Google launched Monday its new Home Max speaker with Google Assistant technology, designed to provide a bigger sound experience and intelligent “smart sound” acoustic adjustments.
The Google Home Max speaker is available now primarily online through Best Buy, Walmart and the Google Store at a $399 retail price. It is slated to roll out to other retail locations, including Verizon stores, shortly.
Not surprisingly, rival Amazon had not listed the speaker Monday. Amazon has not carried any of Google’s Home Assistant products as it pushes adoption of its own family of Alexa-powered speakers and devices equipped with far field mic input.
Read more about the retail launch of the Google Home Max speaker after the jump:
Google first announced the Google Home Max among a host of new products, including the Google Mini and Pixel 2 smartphone, last fall.
It is designed to take on Amazon’s Echo Alexa-based speakers (and Apple’s HomePod), which have been well received for providing strong audio and video quality support in the home.
For its part, the Google Home speaker has been well regarded for its superior voice recognition, search and home automation operation capabilities.
Google said the Home Max has a bigger and louder speaker system – 20 times more powerful according to the company — driven by dual 4.5-inch high-excursion woofers and custom 0.7-inch tweeters. The speaker can be placed horizontally or vertically, includes an auxiliary input jack, and adds “smart sound” features with the ability to measure the sound profile of the room and adjust the audio performance to the environment.
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Google said the Home Max features new algorithms based on thousands of room styles in people’s homes. The system will accept updates to improve on that sound as new data is entered over time.
The Google Home Max was originally expected to be released at the same time as Apple’s previously announced HomePod, before Apple pushed back that product’s launch date until early 2018.
By Greg Tarr
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