Google Home Hub: The fine print
Today we're getting up close and personal with the just-revealed Google Home Hub. This device is effectively a touchscreen display with speakers and a mic and front-facing camera made to work with Google Assistant. It's a Google Home device with a touchscreen display. Now that we've got ALL the details, let's run through the little interesting tidbits we've not yet covered.
Overview Video
The key to understanding Google Home Hub was shared in a single video by Google this morning. This is the "Meet Google Home Hub" video, as hosted by YouTube. It's a nice nutshell! Watch out though, it's extremely upbeat and fun, and will probably make you want to buy things.
Colors
The standard Gray is called "Chalk". There's a black called "Charcoal", an Aqua, and a Sand. The Sand is roughly equivalent to the "Not Pink" Google's using for one version of its Pixel 3, and the Aqua is sort of like the color of a different Pixel 3's home/lock button. Below you'll see a view views of these devices for visual details – including where these colors come into play.
Tech Specs
The Google Home Hub has a 7-inch touchscreen display. It's 118mm tall, 178.5mm wide, and 67.3mm deep. That's 7.02 inches wide, 2.65-inches deep, and 4.65 inches tall. Up top are two far-field microphones for accepting voice commands – and there's an Ambient EQ light sensor above the display up front in the middle. That's so the display turns off when there's no light in the room – dependent on your settings.
There's a "full-range speaker" – 80 dB SPL @ 1KHz, @ 1m -around back (because who would want a speaker facing forward, I guess?) This device has Google Assistant built-in, of course, and connects to other devices via Bluetooth 5. This device "works with Android, iOS, Mac, Windows, and Chromebook," so says Google. This device includes a 1.5-meter power cable with it in its box.
Strange Requirements
Some of the requirements to run this device seem pretty standard. Those include Wi-Fi internet and a nearby electrical outlet. But to make this device work, a user must also have a compatible mobile device for device setup. That means an Android or iOS smartphone or tablet.
Also included in the device's official page requirements is a "TV with an HDMI port." So that's kinda weird, too. That's likely a piece of text left over from the requirements of one of the Google Home devices without its own display – but we'll see!
Release and Stuff
Google suggests that in their Google Store, all shipping is free on orders over $35. All four colors of the Google Home Hub cost approximately $149 USD right now, and they're on pre-order. Google Home Hub will ship on October 22nd, 2018.