Alexa this, Echo that. That was yesterdays news with Amazon opening sales for a localised Echo to Australians. Today Google has hit back revealing some interesting stats for the Google Home.
Prior to Christmas last year Google had a big push into the marketplace with their Google Home and Google Home Mini and the figures reflected this. In the month of December the number of Australians regularly using Google Home and Google Home Mini “nearly tripled”.
Not only are more people using Google Homes but the sales are growing. Since the Google Home Mini started shipping in October there has been a sale of a Google Home device nearly every second worldwide. The sales figure of Google devices for the home now stands at “tens of millions”.
Part of the reason for the explosion has not just been the attractive pricing of the devices but the increased functionality that has been added to them. Google, in their blog post, gave the example of the broadcast functionality and in their best Aussie slang gave the phrase to be used on Australia Day:
“Ok Google, broadcast sausage sangas are served!”
Google have done their best to localise Google Assistant to Australia as well, just as Amazon will have to do for Alexa. They say that Google Assistant “gets Aussies”.
There are local businesses supporting including news stations, sporting leagues, banking, retail, entertainment and transportation. There are apparently over a million Actions that Google Assistant is capable of performing including the control of over 1500 smart home devices from over 225 companies.
Google is promising to bring even more hands-free control to Aussies this year and we look forward to it. We would love them to publicise more of these localised Actions as I know my usage is limited to a lot less than fifty, let alone a million.
What are your favourite Actions to ask your Google Assistant to perform? Do you have it integrated with your smart home devices?
