Google’s home strategy is a little conflicted right now. Aside from the TV-focused Chromecast, Google’s strategy revolves around Google Home, a Google Assistant voice appliance and speaker, and Google Wifi, a mesh Wi-Fi router.
Google’s sales pitch for these two devices is pretty similar: multiple Google Home boxes will work together to give you music and voice commands in every room, while multiple Google Wifi boxes will work together to give you a strong Wi-Fi signal throughout the whole house.
Put the two together and Google wants you to have two boxes in (almost) every room. Who wants that? A new report however claims that Google is working on fixing this. The company is reportedly mulling over “a version of its Google Home intelligent speaker with built-in mesh Wi-Fi networking”—a combo box containing Google Home and Google Wifi.
That’s a speaker, a voice-command system, and a Wi-Fi router all in one box. Such a combo box would represent a singular device from Google to put in every room. This makes a lot more sense than the current sales pitch. The report doesn’t say much more than that and doesn’t have offer anything on price.
Both Google Home and Google Wifi cost $130 each, with Google Wifi available in a three-pack bundle for $300. A combo product would certainly help differentiate Google Home from its mortal enemy, the Amazon Echo, and would help Google Wifi stand out from the growing range of mesh Wi-Fi routers.
