Google Home arrives in November and costs less than Amazon's Echo

Google Home, Google's answer to Amazon's hit Echo voice assistant/speaker/smart home hub device, finally has a release date and price.

The physical Google Search device will be available on Nov. 4 for $129, which is less than the $179 Echo. It'll be available from Google and retailers such as Target and Walmart and come with a 6-month trial for YouTube Red.

SEE ALSO: Amazon's Echo Dot 2 is the cheap, voice-controlled smart home hub all your rooms need

At Google I/O, Google praised Amazon for getting the formula right with voice controls and the Echo.

Google Home works pretty much like the Echo. It has a number of built-in microphones that are always listening for voice commands, can control smart home devices, play music and answer your questions using the "OK, Google" voice command.

Image: google

Home is catch-up to the Echo, but also one step ahead. It's literally Google search in physical form thanks to the built-in Google Assistant. You can ask the Home's voice assistant questions and it'll speak back answers, which are optimized for audio.

Not only that but Google Assistant also taps into various Google services such as Google Maps.

A feature called "My Day" gives you a daily briefing of your upcoming events, reminders, weather and traffic.

This is more powerful stuff than the Echo's limited knowledge database, which gives it just enough intelligence to know things like sports scores, trivia and read news headlines, but not much more.

Google Home also makes use of the Google Cast protocol, which allows it broadcast music to speakers in different rooms and photos (from Google Photos) and video to TVs and monitors (with Chromecast). You can say, for example, "Watch John Oliver on TV" and Home will bring up Oliver's show on YouTube via Chromecast. In a future update, Netflix will also be supported with Voice Cast over Google Home ("Netflix, play Stranger Things.")

Google Assistant also lets Google Home search for music even if you can't remember the name of it; for example: "What's the name of the song from Zootopia?"

Image: google

And whereas the Echo and Echo Dot come in white and black, Google Home is customizable with different colored body cases to fit different interior decor. There will be six different finishes to pick from:

Image: john henry/mashable

Google Home will be compatible with various third-party smart home devices including Nest and SmartThings.

Image: google

Image: google

Image: google