Google is holding an event on October 4th, where the search giant will unveil its latest Android smartphones, the Pixel 2 and Pixel XL 2. It also appears to be the day that the company will unveil some other “Made by Google” hardware, including a new Google Home. According to images that Droid Life has obtained, this is going to be the Google Home Mini. Think an Amazon Echo Dot, but for Google Assistant, and arguably a better looking version.
There are three colors of the Google Home Mini, and of course they aren’t regular names. But Google will offer the product in chalk, charcoal and coral colors. It won’t be a portable version of Google Home, as it will still require power from an outlet, like the full-sized Google Home. And as you’d expect it will feature Google Assistant. There are four LED lights on the top, which will be used similar to the almost full circle of LED’s on the regular Google Home. And there’s no word on how well the speaker inside the Google Home Mini will perform, but if it going to be a competitor to the Echo Dot, it likely won’t be a fantastic one. Speaking of the Echo Dot, the Google Home Mini is going to be priced at $49, the exact same price as the Echo Dot. There’s no word yet on when exactly it’ll be available, but likely before the holiday season kicks off.
It’s not surprising to see Google working on and debuting a smaller Google Home model, as its main competitor – Amazon’s Alexa – has had a smaller version of its Echo out for quite some time. Currently, the only way to get a Google Assistant-powered speaker was with the Google Home, which costs $129 and that’s not cheap for a speaker. There are now plenty of other speakers coming out with Google Assistant, from the likes of HARMAN, Sony, Anker and others, but it is nice to get something directly from Google, and at a lower price. It appears that this is only one of many products that Google will be debuting at its October 4th event, which is only a few weeks away.
