Google Home, the voice-controlled smart speaker powered by Google Assistant, is finally landing in the United Kingdom. Google confirmed at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week that Brits will be able to get their hands on the device this June — a year after it was first unveiled at Google I/O.
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Home is Google’s answer to the Amazon Alexa speaker lineup. With Google Assistant baked-in, the device is capable of answering your queries, keeping you up to date on breaking news and calendar appointments, and controlling your smart home devices. It can also play your music, order your a pizza, and cast content to your TV.
Google believes that Home’s big advantage over Amazon’s speakers, which use Wikipedia and Microsoft’s Bing service to answer queries, is its ability to better understand users and the information they are looking for thanks to a wealth of data obtained from Google Search and Android-powered devices.
“We’ve got so much history with people using our search products and people using voice queries through Android phones… that we’re able to much better answer these types of questions,” hardware chief Rick Osterloh told BBC News. “All this data really helps in us making sure we understand what the user is looking for.”
Home made its debut in the U.S. back in October, and at the time, Google promised it was coming to the U.K. “soon.” Almost five months on, the company has finally confirmed that Home will be available to purchase on the other side of the Atlantic this June. There’s no word yet, however, on exactly when it will be available to pre-order, or how much it will cost.
