Following a brief teaser last year, Google has officially opened pre-orders for its completely reimagined Google Home smart speaker. Arriving just slightly past its initial mid-2026 projection, the upgraded hardware is available for purchase starting today at $100, with official retail store shelves slated to stock the device on June 25.
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The new hardware introduces a sweeping aesthetic and acoustic upgrade to the ecosystem once occupied by the legacy Nest Audio. Shrinking down into a noticeably more compact chassis, the speaker pivots away from traditional directional audio to deliver an immersive, room-filling 360-degree soundstage. Users can link two separate units together for a dedicated stereo configuration, or pair them directly with the Google TV Streamer to elevate standard television and movie audio.
The exterior of the device is wrapped in a sustainable, recycled 3D knit fabric offered in four modern colourways: Hazel, Porcelain, Jade, and Berry. Google has also modified the physical user interface, removing the old indicator lights that used to sit hidden behind the front fabric mesh. In their place is a vibrant, dynamic LED ring wrapping the base of the device, providing highly responsive visual feedback when the microphone is listening to commands or processing responses.
The most substantial evolution lies under the hood: the classic Google Assistant has been retired to make way for Gemini. This foundational shift introduces advanced contextual awareness capable of executing complex, multi-step operations from a single spoken query. For example, a user can utter a single sentence to dim the living room lights, queue a specific playlist, and start a cooking timer simultaneously.
Gemini can also parse complex web requests, like tracking down a recipe for a specific dish and automatically transferring the required ingredients into a digital shopping list. Crucially, a vastly expanded short-term memory allows for fluid, continuous dialogue, drastically mitigating hot word fatigue by eliminating the need to constantly repeat “Hey Google.”
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To maximize the device’s smart home capabilities, Google is rolling out a tiered monthly subscription service:
- Standard Tier ($10/month): Unlocks Gemini Live for natural, free-flowing chatbot interactions and enhanced smart automation scripts.
- Premium Tier ($20/month): Adds an AI-driven “Home Brief” that intelligently synthesizes events captured by compatible security cameras and video doorbells, alongside continuous cloud video histories and AI alert notifications.
Notably, ecosystem subscribers who are already paying for the $20-a-month Google AI Pro plan will find that the Standard home tier comes automatically bundled into their existing monthly package.
