A couple of years ago, Google launched Google Home, a set of smart speakers we could interact with by voice commands in order to listen to music, ask googleable questions, plan our day and control our house.

Now, as the rate of home assistants users´ seems to be growing, they decided to released the Google Home Hub, a new smart speaker with a screen, which is hoping to become the best home control panel.   

By adding a screen to their Google Home devices lineup, they enter to compete against with other upgraded smart speakers like the Amazon Echo Show or the recently announced Facebook Portal, although this one seems to not get away from scandals due to privacy concerns.

Google Home Hub features

Now, instead of only hearing a response back from the Assistant, we´ll be able to see the answers it provides to us at the screen. Nonetheless, Google´s most helpful services like Search, YouTube, Maps, Calendar and Photos have been also upgraded to work better with the Home Hub.  

Its Home View feature will let you manage all other smart devices at your home, such as lights, TVs, thermostats, cameras and locks, for example.  

And whenever you are not using your Home Hub for a particular purpose, it will turn into a photo frame, integrating your Google Photos. The new Live Albums feature allows you to choose the people you want to appear on the screen.

Google also wants this to become a device made for cooking. A huge library of recipes has been added so you can follow them step by step and have a great time using your Home Hub in the kitchen.

Of course, being a Google product it will be easily integrated to most popular services like YouTube, Youtube Music or YouTube Premium that you can get six-month free in the purchase of your Home Hub.

Some other added features include: Ambient EQ, which makes the device´ screen to respond automatically to the ambient light in the room. Or voice match for speech recognition that delivers personalized experience for every single user at home.

You might also like: Great Google Assistant features for Android devices  

A screen with no camera

Google has stated they consciously didn’t put a camera in this device, alleging they wanted to respect users most private spaces.

That could be a benefit or a drawback depending how you see it. Sure, the absence of a camera could be a relief for anyone concerning about being recorded at its own home, but it could be disappointing news for those looking forward to have some video chats. Interesting move, we´ll see how it turns out.

A couple of final details

It is worth noting that the Home Hub will be compatible prior Google devices in this line like the Google Home, the Google Home Mini or Chromecast.

Google Home Hub will have a price of $149 and it´ll be available first in the U.S., UK, and Australia by the end of October. We hope it will be soon available in other countries.

As we can see, the main idea of Google in developing this device is to help us with our home environment. They are making a lot of effort to build better hardware that really pleases the needs of smart devices´ users.

So, What do you think about the Google Home Hub? That it doesn’t bring a camera is really an issue for you?