyage/Wikitravel, some other community wikis, API
interfaces a la DuckDuckGo, social curation, etc, and you might find that the
value of Google Search is actually not that incredible.

~~~
scalio
Yes, google certainly isn't the best we can do in terms of finding stuff, but
I think the sheer amount of data they're gathering enables the algorithms to
appear more intelligent than they really are by processing more instead of
better (as you say, there is little to no curation going on).

This is one of the main reasons I think home serving is a great idea. It
enables people with some interest in one another to connect directly, one-to-
one, instead of running around in some third party's server. This opens
possibilities for exchange and networking on a very personal basis that we
don't have today mostly because of privacy concerns (virtual neighbourhoods
and the like).

------
t0mbstone
Please, please, please be a completely open, extensible platform...

I want to be able to control my Apple TV with my Google Home device.

I want to be able to control my Phillips Hue and LiFX bulbs.

I want to be able to build my own custom home automation server endpoints and
point my Google Home commands at them.

I want to be able to remote start my car with a voice command.

I want to be able to control my Harmony remote, and all of the devices
connected to my Harmony hub.

I want to be able to access my Google calendar.

I want to be able to make hands-free phone calls to anyone on my Google
contacts.

If my grandmother falls, I want her to be able to call 911 by talking to the
Google Home device.

I want to be able to ask wolfram alpha questions by voice.

I want to be able to have a back-and-forth conversation to arrive at a
conclusion. I don't want to have to say a perfectly formulated command like,
"Add an event to my calendar on Jan 1, 2016 at 2:00 pm titled go to the pool
party". I want to be able to say, "Can you add an event to my calendar?", and
then answer a series of questions. I hate having to formulate complex commands
as a single sentence.

I want to be able to have a Google Home device in each room, without having to
give each one its own wake-up word. Just have the closest one to me respond to
my voice (based on how well it can hear me).

I want to be able to play music on all of my Google Home devices at the same
time, and have the music perfectly synchronized.

This is my wish list. I am currently able to do more than half of these items
with Amazon Echo, but I had to do a bunch of hacking and it was a pain in the
ass.

If Google Home can deliver on these points, I would switch from Amazon Echo in
a heartbeat.

~~~
oxguy3
According to Ars Technica, Google Home is actually gonna be more locked down
than Amazon Echo.

> Initially, Google says that it will not be creating APIs for Assistant and
> Home and that as such, any integrations with services and other devices will
> have to come from Google first. This approach is a contrast with the Echo,
> which is designed to be extensible.

[https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/05/google-assistant-
and...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/05/google-assistant-and-google-
home-amazon-echo-but-from-google/)

Dreams = crushed :(

~~~
dragonwriter
_Initially_ doing internal integrations, then releasing API access to trusted
partners, then making APIs publicly available is how Google has done lots of
things. So, I wouldn't be surprised if that's the route Google does with this.

~~~
capitalsigma
Yeah, I suspect the idea is that "public APIs are forever," __especially __in
hardware. They probably want to be able to collect some real user data, make a
few mistakes and get a better idea of what role the product is actually going
to fulfill before committing to something that they 'll have to maintain
indefinitely.

------
koolba
RFP - Request For Project

1\. Train Google Home to recognize Amazon Echo's voice as its owner.

2\. Train Amazon Echo to recognize Siri's voice as its owner

3\. Train Siri to recognize Google Home's voice as its owner

4\. Kick start some kind of endless loop between the three of them.

~~~
mevile
Amazon's Echo doesn't have an owner concept. I didn't think Siri did either.
My Echo can take commands from anyone, there's no authentication at all
outside of initial set up with your Amazon account. My daughter and I have
completely different voices and we use it without problems.

~~~
koolba
> Amazon's Echo doesn't have an owner concept. I didn't think Siri did either.
> My Echo can take commands from anyone, there's no authentication at all
> outside of initial set up with your Amazon account. My daughter and I have
> completely different voices and we use it without problems.

By owner I mean the voice that it's trained to respond to (not in an
authentication sense). See [1] and [2].

[1]:
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201601940)

[2]:
[http://www.techtimes.com/articles/83995/20150913/ios-9-inclu...](http://www.techtimes.com/articles/83995/20150913/ios-9-includes-
voice-training-for-siri-to-help-her-recognize-your-voice.htm)

------
will_brown
When Windows10/Cortana was released my buddy attached a mixer/switch to his PC
allowing him to wire input mics and sound speakers to every room in his house.

And though I can't see any personal uses for such a device, he swears it has
changed his life, and the only thing I believe he does with it is tells
Cortana to play Van Halan first thing when he wakes up.

~~~
Roritharr
I love the image of an old stasi officer seeing the current trend of people
paying good money to effectively bug their own appartments. It must be surreal
to them.

~~~
nisa
Stasi used people to bug on people as early as in high school - it was at
least in my opinion much more nefarious than passive mass surveillance - at
least it's different. I'm from the former GDR and they wreaked havoc over
countless families over seemingly bullshit things. So it's difficult to
compare IMHO.

But I guess it's not an impossible technical problem to train some machine
learning algorithm to classify the voices and the conversation in the room and
detect typical behavior patterns of a crime and be it smoking weed with
friends.

------
frik
Google, thanks for shutting down Freebase.com on 2 May 2016. By taking it
offline, and using it (Knowledge Graph) for Google Home you effectively locked
out all competitors. WikiData is a far cry and a fraction of the size of what
was Freebase.

Freebase was a large collaborative knowledge base consisting of data composed
mainly by its community members. It was an online collection of structured
data harvested from many sources, including individual, user-submitted wiki
contributions. Freebase aimed to create a global resource that allowed people
(and machines) to access common information more effectively.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebase](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freebase)

Google is using a lot of data collaborative collected data from closed
Freebase and Wikipedia without giving it back.

~~~
artpar
Freebase data dump is available for download for free. And so is Wikipedia and
Dbpedia. And so i common crawl and webdatacommons dumps

What are you doing with that ?

\- [https://developers.google.com/freebase/#freebase-rdf-
dumps](https://developers.google.com/freebase/#freebase-rdf-dumps) \-
[http://wiki.dbpedia.org/](http://wiki.dbpedia.org/) \-
[http://webdatacommons.org/](http://webdatacommons.org/) \-
[https://dumps.wikimedia.org/](https://dumps.wikimedia.org/)

~~~
frik
How useful is an aging Freebase dump from last year? How useful is it next
year? Old outdated data isn't that useful? There is no alternative to
Freebase, and oth companies bought companies to have access to an alternative.
Microsoft bought Powerset company for Bing, IBM bought Wekko company for
Watson, Googe closed down Freebase to use it in-house. And everone else is
very "happy" about Google.

~~~
artpar
Frankly, I have used freebase in one of the project and I then moved to
Dbpedia because its content seemed better. I would like to understand how you
are using it that Freebase seems the only alternative ?

------
protomikron
Ok, controversial opinion:

"[...] and manage everyday tasks"

What exactly do we want to automate at home? I think this whole home
automation and smart home stuff is complete bullshit. Obviously there are some
nice things, like "play me song xyz", but IMHO it is completely oversold.
There are just not that much things to automate at home.

And this does not mean that I think 640K are enough memory for everyone.

~~~
tlrobinson
I haven't even really explored all the capabilities of Alexa, but I ask Alexa
to:

1\. read the news (1x per day)

2\. play music (~3x per day)

3\. turn on/off lights (~8x per day)

4\. set a timer (~2x per day)

5\. feed the cat (~2x per day... blog post forthcoming)

~~~
protomikron
Yeah, ok, I get that, it is nice. But I do not see some kind of revolution (I
am sure I heard that term connected to home automation) that is often
proclaimed.

For me the time saving is just too low compared with the alternative of
wrestling with some kind of UI, but I may change my mind if I try it out for
some time? Let's see.

//edit:

And I think turning lights on/off and playing songs is a really bad example.
It is like the Fibonacci sequence of programming language PR. I really do not
think one goes with a PL because it has a short solution to generate the
Fibonacci sequence. It is nice. But not useful.

~~~
tlrobinson
Honestly, don't knock it until you try it. Sure I can accomplish the same
things by pulling out my phone but it's relaxing to not have to.

------
fizzbatter
I'm dying for an Echo / Home that is fully api friendly and allows custom
keywords. I want to buy an interface to my _own_ home assistant. I want a
hackers friend.

Sure, offline-capable would be great too, but for now just give me the damn
api hooks. :s

 __edit __: Note that i believe Echo has a pretty good API. I just don 't want
to talk to echo haha. I want to talk to my system.

~~~
ewindisch
The Echo not only allows you to extend its vocabulary, Amazon offers the Echo
functionality as as a service that any developer can use from their own
hardware.

If you wanted to use your own voice recognition and natural language
processing, you could easily tie that into open source vocabulary that has
been written for Echo.

~~~
fizzbatter
Yea, i hear the API is quite good - i should have been more clear, it sounds
like for me the main blocker is the trigger word.

But yea, what i would want is to literally take all input from the Echo, have
amazon/echo transcribe it to text, and then send it to my code. Echo would
then read the english response back.

~~~
nysska
Sorry, I might be totally off the base here but why not use IBM Watson for
that? It's free for a thousand minutes in a month and it's speech-to-text
looks quite good on the first glance.

I was just looking around for a custom solution to have something listening,
send it off somewhere to get the text out of the voice command and then
respond to keywords/contexts with appropriate custom-made actions. All you
need then is to process that and read out the response.

~~~
fizzbatter
No idea, does IBM Watson have a good in-home hardware device?

I'm not talking about using Echo to do any complex work, i want echo to just
be my middle man taking in speech and sending my program the text. With of
course, a customizable wake word.

I wasn't aware of IBM Watson having an Echo or Home like device. If it matches
my needs, i'm very interested :)

------
JarvisSong
ITT smart hackers asking for more features and noting the privacy
implications. Unfortunately, this, Echo, and others are coming for the masses,
the masses who have everything public on Facebook and won't really understand
the issues until it's too late. Give it a few years and 'everyone' will have a
Star-Trek-like home computer experience. What can we do to turn the tide in
favor of privacy and security? Or do we just trust Google/Amazon will do the
right thing?

~~~
dclowd9901
My mom just got an Echo for Mother's Day. She's always been very apprehensive
about government encroaching, so when I explained to her that the microphone
was always on, at first she was surprised. Then I explained how could it know
she needed something without always being on? Then I explained to her that we
already know for a fact that the government records all data over the wire.
And since Echo is plugged into the internet, we have to assume it's sending
back every way she interacts with it. Now she's a bit more apprehensive about
it. I feel like I did my job.

~~~
tremon
Sadly, it is not the previous generation that you need to convince, it is the
next.

------
deprave
A company that makes money by collecting and selling access to personal
information about people is offering to put a microphone in your home.

If you need a product like this, for the sake of your privacy, buy an Echo.

~~~
angryasian
Lets stop this nonsense. They don't sell access to your personal information.
There is nowhere that I can buy your personal information from google. What
they sell is access to your attention. When advertising, I'm looking for
people that match these characteristics, and what I'm purchasing is the
possibility to show you an ad if you match certain criteria.

~~~
__jal
You are making a mighty fine distinction, one that sometimes makes no
difference. You are also assuming that "access to attention" is perfectly
firewalled from data, which it isn't. I know one person who is playing with
what correlations can be made by getting people to click on google ads. I
can't imagine he's the first.

You are also assuming that Google's policy will never change, Google's assets
will never end up for sale, etc.[1]

Obviously, we weight these things differently. But calling it nonsense
demonstrates either contempt for those you disagree with or a lack of thought
on the matter.

[1] Sure, looks unlikely at the moment. But unless you think it is going to
rival the Catholic Church for longevity, it is worth thinking about. The
average corporate lifespan in the US is 27 years.

~~~
corin_
> _The average corporate lifespan in the US is 27 years._

I wonder what the average lifespan is for companies that are already more than
X years old, where X could be 1, 2, 5...

I'm thinking as a comparison to how the biggest increase in average lifespan
for humans wasn't everyone dying a tiny bit later, it was infant mortality
dropping massively.

~~~
dredmorbius
Among the more fascinating results out of evolutionary biology and the Red
Queen Hypothesis is that species survival probability is almost wholly
independent of species age. That is: _survival does not convey a survival
benefit._

I don't know what the corresponding trend is for business ventures, but I
suspect they may exhibit similar traits.

I _am_ aware that various measures of corporate dominance are declining --
residency within the Dow Jones 30 Industrials, for example.

------
izolate
Looks like something that should've been under the Nest brand. Whatever
happened to that?

~~~
demian0311
You're right. When I got the Nest products I assumed Google would foster
integration with them. If I can't raise my Nest thermometer by voice with this
then that'll be Google training me once again to not invest in their
platforms.

~~~
chrisper
You know that you can already do this right?
[https://nest.com/support/article/How-do-Google-voice-
actions...](https://nest.com/support/article/How-do-Google-voice-actions-and-
Google-Now-work-with-the-Nest-Thermostat)

~~~
danellis
I didn't know that. Thanks for the link!

------
pbnjay
I find it odd that Google is going to take so long to get this out the door -
"later this year" seems like ages. Did they start on the hardware that late?

Amazon has what, 6 months to get more competitive on the search/trivia front?
or this is going to kill it.

~~~
martincmartin
The hardware for this is the easiest part. Understanding voice that's far from
the microphone (sound gets muffled, echos off walls, etc.), with other sounds
in the background, is significantly harder than understanding speech near the
microphone.

~~~
pbnjay
"OK Google", Google Now, their voice recognition tech, and NLP recognition are
far far past Echo's version. So if the hardware is that easy this should have
been out yesterday. The even mentioned earlier in the keynote how they've been
training it Google assistant with background noise.

~~~
hiddencost
Speech recognition is a lot harder than you'd think, and the problems of far
field speech recognition especially. All of google's in-house ASR (and
wakeword) has been dedicated to near-field devices.

Speech is not a "solve it once and it works everywhere" kind of problem.

I would ballpark that Google needed to collect 10k hours of _far-field_ speech
to train this to a level that was acceptable for the enormous variety of noise
conditions and accents that a far-field system needs to work on. That scale of
data collection takes time and a lot of trench-warfare effort.

~~~
pbnjay
Sure I understand, but my point is that they should be ahead of the game on
basically everything else. Echo was released over a year ago so surely Google
has been working on far-field tech since _at least_ then.

To still be aiming for end of year seems like some serious missteps and catch-
up going on.

------
free2rhyme214
Competition against Amazon Echo is always positive for consumers.

~~~
vox_mollis
Perhaps, but bear in mind that Google is a PRISM partner, whereas Amazon is
not. The NSA will likely record every sound from your house, if you own this.

Edit: Downvoters, please educate me on where I am wrong. Thanks.

~~~
profmonocle
> The NSA will likely record every sound from your house, if you own this.

It would be very easy to detect something fishy was going on. Even if the
device was locked down and the connection was encrypted, they couldn't hide it
if the device was uploading large volumes of data with no explanation.

~~~
ricardobeat
You don't need to upload large volumes of data for voice recognition (see
Siri), and if you're only looking for specific keywords/sentences you can
trickle the data over time.

~~~
profmonocle
Yes, but that's not what the person I was responding to said. They said the
NSA would record every sound in the house, which would require a detectable
amount of bandwidth even at low bitrates.

The hotword detection (OK Google/Hey Siri/Alexa) currently happens on the
device - it would be terribly inefficient to do that in the cloud. If a
security researcher notices their Google Home is transmitting significant
amounts of data without them using the "OK Google" prompt, that would raise
eyebrows.

------
grownseed
The page linked here is basically an ad with no content (yet it manages to
have a scrollbar no matter the window size...). Tried to look for actual specs
but couldn't find anything, does anybody have anything more substantial?

On another note, is there a way to just get some sort of remote microphone
array (I think that's what it's called on the Echo) and set up
Alexa/Google/Cortana/... directly on a PC?

~~~
xyzzy_plugh
Amazon provided this, which doesn't necessarily have to run on a Raspberry Pi,
and could be used to build what you want: [https://github.com/amzn/alexa-avs-
raspberry-pi](https://github.com/amzn/alexa-avs-raspberry-pi)

~~~
grownseed
Thanks! One of the points for me is also to be able to customize the software,
so that looks like an excellent start.

The hardware is still a problem, I've tried to find microphones like the one
on the Echo, but the few that seem to meet the requirements basically cost
half of the Echo. I'm not particularly knowledgeable when it comes to
microphones, so I may very well be looking in the wrong places.

------
swalsh
As somoene who runs a small ecommerce company i'm really hoping the next
platform is open, and not owned by Amazon (or Google). I sell products where
purchasing them would be fantastic via a voice interface. If Amazon owns it
though, there's no way I'm going to get any fraction of that business. The
ownership of these voice platforms is a huge risk for market competition. The
voice interface naturally lends itself to "choose the first choice that fits
my paramters, and let's go with it". If you say "Alexa, book me a taxi to the
airport". Alexa chooses who takes you. Being the priority choice is a huge
advantage for whoever wins that. It's just so much power in the hands of so
few. It's the opposite of what the internet should've been.

~~~
jluk
Sounds like what happened with messaging platforms in China. WeChat became the
single bundled platform for mobile and thus got to play kingmaker with default
service providers. I agree with your opinion, although it feels like a natural
progression as the sheer number of services grows at a rapid pace and its the
attempt to remove friction built up from the excessive overhead of choice.

~~~
swalsh
That "excessive overhead of choice" is what allows capitalism to function
properly.

------
zitterbewegung
I'm confident that Amazon won't kill off Alexa (due to its success). I am not
so confident that if this isn't widely successful or even in the future this
will be killed off just like Revolv and bricking the device . It is good that
Alexa is getting competition though.

------
beilharz
This gives me a 404.

~~~
stuartmemo
Weird, can a mod change the link to https? That seems to be working -
[https://home.google.com/](https://home.google.com/)

~~~
adamqureshi
This URL works. The main link returns a 404

------
shogun21
I am impressed Amazon was able to make a new product category. It's only a
matter of time before Apple announces their take on Siri Home.

------
xiphias
,,Always on call'' \- it just got the worst memories for me of waking up at
3am

------
partiallypro
Microsoft, where are you? Cortana on a device that is similar to the chip
Master Chief has would be incredibly popular, and it done right could also be
just as popular. Especially since Cortana is on every platform and completely
agnostic unlike Google Home and Echo. Give it the same extensible API as
Cortana has on Windows 10, etc and it could be a home run. Don't let Google
and Amazon eat your lunch here.

I do wonder though how Google/Microsoft/Apple will handle there being multiple
instances of their devices able to take commands. So if I say "Hey Cortana" or
"Ok Google" will each device have to sort of communicate with the other to
only activate the one that is closest?

------
bbunqq
You too can bring a slice of 1984 into your home with this lovely crafted
listening device!

~~~
DarkContinent
The difference between this product and 1984 is that we choose to install
Google home into our places of residence for our own convenience. We are not
forced into installing said software.

That having been said, if Google chooses to release the data to the
government, it has an obligation to tell us about that or it will be behaving
unethically. As matters stand, however, this is just a new technology with
pros and cons.

~~~
dredmorbius
Do you choose them in the home of a friend you're visiting?

Do you choose them in the office you work in?

Do you choose them in the store you're shopping in?

Do you choose them in the cafe you're talking in?

Do you choose them at the bus stop you're waiting in?

Do you choose them in the transit you're riding in?

Do you choose them in the car-share you're riding in?

That element of choice can close _very_ quickly.

Sensors will _and are_ turning up in light switches, lights, appliances,
stereos, video and audio systems, advertising displays, and more.

Unless such devices are required, say, by law, to comply with some form of
universal off switch.

~~~
pacala
Are you speaking with the window open? Bad choice, your neighbor's advanced
far field microphones are picking up every word you're saying.

~~~
dredmorbius
And laser mics can be aimed against glass.

Both have to be specifically placed, however. Common devices with location
tracking and audio monitoring capabilities already exist. They can be targeted
for monitoring, and to the best of my knowledge, _are_.

Some are actively monitoring activity on an ongoing basis -- e.g., someone's
voice-enabled TV sets. I really can't even keep up with all this crap any
more.

All of which is moot to the original point: that people can choose whether or
not this equipment is in their environment or not. Effectively they cannot.

~~~
pacala
> All of which is moot to the original point: that people can choose whether
> or not this equipment is in their environment or not. Effectively they
> cannot.

Absolutely. Just pointing out that we're on the path to adding always on cloud
connected far field microphones in every other house in the country. Good luck
"choosing" to not be listened to. The largest danger is self-censorship. "What
is the risk somebody is listening to non-correct speech? I'd better watch what
I say and not formulate non-correct speech."

~~~
dredmorbius
I believe you're now arguing my initial point for me.

Thank you.

~~~
pacala
That was the intent all along. I am supporting your point, not arguing it :)

------
blabla_blublu
Competition in this space is welcome! Can't wait to see what their difference
/ what sets them apart from Echo. Given Google's propensity to sell Ads, it
will be interesting to see if customers are willing to put a device like this
in their house.

Reminded me of a humidifier for some reason -
[http://www.amazon.com/Aromatherapy-Essential-Oil-Diffuser-
co...](http://www.amazon.com/Aromatherapy-Essential-Oil-Diffuser-
colors/dp/B014SF6MBI/ref=sr_1_1_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1463596713&sr=8-1&keywords=scent+humidifier)

------
enibundo
Does anyone else feel as this kind of stuff (I'd put it in the same bag as the
apple Watch, and the amazon something) is completely useless?

Personally, I feel we need to use less technology in everyday life.

------
struct
Looks neat, let's hope Google leads in 3rd party applications too and not just
in appearance. Also interesting that they specifically gave a shout out to the
Alexa team.

------
Roritharr
I love how they put the LG MusicFlow Speaker on the Home presentation. I've
been suffering that malpurchase for about a year now. I can rely on it not
working 70% of the time, seemingly crashing, creating a mesh wifi although
plugged into ethernet or attached to my home wi-fi...

If they can't get the third party vendors to get their Google Cast integration
up to the reliability level of a Chromecast Audio, they should stop supporting
this.

------
bobwaycott
Can we get the link changed to
[https://home.google.com/](https://home.google.com/)? Non-HTTPS just 404s.

------
dmritard96
I think the most interesting thing in the echo and now google home narrative
is that these are subsets of phones. Speakers, microphones and internet
connections with only two substantial differences - they are powered 100% of
the time and they have better speakers/acoustics. It will be interesting to
see if those are substantial enough to overwhelm the obviousness of doing
these through the phone in your pocket.

~~~
mod
I've toyed around a bit with making a phone very capable with voice commands
and it's not easy. Lots and lots of tinkering.

I would love for there to be something out there akin to what echo has, with
programmable skills, and hopefully able to put things onto a chromecast. I
would have a lot of fun tinkering with that.

------
pluc
It's blocked in Canada.

[https://i.imgur.com/TsItIkD.png](https://i.imgur.com/TsItIkD.png)

~~~
namlem
I'm getting that in the US. I think it's just down.

~~~
NobleSir
Was going to post a sarcastic "looks awesome" with the same image

------
lazyjones
What's the business model for Google Home? Will it suddenly splurt out an
advertising message in the middle of the night, or will it rather include
subtle product placements in otherwise harmless answers?

Remember, it's made by a company that thinks it's appropriate to put text ads
on the first spots of your search results, in increasingly confusing ways.

~~~
danielvf
I doesn't have to have a business model. If voice activated devices turn out
to be the future of search, and the voice device in your home is not made by
Google, than Google is dead. Roughly speaking of course.

------
evolve2k
There's no way I'm putting something like this, collecting data directly for
Google in my house.

Anyone else have privacy concerns?

~~~
sixothree
It seems every google product is more invasive than the last. It makes me
wonder if google sees a golden opportunity or is pushed into this themselves.
I get the feeling people aren't really clamoring for these types of invasive
products.

It reminds me of webcams in laptops. Overnight it appeared that manufacturers
were including them as a non-optional component. Yet it never seems to be
something the public really cares for at all.

------
xenihn
Hey, I have that pasta strainer. The one that's being used to store citrus
fruits for some reason...

------
gopher2
Yeah, I'm sticking with Echo because business model.

------
walrus01
How many months from release until the FISA court issues a secret order to
turn one of these on 24x7x365 in a suspect's home, and stream the audio to the
FBI "counter terrorism" people investigating a subject?

~~~
dragonwriter
> How many months from release until the FISA court issues a secret order to
> turn one of these on 24x7x365 in a suspect's home, and stream the audio to
> the FBI "counter terrorism" people investigating a subject?

Google Home isn't the first entry into this market (Amazon Echo is a thing),
and neither of those is the first network-connected microphone-bearing device
in people's homes that might be targeted, so its kind of weird to focus on
this particular product for that question.

~~~
walrus01
It might be the first one to pass some sort of critical mass of consumer
adoption, and within a few years have 10x the market share of Amazon Echo.
Depends how much Google subsidizes the hardware and how much they
advertise/push it in their other platforms.

------
djloche
Voice controlled computer interactivity doesn't appeal to me, and double
unappealing is the skynet factor to the whole thing.

Home automation doesn't need nor should it require signing over your privacy.

------
kristianc
The search queries that get sent to Google are probably the least interesting
part of this to them. Sure, Google will get some additional search queries and
be able to target you slightly better, but it's a rounding error in terms of
the data they already have.

The interest in this on Google's side is on having a permanently connected
'listener' on your network to identify which devices you're running and when.
If it's running through your WiFi network, Google is going to know about it.

------
imh
In what world is "Always on call" an appealing phrase?

------
mattmaroon
I love my Echo but it has a couple weak points, all of which could be solved
by a competent platform. I can't, for instance, just tell Alexa to play new
podcasts from my lists or directly from the net (except through TuneIn, which
sucks.) It doesn't work with many home automation devices. It's AI is not that
great when it comes to non-Amazon services.

I'm hopeful the Android platform will make this a better device.

------
wodenokoto
What is this? All I get is:

    
    
        404. That’s an error.
        
        The requested URL / was not found on this server. 
        That’s all we   know.

~~~
hanula
Use HTTPS: [https://home.google.com/](https://home.google.com/)

------
jug
This is interesting but to be honest I already have this on my phone, which is
with me not only in my living room, but even in the street.

------
jredwards
Google Nope

------
alexc05
I really don't want to come off as super negative here ... but am I the only
one who finds this one _UGLY_?

Compare to some of the other devices from previous years, and competitors:

[https://www.google.ca/search?q=google+nexus+sphere&tbm=isch](https://www.google.ca/search?q=google+nexus+sphere&tbm=isch)

[https://www.google.ca/search?q=amazon+echo&tbm=isch](https://www.google.ca/search?q=amazon+echo&tbm=isch)

[https://www.google.ca/search?q=amazon+echo+short&tbm=isch](https://www.google.ca/search?q=amazon+echo+short&tbm=isch)

It sort-of looks like a cheap air freshener. Maybe it'd grow on me, but I
kinda think it is ugly.

Someone should manufacture a range of "tchotchke skins"

[https://www.google.ca/search?q=tchotchke&tbm=isch](https://www.google.ca/search?q=tchotchke&tbm=isch)
so it could sit on your counter and look like something that you'd be happy to
mix in with the rest of your decor. (angels, golden lucky-cats, porcelain
hands, googly-eyed-wooden-owls [https://s-media-cache-
ak0.pinimg.com/736x/78/b5/80/78b580270...](https://s-media-cache-
ak0.pinimg.com/736x/78/b5/80/78b580270c6d1b0686afb2b8b5a0f024.jpg))

Anything to stop that thing from lookling like a plug in air freshener really.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
You're not the only one, I think your "[looking] like a plug in air freshener
really" comment is pretty close to my perception of it. The render looks
really goofy to me, not half as nice as Echo. However, I like the idea of the
slanted top so you can see the lights (which presumably are information
bearing and not just branding?). Presumably the top part, at least, would
quickly be a target for aftermarket accessory companies so it could match your
home interior.

------
theideasmith
The website is down now. For those who want to check it out, here's the link:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20160518173022/https://home.goog...](https://web.archive.org/web/20160518173022/https://home.google.com/)

------
ck2
So it's echo/alexa by Google?

[http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00X4WHP5E](http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00X4WHP5E)

Is there going to be a patent war?

------
gcr
Will they offer a rebate for this device to burned Revolv users?

Doing that would be a great gesture.

As it stands, I would be wary of purchasing one of these. How long would it
last before Google tires of it?

------
sickbeard
Remember when voice commands for your computer came out? It was cool but
nobody talks to their computer. They won't be talking aimlessly in their
kitchen either.

~~~
solomone
This is such an odd statement as it's already been proven false. The Echo is
already quite popular. I gave one to my 70 year old technophobe mom and she
uses it in the kitchen all the time. I use mine everyday.

------
machbio
Hope this is not as disappointing as Onhub, it would be helpful if they have a
rich api to start with and not promise that the APIs are coming later...

------
exodust
That page is so simple, yet even Google devs are "powering" these simple pages
with multiple JS files. Why? Is it laziness? Or just some belief that Angular
is required now for even "hello world"?

When viewing source I initially thought 'great, a nice clean HTML page'...
after all, it's just 3 images fading between each other and a simple form.

But then at the bottom we see Angular, Angular Animate, Angular Scroll, and a
fourth Main JS file. Way to set an example Google.

------
irrational
So to use it I have to get up and go to wherever it is plugged in? Why
wouldn't I just use my phone which is always on me?

------
ComodoHacker
Next step: chemically analysing your kitchen fumes and flavors in nearly real
time to profile your gastronomic habits.

------
lamein
People don't care about their privacy anymore. Many of us do care about it,
but we are not the majority.

This project relies on that fact.

------
gambiting
In 4 years Google will drop support for it leaving you with a pretty
paperweight. Not interested, not from Google.

------
conjectures
How is this different to having a smartphone on your person? Other than using
an additional plug socket.

------
pbreit
Please support 3rd party streaming audio.

------
raajg
Another Amazon Echo. Not at all interested.

I wish there was a text box:

Please __never __send me the latest updates about Google Home.

------
mathpepe
When the danger is so near we admire the foresight of those warning about it.
Kudos to the FSF.

------
paulftw
Amazon has Echo, Google has Nest and now Home.

What could Apple's Project Titan be if not a smart home device?

------
swasheck
kinda looks like my wife's essential oil diffuser. it'd fit right in if i
wanted one.

------
ilaksh
Only one sentence explanation unless I missed something. Its an Echo
competitor.

------
sgnelson
How long before we find out the NSA has access to this and the Amazon Echo?

------
Joof
Initially after snowden I thought, "the government and governments around the
world will crack down on this behavior now".

I was naïve. Nobody cares. Now they viciously support such practices. As long
as that exists, I can't buy into datamining devices. And it will always exist.

------
educar
Seriously, never in my wildest dreams did I think that technology would come
down to this. Like many others, I dreamed a future where I could have an
automated assistant at home. Just not this way! It's really all about ads and
mining data, isn't it.

------
tempodox
Now, we can volunteer for the Big Brother experience.

------
csrm123
What happened to "Don't be Evil"?

------
King-Aaron
Sucked in, anyone who bought a Nest.

------
Kinnard
Why wasn't this done under Nest?

~~~
wan23
It's primarily a frontend to Google search and music. It seems very
appropriate for it to be under Google proper.

------
58028641
till google disables it ...

------
Oletros
And I suppose it will be another US only product/service from Google

------
dharma1
looking forward to replacing my Echo Dot with this

------
zozo123
Alexa...

------
bache
price?

~~~
angryasian
Amazon echo is about 179 right now. I'm really hoping google can get this to
be about 100 - 125. Based on their history of low cost devices with the two
chromecasts, I think its possible.

~~~
prawn
They'd only need to be friendlier to international buyers than the Echo (which
you can use elsewhere, but with some mucking around) and they'll do well.

The best and easiest features of Amazon Echo don't need the most difficult
local support. Things like the shopping list sans buying, timers, weather,
timezones, traffic, etc.

------
romanovcode
Haha, no thank you. i don't want google to listen to everything I say in my
house.

Next thing you know it's going to tell me is "Smith! Put more effort in those
crunches!".

~~~
Grazester
You say that like its a bad thing. I busted my back yesterday at the gym with
improper form on a dead lift. If I had some kind of assistant watching me to
correct my form then I would not be eating pain killers now trying to get an
appointment to see a doctor all while having tingling sensations in my feet.

~~~
glitch003
Someone's building a product for this:
[https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/biometrix-an-evolution-
in...](https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/biometrix-an-evolution-in-athletic-
rehab)

------
jayfuerstenberg
I'm not so lazy that I can't hold my phone and google for something. Pass.

------
nkg
This morning a friend of mine got his gmail hacked, which means his Play,
Maps, Music and everything got hacked also.

With Google Home, add your "everyday tasks" and voice history to this! ^^

~~~
poozer305
Sounds like your friend's fault for not using two factor auth.

~~~
dredmorbius
Blame the victim? Really?

