TL;DR
After much anticipation, Assistant AI-powered Google Home and Google Home Mini smart speakers are finally available in India. Specially designed to understand the Indian accent and contexts, the devices are sure to follow Amazon Echo’s suit and look to thrive in India.
After seeing releases all across the globe, Google Home and Google Home Mini – Google’s two smart speakers, have finally been launched in India. This launch comes on the heels of a Google event held in the country last night announcing Google Home’s entry into the Indian market via online retail giant Flipkart. They will also be available through 700+ offline electronics stores including Reliance Digital, Sangeetha, Chroma and more.
Powered by Google’s Assistant AI, the voice-activated speakers can answer questions, run searches, play music, and manage other smart gadgets in the house. The best part: they will work flawlessly with Indian accents. Even though it won’t understand commands in Tamil, Kannada, Telugu or Hindi just yet, it will be familiar with the Indian desi colloquial & contexts. How desi you ask? According to the Official Google India Blog, these are just a few types of questions you can successfully ask the Assistant:
- Hey Google, what is a silly point?
- Hey Google, how desi are you?
- Ok Google, play songs from the movie Satte Pe Satta
- Hey Google, give me a recipe for Dum Biryani
Along with the secret to tasty biriyani, Google Home & Google Home Mini will come with a JioFi wireless router and 6 months subscription to Google Play Music free of charge. Compatibility with Saavn and Gaana for local music streaming, local news from NDTV, Times of India, Dainik Bhaskar, India Today, and the ever-present seamless integration with Chromecast to better binge Netflix, YouTube and more.
The launch event also touted Google Home and Google Home Mini’s ability to control more than 1,500 smart gadgets and devices currently available in India with the Assistant AI capable of over One Million options and possibilities.
Smooth sailing for Google Home and Google Home Mini in India?
Google’s foray into this market at this time is not going to be a smooth ride. Yes, the ‘smart home assistant’ game is on the way to becoming a highly lucrative one. But it has been slow and laborious with a wide array of products available to aid home automation yet no solid system present in the Indian market to connect all of them for you in a non-painstaking way.
All that changed when Amazon brought its Echo Smart devices to India last year, pouring a significant amount of resources to make sure they “reach customers from Jammu & Kashmir to Port Blair”. And it must have paid off because there are close to 12,000 skills available for Alexa on the skills store with more than 500 new India-specific skills added every month. While we don’t have the exact number of Echo devices sold in the country, its safe to assume that the reception has been positive since you can even order food on Zomato through Echo devices.
The numbers game seems to be on Google’s side claiming to have sold more than seven million units of Google Home & Google Home Mini from October 2017 to January 2018. That’s virtually one Google Home sold every second!
Google is late to the party in India but only time will tell if they are going to settle down in a corner or steal the show.
The Google Home is priced at Rs. 9,999 ($153) available only in White while the smaller Google Home Mini is available in Charcoal and Chalk options priced at Rs. 4,499 ($70)
