Google's first new smart speaker in six years starts shipping June 29

Google is trying to restart the smart-speaker market it helped build with a new $99.99 Google Home Speaker that begins shipping June 29. The device is the company’s first new standalone smart speaker in six years and its first audio product built specifically for Gemini for Home, arriving after a long stretch in which Google leaned on existing Nest hardware while it pushed software updates instead.

The hardware itself is familiar rather than radical. Google kept the same slightly squashed round design and touch-capacitive controls, but the company says the speaker now serves as a showcase for its AI home strategy. Google Home Speaker supports 360-degree audio, speaker groups and pairing with a Google TV Streamer for spatial surround-sound audio, while a physical mute switch sits on the bottom for microphone privacy. Retail listings have also shown three far-field microphones, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.4.

The bigger shift is in what Google wants the speaker to do. Gemini for Home is designed for more natural, multi-step conversations, with follow-up questions and mid-sentence corrections instead of rigid command phrasing. Google says Gemini replaces Google Assistant on smart displays and speakers, and the new Home Speaker is meant to be the first audio device built for that system. The speaker can also set calendar invites and reminders by voice, search Nest Cam video history and provide summaries of what happened while users were away.

Google is also using the launch to steer buyers toward its subscription layer. The company is bundling a six-month Google Home Premium trial with the speaker, which it values at $60, and it says advanced AI functions such as Gemini Live and camera-history search require the paid service. That puts the speaker in a different position from the Nest Audio and Nest Mini era: less as a simple room-filling speaker, more as an entry point to a paid AI-home ecosystem.

The launch follows Google’s October 1, 2025 home refresh, when it introduced Gemini for Home, a redesigned Google Home app, new Nest cameras and doorbells and Google Home Premium. Google is betting that a dedicated speaker can still matter in a market now crowded by phones, earbuds and assistant software built into other devices. The answer to that test will shape whether this becomes a real home-hardware revival or just another waypoint in the move from voice commands to generative AI.