In honor of National Technology Day, I thought I would review the Google Home I got for Christmas. Here are my first impressions and predictions about AI in the home for the future.
Great Voice Recognition
I have the Google Pixel phone and the voice recognition was very hit or miss so I was nervous about the responsiveness of the Google Home, but I was blown away with the range it has. I can speak at a nor
mal volume from another room and it will pick it up and respond accordingly. I have discovered that unlike the phone commands, it is not trained for one person’s voice, so everyone can control it.
- Fun Features
Mad Libs has to be one of my favorite features on the Google Assistant. You can ask Google questions about herself/himself. Around Christmas time you can also ask Google, “where Santa is,” and you will get an actual location.
- Effortlessly integrated into my daily life.
The second I walk in the doors of my apartment I say, “Okay Google, play my music” and I am ready to jam. No more getting all settled in bed and remembering you forgot to set an alarm and having to hang off the bed while you set your alarm, you can just say “Okay Google, set an alarm for 7am tomorrow”. I also love to ask Google what time it is to keep me on track when I’m getting ready in the morning. I was nervous about getting another gadget I wouldn’t use, but this was not the case. I use it everyday.
Predictions of AI in the future
With the recent improvements to practicality and dropping price of artificial intelligence devices, I think it will be likely we will see more and more of the average households integrating some form of artificial intelligence into their daily life this year. Now that people have been exposed to it on mobile devices with Siri, Alexa and OK Google, I think people will adopt home devices such as Amazon Echo or Google Home without much resistance. I think these types of devices will be much more accepted than VR, because of their practical applications. I also own the Google Daydream VR Headset and rarely use this device. I think VR has more improvements on practicality yet to be made before it can become widely used and integrated into daily life by the general population.
Do you have Google Home or a similar product? What do you think of it?
