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Walmart may have accidentally let the cat out of the bag on the yet-to-be-announced Google Home Mini.
Droid Life reported Tuesday that the retailer listed the rumored smaller, cheaper version of the Google Home assistant speaker for preorder on its site. But it quickly took the page down.
According to the preorder information, the Google Home Mini, which weighs less than a pound and measures 4.53 x 4.53 x 4.72 inches, will cost only $49. It’s expected to offer many of the same functions as its big brother, including being able to control your smart home, access weather information, play music, and answer your burning questions.
Rumors about the smaller, cheaper Google Home have been circulating since summer. The new device is likely to compete with Amazon‘s Echo Dot, a pint-sized follow-up to the Amazon Echo smart speaker. Google‘s new smart home device is expected to debut tomorrow at an event unveiling the new Pixel phones and Pixel-branded Chromebook.
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The introduction of a smaller, cheaper speaker underscores the fierce battle raging to dominate your home and connected devices. While Amazon enjoyed a significant lead in getting its Echo into homes and has aggressively built up the capabilities of its Alexa voice assistant, Google is coming on strong with its own Home speaker.
Google’s main advantage in this fight is the Google Assistant, which uses artificial intelligence to learn about you and your behavior to provide answers and information that is tailored specifically for you.
Representatives from neither Google nor Walmart responded to requests for comment on this news.
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