Google will ship the Google Home Speaker on June 25, 2026 at $100, with preorders opening June 17 at $99.99. It is Google's first new smart speaker in nearly six years, and the first built around Gemini rather than Google Assistant. The hardware is secondary to the software bet: Google is using the launch to consolidate users onto Gemini as the default voice interface in the home.
The orb-shaped device ships in four colors — Hazel, Porcelain, Jade, and Berry — with Jade and Berry limited to the US. Inside is a quad-core A55-based processor clocked at 2GHz with a dedicated NPU running local models for noise isolation, three far-field microphones, Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.4, and Thread and Matter support so the speaker doubles as a smart-home hub. Up to two units can pair with the Google TV Streamer for surround output.
Audio is a step down from the last flagship on paper. The Nest Audio, which debuted in September 2020, carried a 75mm woofer and 19mm tweeter; the Google Home Speaker has a single 58mm full-range driver. Google told Ars Technica the new speaker's audio quality falls between the Nest Audio and the smaller Nest Mini, and pitches it as a 360-degree sound device meant to work anywhere in a room rather than as a high-fidelity upgrade.
Key facts
- 01Google Home Speaker launches June 25, 2026 at $100, with preorders opening June 17 at $99.99.
- 02It is Google's first smart speaker in nearly six years, replacing the Nest Audio that debuted in September 2020.
- 03Gemini replaces Google Assistant, with 10 voices, support in 20 countries and 10+ languages.
- 04More than 3.5 million homes have opted into Gemini in Google Home, with engagement double that of Assistant.
- 05The speaker uses a single 58mm full-range driver, down from the Nest Audio's 75mm woofer and 19mm tweeter.
The pitch is Gemini. Anish Kattukaran, chief product officer at Google Nest and Google Home, said local models filter out background noise to better isolate the wake word, addressing the persistent mishearing problem that has dogged smart speakers for a decade.
Buyers get six months of Google Home Premium bundled in, which unlocks Gemini Live — the back-and-forth conversational mode triggered by saying "Hey Google, let's talk" — along with natural-language automation setup, 30 days of event video history, and smarter camera notifications. Gemini Live is restricted to newer hardware including the Nest Audio and the new speaker, even though Gemini itself rolled out to older Google Home devices last fall.
Gemini on the speaker handles 10 voices and the Continued Conversation feature, which previously worked only in English on Assistant-powered hardware and now spans every supported language. Users can string multiple commands together, rephrase mid-question, and ask follow-ups without repeating context. Tied-in security cameras let Gemini answer specific queries like whether a delivery arrived or whether a pet got into something it shouldn't have.
Kattukaran said more than 3.5 million homes have opted into Gemini in Google Home across 20 countries and more than 10 languages since early access opened last fall. Google has shipped more than 2,500 bug fixes to the Gemini and Google Home stack in that window, and Kattukaran said users engage with Gemini at roughly twice the rate they did with Assistant. Part of that delta reflects a rough transition period in which several Assistant features broke as Google migrated the stack.
The launch is also six months late. Google announced the speaker last August and promised a spring 2026 release; it is now arriving in late June. The slip matters because Apple is expected to debut a revamped smart speaker later this year alongside its retooled Siri, and Amazon is still rolling out Alexa+ globally to its Echo line, 10 years after the first Echo shipped. The smart speaker category, dormant for most of the pandemic-era hangover, is suddenly contested again on the strength of LLM-grade assistants.
The hardware tradeoffs are real. A single 58mm driver is a downgrade from the Nest Audio's two-way design, and the most useful feature — Gemini Live — sits behind a subscription after the six-month trial. Buyers who already own a Nest Mini or Nest Audio can get most of the Gemini experience without buying new hardware, since Gemini lives in the cloud and the new speaker is mostly a better-tuned mic array around it.
What Google is really selling at $100 is distribution for Gemini in the living room. The Home Speaker is cheap, ubiquitous in four colors, and bundled with a Home Premium trial designed to convert. If Google can hold the 2x engagement lift Kattukaran is citing and keep the bug-fix cadence up, the speaker becomes a low-cost wedge against Alexa+ and a revamped Siri at exactly the moment the category resets. The audio specs are a footnote — the real product is the assistant.
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