You want working, reliable Wi-Fi in every room of your house. Maybe you’d like every room of your house to properly hear your Google Assistant voice commands, too?
Now, Google is about to offer a way to extend both your internet and the range of your voice at once — with the just-announced Nest Wifi mesh router system.
We’re learning about it right now live at Google’s Pixel 4 hardware event: the two-pack is now composed of a new, bulbous “Router” and a separate similarly shaped “Point” that now extends your coverage 25 percent further than the previous generation — which Google claims is enough for a 3,800 square foot home. Only the “Point” has a Google Assistant smart speaker built in, though.
The two-pack costs $269, and there’s a three-pack for $349, with preorders today and devices available on November 4th. The Point will come in three different pastel colors, a white, brown, and blue, though it looks like the Router may only be white. Presumably, it’s got an Ethernet port somewhere around back to plug in your modem, but Google hasn’t shown the backs of these units so far.
Google didn’t mention whether it supports the new Wi-Fi 6 standard, but the company does claim these new routers are twice as fast as the previous generation. They’ll also have Bluetooth Low Energy and support for the long-in-development-yet-still-nascent Thread smart home protocol that rival Eero has also been chasing a good long while, though Google says Thread capabilities aren’t coming till 2020.
Google says you can use the Assistant to control your Wi-Fi network, too, as easily as saying “Hey Google, pause the Wi-Fi for Daniel” to get your kid’s attention. (That’s an exact example from Google’s blog post.) We’re definitely curious if it’s anywhere near that easy.
We’ll fill in more details as we go — but since we were kind of expecting this announcement, I’ve already filled in some background you can read below.
Since Google first introduced its Google Wifi system three years ago at $299 for a three-pack, mesh routers have become a popular way to eliminate Wi-Fi dead zones in a house, with every major router company offering a set. Google says its Wifi has been the best selling router in the US and Canada.
But while many rivals offer higher speeds and more power user features, Google’s closest competition for a simpler Wi-Fi experience that blends into your house has been Eero — which also pioneered the idea of making mesh Wi-Fi cheaper and easier to install by replacing two of the three main routers and their cords with “beacons” that can hang right off the power outlets on your walls.
Amazon bought Eero earlier this year, giving Google’s greatest rival in voice assistants a foothold in the Wi-Fi market, too, and it quickly introduced a new $99 Eero router that lets you shut off internet to specific devices with Alexa voice control. But now it appears Google may leapfrog Amazon by adding actual microphones to its hardware, so you don’t need to additionally set up a Google smart speaker in that room of your house.
Developing. Check out our Google hardware event live blog for the latest updates!
