Google Home Adds Honeywell, Other Smart Home Integrations

CNET – Yesterday, Google launched its support of Honeywell thermostats and Belkin WeMo smart plugs for Google Home. The Google Assistant which is built into the Home now works with six home automation platforms, Honeywell and Belkin, in addition to the four it launched with, Nest, SmartThings, Philips Hue and IFTTT. Though a good start, Google Home still lags behind Amazon in this area. Amazon already has dozens of partnerships with smart home platforms, many of which were announced at this year’s CES. It should be noted that Alexa already has integration with all of the smart home platforms listed above, so these announcements mean Google is still trying to catch up to Amazon.

It also has a ways to go in sales. Yesterday, Voicebot published about a report from Evercore that estimated Google shipped 500,000 Google Home units in 2016. While that pales in comparison to the estimated over 6 million Amazon Echos sold, it’s still a start. Google also has an advantage in that its Pixel smartphone also contains the Google Assistant and the company has hinted that soon it will also be capable of controlling smart home devices. LINK