Tag: Google Home Mini

Over the course of yesterday, many Google Home and Chromecast users reported issues with the devices.  In the case of Home, commands were not being accepted while with Chromecast devices, casting would not work.  The issue was reasonably widespread.

Late yesterday, Google’s Made By Google Twitter account posted that a fix would be rolling out over the follow six hour (i.e. overnight) to fix the issue.

We have a fix for Google Home and Chromecast. It will automatically roll out within the next 6 hours. To get back up and running now, reboot your device → https://t.co/CM4ov63F46. Thanks for sticking with us!

— Made by Google (@madebygoogle) June 27, 2018

At this point, this fix should have rolled out to everyone.

Over the course of the past few weeks, there has been a lot of activity around Google Assistant, Google Home, and the Spanish language.  First there was the support for three dialects of Spanish, then Google Home becoming available in Spain.  Today we see all of this come together with Google announcing that Google Home now can speak Spanish.

With this update, which has already rolled out via a cloud side update, you can now configure Google Home to speak Spanish as you interact with it in your day-to-day activities or ask it to complete specific commands.  Considering that nearly 6% of the world’s population speaks Spanish, which is more than English speakers, it is a huge step forward for Google Home and Google Assistant.

Over the weekend, I posted about the great deal the Google Store is running on the Google Pixelbook.  Now it seems they have put together a great deal on the Google Pixel 2 XL phone too.  Right now at the store you can pick up the flagship Pixel device for regular price but you get $150 in store credit to use later plus a Google Home Mini.  All you have to do is add both the Google Pixel 2 XL and the Home Mini to your cart and the price will be discounted.

While we all know that the Google Pixel 3 lineup is going to be coming later this year, that is no reason not to give the Pixel 2 XL a serious look.  It will be updated to Android R when it is released and you still get free Google Photo storage for two years too.  Oh, and it is a seriously awesome phone.

The expansion of Google Assistant and Google Home globally continues with India becoming the latest country where you can buy the smart speakers.  The Home and Home Mini are now available there and support a wide range of apps and services found in country.  As for price, the Google Home is  ₹9,999 (roughly $154 US) while the Home Mini is  ₹4,499, or $69 US.  Both are available exclusively through Flipkart.

While Google recently rolled out Hindi support for Google Assistant, they aren’t supported in India on the Home devices just yet.  For now, users will have to use English (India) as their settings but Hindi support is expected shortly.

Good news for those of you in the UK.  You can now make hands free calls to contacts through your Google Home or Home Mini.  The feature rolled out in the United States last August and allows you to leverage Google Assistant to place calls to contacts or business that can be found in Google search.

Using it is very easy.  Just say, “Hey Google, Call my son”.  Because I would have tagged my son in my contacts, Google Assistant will place the outbound call to my son.  If a contact has multiple numbers, you will be prompted on which number to place the call.

The Google Home Mini has become one of Google’s most popular devices for a lot of reasons, price and size chiefly among them.  The donut sized device lends itself to be tucked away in any room to give you access to Google Assistant whenever you need it.  But for some rooms, having the Home Mini mounted on the wall makes more sense and frees up counter space in your bedroom or kitchen.

Incipio has been making a wall mount for the Google Home Mini almost since its release.  It’s been available directly from them on their site but it got a big boost this week with it now being available on the Google Store.  On either site, it is $14.99 and comes with everything you need to mount your Home Mini to a wall in your home.