We weren’t greeted with a new Pixelbook today but Google still brought some impressive and noteworthy products to the I/O keynote. As expected, the Pixel 3A and 3A XL were announced and the budget-friendly smartphone with a premium camera is already popping up in promotions across the web.
Another anticipated device debuted center stage in the beefed up and rebranded Nest Hub Max. The 10″ HD smart display aims to be a centerpiece in the home as opposed to its smaller sibling that was geared more towards the more intimate areas of the home by forgoing a camera.
With the launch of the Hub Max, Google is moving the Home lineup under the Nest brand and that fact has already reflected in the renaming of the original Home Hub to simply the Nest Hub.
Features
Nest Camera
The new Nest Hub Max will be released later this summer with a price of $229 but for that price, you will get some serious upgrades from the original Hub. The addition of a camera isn’t just Google’s way of bringing the display on par with devices from third-parties such as JBL or Lenovo. Instead, it will feature a Nest Camera which will give users the same functionalities found in Nest Cameras and Hello Doorbell.
Simply open up your Nest app and take a quick look to make sure the cat hasn’t gotten into the trash or see if hubby is raiding the fridge and eating the last piece of cheesecake.
Along with Nest integration, the camera will perform all the usual functions like making video calls and leave video messages with Google Duo but that’s not all.
Gestures
The Nest Hub Max will offer a very impressive gestures feature that will allow users to pause video and turn down the volume with the simple wave of the hand. If you’re like me and you have your Home turned up to wall-shaking volumes, you know the pain of trying to yell loud enough to get the Assistant’s attention.
According to Rick Osterloh stated:
the Nest Hub Max uses on-device machine learning to instantly identify your gesture to pause the music
Face Match
The Nest Hub Max will build on the Assistant’s voice match technology the all-new Face Match that will customize the user experience by recognizing the face of the person talking to it. When you walk in front of the camera, the Hub Max will display your information and no one else’s.
With the announcement, Google has also lowered the prices of some of the current Home hardware. Starting today, the Nest Hub (Google Home Hub) is now $129 and will offer it in twelve new markets and it will support nine new languages. Additionally, the original Google Home’s MSRP has been dropped to $99 and the Home Mini is on sale at the moment for $29.
The Nest Hub Max comes with a 10″ HD touch display, two 18mm 10W stereo speakers and one 75mm 30W sub-woofer and will cost $229 when launched later this summer and will be available from the Google Store, Best Buy and Target and other authorized resellers. You can join the waitlist here.
Source: Google
