With so much happening in consumer tech, it’s hard to keep track of what has progressed when. Case in point: we didn’t even realise it’s been six years since Google last launched a speaker. The company has made updates to its existing lineup since then, but has held off on a new model entirely. That changes next week (June 25, to be precise), when the new Google Home Speaker, the company’s first audio device built specifically for Gemini, hits shelves at $100.
As Bloomberg reported alongside Google’s announcement, the device folds deep Gemini integration into a speaker priced to compete head-on with the smart home staples already dominating the market. Note that the device has been redesigned to showcase the new Gemini assistant, replacing the Google Assistant that powered all previous speakers and smart displays. This also implies that it marks the end of Google Assistant support in speakers, as 9to5 Google confirmed that Google has discontinued the production of the Nest Mini and Nest Audio speakers.
Similar to Nest Audio, the new speaker allows users to run two units together as a stereo pair, but the similarities mostly end there. The Verge’s Jennifer Pattison Tuohy, who did a hands-on review, confirms that the speaker arrives wrapped in a 3D-knit fabric made from recycled materials and steps away from directional sound entirely, aiming for clear 360-degree audio in a unit more compact than the outgoing Nest Audio, while still supporting stereo pairing with a second unit or a Google TV Streamer.
Another big selling point of the speaker is how it listens and responds. Gemini for Home is built on natural language understanding and reasoning, so owners no longer need to memorise rigid command phrases. Wired’s coverage of the launch describes the assistant as finally capable of handling the kind of layered, conversational requests voice assistants have promised for a decade, including stacking multiple instructions into a single sentence, correcting yourself mid-command without starting over, and following a thread of dialogue across follow-up questions without repeating a wake word, courtesy of an expanded Continued Conversation feature.
CNET frames the new speaker as a direct challenger to Apple’s HomePod Mini, pointing out that Google is finally matching Apple on industrial design after years of boxier, less considered hardware, while undercutting it on smart home flexibility. Redditors, on the other hand, are not holding it back. One user, Fluxxis, commented, “Google’s hardware support is actually better than I thought, even Google Home from 2016 got the last Gemini update, ten years after its release.” Another user added, “The Google ecosystem is pretty rubbish, especially outside the US. The doorbells, cameras and other hubs/speakers are pretty naff.” A third user, jeweliegb, wrote, “You left major showstopper bugs in your smart home ecosystem for over ten years whilst you went to play with other toys.”
Irrespective of the early reviews, Google has done a pretty job handling this. Design-wise, this isn’t just a Gemini update bolted onto old hardware. The speaker runs custom processing built specifically for Gemini’s computational demands, which Google says is meant to make “conversations feel faster and more natural rather than transactional.”
Priced at $100, the Google Home Speaker goes dollar-for-dollar against both the HomePod Mini and Amazon’s larger Echo Dot Max. What differentiates it is the Gemini integration. It remains to be seen whether Gemini can make talking to a speaker feel like a conversation instead of a command line, especially with Amazon and Apple racing to answer the same question themselves.
Ever since the first leak surfaced online, there has been speculation about when it will come, with Google first announcing a spring release only to postpone it later. There have been speculations that Google deliberately slow-walked the hardware launch, choosing to spend extra time optimising Gemini for the device itself to cut down on latency and bugs before putting new hardware in customers’ homes, even though that meant shipping later than originally promised.
Nevertheless, the company has finally announced that the Google Home Speaker will go on sale on June 25, 2026. You can pre-order it directly from the Google Store now or purchase it through major third-party retailers like Amazon and Best Buy when it’s available in a choice of Berry, Hazel, Jade, and Porcelain colors.
