What comes to your mind when you hear the word “Google”? A solution for everything and anything. An answer for every question. A guidance for every search. A help always by your side. And the list goes on.
Google gave a personal touch by upgrading and expanding its existing feature “Google Now”.
Google is now developing its new look in the form of Google Home, something to help around the home, something to help you in doing hands free online shopping, something which would answer your questions without the use of Phones and PCs.
Google introduced the Google Home in 2016, its hands free Wi-Fi enabled smart speaker which has a built-in virtual and intelligent personal assistant called as Google Assistant. Though Google Home was late to hit the market in comparison to all the smart speakers, but the features Google Home is packed with will actually give a hard time to all the other smart speakers.
This blog will give you a tour of some of the features that Google Home will offer to its Customers. Features which would could help you do the work around your home, help in planning your day and maintain a list of shopping and tasks, help you with some entertainment activities and equipment, and much more.
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One thing which doesn’t work in favor of Google Home is that it doesn’t have a name like Siri or Alexa, hence it could only be awakened by saying “OK, Google”. But they covered up for this by giving you a feature to decide how Google Home refer to you or call you. Pick the nickname for yourself of your choice.
We could divide the features being offered by Google Home Assistant in the below 6 categories
- Get Answers –
Answering all the types of questions coming from all the people is first thing for which Google became a hit. So, there is no way this feature could ever be left out in any of the Google products. As Google Browser, Google Home will also answer to all sorts of questions from all domains. This is among the basic functions of Google. Trying on these functions would actually help you get acquainted with how actually Google Home executes your command, making you more comfortable with it.
So you can actually go on to ask Google Home about the meanings of different words, nutritional value of any of the foods, some of the facts and information about anything in the world like sports, finance etc. there is much more in the store for the customers.
It all gives you the feature called “Learn more” that helps you learn more about the Google Home.
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- Enjoy Entertainment –
This is one of the main aims behind manufacturing the Google Home in the first place to use it for entertainment purposes like music, live streaming and many more. You can simply command Google Home to play your favorite playlists or any of the specific weekdays lists. Not just this it can even play the news for you, start the radio, podcasts etc.
If you have any of the Google Home Speaker or TV connected with the Chromecast and you can ask the Google Home to stream the music from YouTube and Pandora on your television.
You can even control which all speakers would play the music and which not.
- Manage Tasks –
The first job of a virtual or actual personal assistant is to help you manage your everyday tasks. Tasks like setting the alarm, making the shopping lists of the items you need to buy today or whenever you visit the grocery store the next time.
Google home will integrate with Google Express, the company’s Shopping Platform to help you do hands free online shopping and ordering.
- Plan your Day –
You will feel more confident if you have your day completely planned. This function could actually be very easy to learn for Home Owners. Just start your day by saying “Tell me about my Day”, and listen to the audio report that starts playing. This command could be customized to play the information that you want listen first thing in the morning. From the menu you can select the different categories like, weather report, traffic update on your everyday route, travel information of the upcoming week, appointments of the day and much more. You can link the Google Calendars of your Google account with Google Home to listen to the reminders set by you in the calendar.
- Control your Home –
The second main purpose of Google Home was to help you control the devices in your house by connecting with them through the internet. It can connect to a variety of devices like Chromecast, Philips Hue lights, Nest Devices etc. to let you control them with your voice commands. Not just this, you can also automate the functioning of these devices in the way you want.
- Have Fun –
Similar to Alexa Google Home is also embedded with fun feature. You can actually get guidance about the fun activities you can do on weekends or on free times. It also offers you a host of trivia games to play to pass on the time. It has a special feature called as “Easter Eggs” which go a step ahead with the fun and humor. You get to ask all sorts of funny questions and find out all the funny responses on your own.
- Miscellaneous Features –
Google Home can’t be compared to Alexa based on the connected apps it offers. It does play the music from your preferred apps like Pandora, TuneIn, Google Music, Spotify and Netflix.
It also gives you an option to connect your account with some of the third party services similar to Alexa like Dominos, Kayak, Food Network, and WebMD and much more.
The above list just acquaints you with some of the basic features of Google Home, but to know it better you would have to use it. The upper hand for Google Home is that your Gmail account has more information of you than the Facebook account or in that case any other because of the smartphones we are using and the Google GPS Tracker which will work as an added benefit in favor of Google Home over Alexa.
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Well, both are best of their kinds. You need to find the one that suits you and your needs the most.
