Google Debuts Its $400 Google Home Max Speaker To Rival Apple's HomePod (techcrunch.com)

In addition to the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL, Google debuted a $400 speaker, called Home Max, that looks to compete directly with Apple's recently announced HomePod. The Home Max is a larger Google Home that features stereo speakers and more premium looks and materials. It's expected to go on sale in December in the U.S. TechCrunch reports: It can tune its audio to its own space, analyzing the sound coming from the speaker using its built in microphones to determine the best equalizer settings. This is called Smart Sound, and it evolves over time and based on where you move the speaker, using built-in machine learning. It has Cast functionality, as well as input via stereo 3.5 mm jack. Home Max can output sound that's up to 20 times more powerful than the standard version of Home, Google says, and it has two 4.5 inch woofers on board with two 0.7 inch custom-built tuners. It can sit in either vertical or horizontal orientation, and it comes in both 'chalk' and 'charcoal.' Of course, this bigger speaker also includes a noise isolating array that makes it work even in open rooms with background noise, and it's Assistant-enabled, so you can use it to control your music playback via voice, or manage your smart home devices, set yourself reminders, alarms, and timers and much more. Google also launched a budget-friendly Google Home Mini that features the Google Assistant but in a smaller form factor. 9to5Google reports: Google touts the Home Mini as having a powerful speaker with "crisp" 360 degree sound. The Mini can also be connected to any Chromecast wireless speaker, but there is no 3.5mm jack like Amazon's Echo Dot. In the center, there are four white lights that note when the Home Mini is listening or responding. Besides saying the "Ok, Google" hotword, users can tap on the Home Mini to issue a command. Google also retained the Home's original button for disabling the microphone with a toggle next to the charging port. The Google Home Mini will be go on sale later this month for $49, with pre-orders starting today.

Comments

Not quite as advanced though

[SuperKendall]

It looks nice but if you find other images of people holding it, very large. That is probably good for sounds quality, but it also makes it hard to fit in.

The Apple HomePod is a bit nicer in a number of ways - it is more multi-directional in figuring out sound abalone (though the Max does that to some unknown degree, how well it does this will be defined by where you aim it). Again related to aiming, the HomePod can target people in the room in a way the Max does not seem too...

The largest advantage the HomePod has though is that they can work in pairs to deliver real stereo, something I've seen no mention of in the Max. Yes it means you need to buy two HomePod units.

The Max in theory supports more services, although you could always just AirPlay things like Spotify to the HomePod...

To me the Google offerings seem more aimed at trying to overcome Amazon in the home assistant space, which seems sort of hopeless.