Voice calling with Google Home launched but is it better than amazon echo???

Google’s smart speaker can now pull double duty as a phone for voice calls. The company just confirmed that it’s rolling out Google Home’s calling feature in the US and Canada beginning today. Users can dial anyone in their contacts and local businesses for free as long as the call recipient is in one of those two countries. At Google IO in May, among several other features, Google announced it would be bringing hands-free calling to its Google Home speaker.

There is no special setup for hands-free calling with Google Home. It simply uses your personal contacts or nearby businesses based on your location to place calls.

 

All you have to do to start a call is say, "OK, Google, call [contact name]." You can also say things like:

•"OK, Google, call the nearest coffee shop."

•"OK, Google, call café coffee day."

•"OK, Google, call the post office."

•"OK, Google, call wife."

•"OK, Google, call Johny."

Google Home will place your call over the Wi-Fi connection. While ringing or in call, the light ring on Google Home will be a spinning pale blue.

 

By default, recipients will not see your phone number. Instead, they will see either Unknown or No Caller ID. Google says that by the end of this year, you will have the option to show your number when you call someone. However, if you have a Google Voice number or use Project Fi, you can connect your phone number by opening the Google Home app, tapping the hamburger button in the top left to expand the menu and going to More settings > Calls and selecting Google Voice, Project Fi or Unlisted.

If you do connect one of these numbers, you will also be able to use Google Home to call premium rate numbers. Otherwise, these calls will not work. Emergency numbers are also not available to call using Google Home.

To end a call, you can say, "OK, Google, hang up," or tap the top of the Google Home speaker

Though it might seem like Home is basically just acting as a speakerphone, that’s not the case. Calls are made over Wi-Fi, so they don’t use your phone plan’s minutes. In fact, Google Home calling is entirely separate from your smartphone. That’s both good and bad at the moment, which I’ll get into next.

You can tell Google Home to display the phone number you’ve got tied to either Google Voice or Project Fi by going to the Assistant settings in your Google Home smartphone app for Android or iOS. Once that’s done, recipients will see your number show up instead of the terrible “no caller ID” thing.

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