The Google Home 2nd Gen. speaker has been rumored to integrate a mesh Wi-Fi router inside of the unit, which might essentially turn it into a dual purpose smart home product. There aren’t many details just yet about the device or how it would work, but it’s likely that a new Google Home with mesh Wi-Fi networking hardware on the inside would allow users to replace their existing router with a Google Home-Google Wifi 2-in-1 unit that does both jobs that a Wi-Fi router and a Google Home speaker would normally do together. That being said, if Google is planning to launch a new version of the Google Home speaker with mesh Wi-Fi technology inside then it’s also possible that it would be positioned as good device to combo with the other Google Wifi access points for fuller home coverage if needed, as that’s the aim of Google Wifi.
Aside from allowing users to consolidate two different device functions into one device, thus giving them less tech around the home to have to worry about, there are added benefits for Google Home having Wi-Fi networking hardware baked in. It’s said that users would be able to interact with Google Assistant and receive responses to their queries or commands faster because of the Wi-Fi technology, and a benefit for Google is that it would be offering a product that is not only acting as a smart speaker that’s connected to the internet but also one that a fairly big feature that competing products do not have.
Amazon’s Echo speaker for example is pretty comparable to Google Home, and while Google Home has Google Assistant which has Google’s Knowledge Graph behind it, Amazon’s Alexa-powered Echo speaker is admittedly more functional because of the large amount of Alexa Skills that it has. Should Google release a new Google Home in the future that has everything the previous version has plus the ability to act as one’s Wi-Fi router, it would give them a leg up on Amazon. At the moment there is no information regarding what this new Google Home unit would cost nor is there any details on a launch time frame, but with Google I/O coming up soon there is a chance Google could unveil it at the event, as this is where they announced the original Google Home speaker last year.