Jordan O'BrienGoogle Home is officially gaining the ability to control even more smart home devices, just in time for the device’s impending launch in the UK next week.
Announced on the company’s official blog, Google revealed that popular smart home devices such as Logitech Harmony and the August smart lock are now supported on its smart speaker. In fact, Google Home is gaining support for 12 new devices, more than doubling the number of smart home products supported.
Smart home manufacturers wanting to add Google Home support to their devices must work with Google in order to deploy the functionality. That’s predominantly why new functionality for the Google Home is announced in drips and drabs. That has left Google Home lacking in support when compared to the Amazon Echo.
Before today, Google Home only supported Philips Hue, Belkin Wemo, Samsung SmartThings, Nest and IFTTT. That’s far fewer than the 206 smart home skills supported by the Alexa in the US, although only 91 of those skills are available in the UK.
The new devices now supporting Google Home include:
- TP-Link
- Logitech Harmony
- August
- Vivint
- First Alert
- Rachio
- LIFX
- Wink
- Best Buy Insignia
- Electrolux Frigidaire
- Geeni
- Anova
Unlike the Amazon Echo, it seems Google is unwilling to allow disparity between the markets in which it sells the Google Home. The company has confirmed that all of the third-party devices that are supported in the US will also be supported in the UK, although many of the new devices that can be controlled aren’t available this side of the pond.
Google will have an uphill battle on its hands in order to convince consumers of the benefits of its device over the Amazon Echo, after all the Echo had a two-year head-start on the Google Home. Despite that, Google is throwing its entire expertise behind the device, leaning on its long-term partners to add features such as multi-room audio support and the ability to cast video to TVs located around the home.