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Finally, you can buy Google Home in the UK. The device, which was first introduced in the US last year, is believed to give tough competition to Amazon's smart speaker Echo. While Echo has been in the market for a while, Google's expertise in voice recognition and artificial intelligence will surely give it an edge.
The device, which comes in the size of a pint glass, has the ability to answer questions, play music and control smart home technology just by the use of voice recognition. Priced at £129, the Google Home goes on sale in the UK from today. It runs on the virtual assistant software Google Assistant, the same one featuring on the Google Pixel Phone.
It is activated by the speaking the words "OK Google" and then a command can be given. Apart from answering questions from the Google search engine, like giving weather updates, traffic information and reading out a schedule, it can even deliver news briefings from various news outlets. Nowadays, voice recognition is considered an easier and better way to interact with technology. Although Apple's voice assistant Siri has experienced limited success, Amazon's Echo, being the first smart speaker with a virtual assistant has been quite popular among users. The Google Home can also be connected to the Chromecast internet TV device of Google. This means, if you ask it to play something on Netflix, it will start playing on the TV. The company also released its Wi-Fi router system, which uses multiple stations for creating a better internet network inside the house. Moreover, it offers an app that lets the users pause the internet connection for a while. The Google Wi-Fi system is also available for sale today onwards and the single and two-pack station cost £129 and £229 respectively.