Overview
- Google opened pre-orders on June 17 for the $99.99 Home Speaker and says units will ship June 25, though at least one outlet reported a June 29 shipping date.
- The speaker is the first audio device designed specifically for Gemini for Home and is meant to replace the older Assistant experience on Google’s smart speakers.
- Key hardware includes balanced 360° sound, a light-ring underglow, a physical microphone mute switch, Thread and Matter support with Thread border router functionality, and local audio processing to improve voice isolation.
- Advanced Gemini features such as Gemini Live two-way conversations and camera-history search are locked behind Google Home Premium, and Google is offering six months of the subscription free to buyers who preorder before mid-September.
- This is Google’s first standalone smart speaker since Nest Audio in 2020 and follows an early-access rollout to millions of homes that the company says produced thousands of fixes and latency improvements, which Google cites as the reason for the delayed launch.