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The writing has been on the wall for quite some time, but as of today – reported by 9to5 Google – our favorite speaker in the office is no longer for sale. This isn’t a big price reduction, out of stock alert, or future warning from Google. Not this time. This time around, the Google Home Max is finally gone for good, and my hopes for a proper replacement may be gone as well.
For months now, the Google Home Max has gone on sale, off of sale, had a permanent price reduction, gone on sale again, and then returned to in-stock status as the year wound to a close. With a full-blown return to the Google Store, I thought perhaps this excellent speaker was going to just hang around for a while longer. After all, if you are Google and trying to just sell through your remaining stock, why lift the awesome sale they had going? The fact that the in-stock status returned at full price really had me hopeful that the end wasn’t so close after all.
Either way, as of today, the speaker isn’t just marked as unavailable: it is completely gone from the site. While sites like Best Buy still have stock and still have listings up for buyers to cash in on, the fact that Google has completely removed the landing page for the jumbo smart speaker paints a pretty clear picture for us all. The Google Home Max’s time is up and it’s time to get one now or simply move on.
As you can tell from my timbre and the video above, we love this speaker here in the office and are sad to see it go. I don’t know if there’s enough interest in a speaker of this size for Google to make a Nest Audio Max, but I sure hope they consider it. I like the Nest Audio just fine and I think it is a great replacement for the original Google Home, but no speaker with the Google Assistant can touch the Home Max when it comes to sheer audio quality. With the Home Max now leaving the lineup, it really feels like Google needs to fill the hole. We’re just not sure they are going to any time soon.
Shop Google Home Max at Chrome Shop
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