Google’s answer to Amazon Alexa is starting to gain some traction in the smart home world. The new Google Assistant made waves when it was introduced on the Pixel phone, but the more significant Google Assistant product announced was Google Home. A speaker and smart home hub like the Amazon Echo, the new assistant can receive voice commands to control any number of smart home devices, in addition to handling web searches and scheduling events and reminders.
The hard part about getting into smart home hubs is having to get all those smart home devices (and there are a lot of them) to actually work with your device. Amazon has a huge head start with Alexa, but Google is rapidly catching up. This week, Belkin announced that their entire Wemo line of smart home devices will work with Google Home. The Wemo line is best known for appliance and light switches that allow for control from a smartphone app, but also includes things like coffee makers and crock-pots.
With Google Home integration, those who own a Google Home speaker will be able to interact with Wemo products at any time using voice commands prefaced by “OK Google…” Like many other smart home systems, multiple commands can be grouped together — for example, it’s possible to create one command that turns off lights, locks doors, and changes the temperature on the thermostat (provided all of those things are connected devices).
For now, Belkin says firmware updates including Google Home integration will roll out to their devices “soon.” Belkin’s Wemo products already work with Amazon Alexa and IFTTT. Google Home integration is coming by way of Google Weave, cloud infrastructure that Google makes available to device manufacturers to make connecting to the Google Assistant easier.
