As we expected Google has announced the second device in the Google Home line, the Google Home Mini. The $79 AUD device brings all of the functionality of the original Home to a much smaller form factor and will go on sale in the USA on 19 October, though an Australian release date is yet to be confirmed.
The Mini is covered in a new fabric that Google has developed in-house and comes in three colours — Coral, Chalk and Charcoal. The LED under the fabric animates similar to the original Google Home and includes touch input for volume control and invoking the Assistant.
Google Home Mini will launch in the US and will be available in the 6 other ‘Home markets’, Australia, United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Germany and France. Yes that’s right, the Google Home family will be launching in Japan later this week. In Australia the Google Home Mini will be available ‘soon’ through Telstra, JB Hi-Fi, Harvey Norman, Officeworks, The Good Guys, David Jones and The Google Store.
The single 360 degree speaker (up-firing) apparently provides amazing sound for such a small package. We will have to get some ears on time before we can really tell how well the Google Home Mini will be suited to media consumption and with Jason live at the event that could be soon.
We’re still waiting for more details on Australian availability and will update you when we find out.
Developing….
Stock will be arriving into Aussie retailers hands from the 16th and release date is 24th.
No 3.5mm jack (seems to be a recurring theme), no price cut in the Home to match the new Echo, and no integration with a Chromecast Ultra. A “me too” product that’s not good enough.
It will be interesting to see what Amazon’s launch price is in Australia.
Join the discussionYeah, I was disappointed there was no line out, but some users are reporting an option to have a default playback device per each home device. So if you ask the mini to play music, it will play it back on the other device you have set as default.
So did Telstra throw their weight and block Optus from selling Google products this year? Could get the original Home from there.
Was hoping they were going to get the Pixels too 🙁
Quite the opposite in fact. Full disclosure i work for Telstra and have spoken to a few Google reps over the past few weeks. According to them, Optus actually declined to stock the phone. Google were actually negotiating with them for weeks. Vodafone wasn’t offered the phone at all.