Filling out the features of Google Home

Google's done a lot of work in 2017 to make its Assistant better at controlling your smart home, but it also polished a couple of rough edges and debuted some cool new features. When the Google Home first launched, it surprisingly couldn't do a few basics like set reminders or add entries to your calendar. You can now do both.

Beyond the basics, the Google Home and Assistant added a ton of useful extras, some of which followed Alexa's lead, some of which forced her to play catch-up. Here are the highlights:

Voice recognition (Google was first, Alexa has it now): You and your family can each train Google Assistant to recognize your respective voices. Google will then customize responses based on who's talking when you ask about your calendar, your route to work or when playing your favorite music.
Purchases (Alexa had this first): Using Google's shopping service, Google Express, you can place orders from certain retailers. You can also verify your purchase if Google recognizes your voice.
Voice calling (each rolled out different aspects first): You can actually use the Home as a speakerphone. Ask it to make a call, and it'll find the number from your contacts and dial. It'll even show that it's you calling on the receiving end.
Broadcasting (Alexa had a version of this first): Using any device with Assistant (which is also built into a number of Android phones, and even available as an app on the iPhone) you can speak a message and have it play on your smart speakers. When it's dinner time, tell the Google Home in your kitchen and it'll broadcast your voice to the speakers in your kid's room and den.
Multiple commands (Alexa doesn't have anything matching yet): A recent update lets you give two commands to your smart speaker at once. Tell Google to turn off the lights and play your music, and it can handle both.
Speaker EQ settings (Alexa doesn't have anything matching yet): With the Google Home app, you can adjust the bass or treble on any Google Home speaker, so you can customize the way your music sounds.
Bluetooth streaming (Alexa had this first): You can even set the smarts aside and use Google Home as a simple Bluetooth streamer.
Recipe assistance (Alexa has a less robust version): Google Home will walk you through more than 5 million recipes. It'll give you directions step by step and you can go back if you need to. We found Google's cooking help quite useful when we tested it out.!

images-1.jpg