Google's First Home Speaker Built For Gemini Debuts At $99.99

Google is retooling its smart Home Speaker with an infusion of Gemini and you can perorder it in a variety of colorways for $99.99 ahead of its June 25th release. The refreshed Google Home Speaker is the company's first audio device built for Gemini, and with that integration comes a more natural, conversational voice assistant to streamline tasks.

"The Google Home Speaker comes with Gemini for Home voice assistant, which features advanced natural language understanding and reasoning. Instead of having to memorize rigid command phrases, Gemini adapts to how you speak, making it easier and more intuitive to get the help you need," Google explains.

Part of Google's goal is to deliver a smarter and more logical experience that responds to more than just basic commands. For example, if you say, "Turn off all the lights except for my bedside lamp," the speaker will respond accordingly.

You can also pile on multiple commands. The example Google is provides is, "Dim the kitchen lights, play some relaxing music, and set a timer for 20 minutes." Of course, barking out longer commands can result users tripping over their own tongue, but Google assures there is no pressure to say the prompt correctly on the first go. Instead, Google says you can correct yourself mid-sentence and Gemini will understand.

Google's leaning hard into the complexity angle, saying Gemini is equipped to understand questions that require a bit of digging. For example, if you're a Red Sox fan, you could say to the Home Speaker, "What's the weather going to be like for the next Red Sox baseball game," and Gemini will get busy researching when the next game is scheduled, where it is being played, and the forecast for weather at the designated place and time.

Beyond the Gemini smarts, the refreshed Home Speaker promises a balanced 360-degree sound stage with clear audio whether you're right next to the thing or across the living room. Likewise, Google claims the speaker's "advanced microphones" adapt to different environments so that Gemini will always understand what you are saying.

The speaker comes wrapped in a custom 3D-knit textile available in Jade and Berry colorways exclusively offered in the U.S., alongside Porcelain and Hazel colors. Underneath it all sits a quad-core Cortex A55 processor (2GHz) with an onboard NPU, 1GB of LPDDR4 memory, and 4GB of eMMC storage. Wireless connectivity is handled via Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4.

Google's Home Speaker powered by Gemini is available to preorder now. Also, stay tuned as we have one inbound for review.