Google has announced its own voice-enabled intelligent speaker nicknamed Google Home at the company's annual I/O developers conference on Wednesday.
Google Home — previously developed under the codename Chirp — is a direct competitor to Amazon's Echo and will be available to consumers later this year, according to Google CEO Sundar Pichai. Pricing has not been announced yet.
The new device works like the Echo in some ways, with the ability to answer your questions and have two-way conversations.
Users can ask about current movies playing at nearby theaters, and Google's search engine will give examples.
"Let's go with Jungle Book," Pichai said, and Google Home was able to purchase tickets for the movie and transfers them to his digital wallet, according to USA Today.
"Every conversation is different and we're working hard to do this for billions of users around the world," he said during the conference. "It's an ambient experience that extends beyond devices, beyond just phones, to devices they wear, into their cars and even to their living rooms."
The new voice-activated assistant can also complete basic tasks such as play music, order pizza or request an Uber, as well as check the weather or flights.
Along with Uber, other launch partners whose services will work with Google Home include Pandora, Spotify, OpenTable, Gett, Instacart, Grubhub, Mytaxi, TuneIn, HailO, WhatsApp, Saavn, Ticketmaster and more, reported TechCrunch.
However, unlike Amazon Echo, Google has yet to make the Home platform available to third-party developers.
Another difference between the two devices is that you can own multiple Google Homes, allowing users to place them in a number of rooms around the house, noted the Verge.
Also, since Google Home comes with Cast support, users can command any speaker to play music on other speakers, similar to the way Google Cast Audio works. It should also work with Google Play Music, but any other Cast-supported services, such as Spotify, will do.
While consumers can put the device in multiple rooms, the Home will not be able to support multiple Google accounts initially, but the company is working to fix that.
