The days of buying devices or smart assistants will be over soon enough. Amazon and Google have both made clear their intention to make their respective AI device agnostic, so the days of the standalone Google Home or Amazon Echo might well be numbered.
Assistant and Alexa are already being built into everything from thermostats to lamps. In order for smart speakers to continue to have a spot in the home, they’re going to have to be speakers first, smart second. Proprietary products are already competing with offerings from big-name audio brands like Sonos, Sony and JBL[1]. It’s no surprise, then, that we’ve seen Amazon, Apple and Google all head in that direction in recent months.
The new Echo kind of, sort of, edges in that direction with improved audio, but the Google Home Max[2] and Apple HomePod[3] offer up similar visions for a future in which smart assistants are a nice bonus on a device focused on delivering high-quality, floor-rumbling, room-filling audio. And with prices approaching $400 a piece, it had better be.
Maxed out
The Google Home Max isn’t effing around here. It’s big and it’s heavy. The thing weighs 12 pounds. I am painfully aware of this fact because I stupidly had Google deliver it to our office, and I then threw it in a backpack to take home to test. I am currently investigating our company’s worker’s comp policies for the strained muscle in my back.
I’m a weird outlier, of course (in many ways, but let’s focus on this one for now). The Home Max is very much not a portable speaker. In fact, if aesthetics dictate purpose in this case, it’s practically a piece of furniture, with a...