Google announced a new smart home product in the Google Home Hub as well as a new tablet, called the Pixel Slate before it unveiled the Pixel 3 phones. The Hub is Google’s very own smart display, which the company says is a shared vision between Google and Nest.
Home Hub
The Google Home Hub brings a 7-inch display that acts as a visual assistant, providing results to queries asked via Assistant so that you can see the responses rather than just hear them. Google has also redesigned core apps like Maps, Search and Photos for the Hub.
The Google Home Hub is essentially a large tablet that leans on a speaker. Google says it has not included a camera so that consumers are comfortable in keeping the Hub in the privacy of their rooms. The Hub has an ambient light sensor that will adjust the brightness and colours depending on the available light in the room. Additionally, Hub uses Google voice match to recognise who is talking and will display personalised content based on your voice.
The Hub also brings a new feature called Home View, which is a dashboard that lets you control and manage all smart home devices in your home. When the Hub goes on standby, it will turn into a photo frame, displaying photos from your Google Photos app. With a Live Albums feature, you can select specific people and Google will automatically create albums with photos of those people.
The Hub also comes with a redesign YouTube app with Assistant support. This means you will be able to ask Assistant to play specific video from YouTube and Hub will play it for you. Google’s new smart display will be available in four colours – green, pink, dark grey and white. It will be available on October 22 for $149 in the US, UK and Australia. Google is yet to announce whether the Hub will come to India.
Pixel Slate
After announcing the Pixelbook Chromebook last year, Google has now launched the Pixel Slate. This is a tablet that’s powered by Chrome OS aimed to deliver a powerful workstation as well as an entertainment device. It comes with dual front-facing speakers with AI-powered sound algorithms that will deliver clear and loud sound. It also gets what Google calls a Molecular Display with a 293ppi LTPS LCD panel with 6 million pixels. The Slate brings rounded corners and a 2.5D glass on top. It is 7mm thin and weighs around 725 grams.
The Pixel Slate comes with 8MP camera on the front and back and Google says the cameras have machine learning and portrait mode. Google says the cameras are “perfect” for video chat. The front camera gets a wide-angle lens and bigger sensor for better low-light captures.
The Pixel Slate runs on an all new Chrome OS which with a new UI that will display all your apps on the home screen. There’s a lot of machine learning that goes on inside so the tablet will be able to suggest apps that you use the most. The Slate also brings Digital Wellness features such as Night Light and Do Not Disturb. It also gets an additional layer of security with the Titan security chip to protect your information, password, and OS. The tablet offers up to 12 hours of battery life.
Google also announced the Pixel Slate Keyboard and Pixelbook Pen as two accessories for the tablet. The Pixel Slate starts at $599, the Pixel Slate Keyboard is priced at $199 and Pixelbook Pen costs $99. All three products will be available later this year at major retailers in the US, Canada and the UK.
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