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Right before the holiday season, Google dropped the price of Google Home mini to $29 in the United States thereby making it a perfect last-minute holiday gift. This meant that thousands of families in the United States and Europe got to experience Google Assistant and Google Home for the first time.
One such Italian family gave the Google Home Mini as a holiday gift to their grandmother and promptly recorded her attempts at using it. The video shows how the grandmother is freaked out and surprised at the same time when Google Home mini promptly tells her the weather status of her city. However, it is after this that when the grandmother tries to use the Home Mini on her own that hilarity ensues.
The video shows that despite us young generation thinking that it is easy to interact with a smart speaker by just saying “Ok Google”, the older generation might just struggle with something so simple. And perhaps this scenario also shows why Google should allow for custom wake word in Google Home and Google Assistant. After all, not everyone would be able to pronounce “Google” properly.
Smart speakers and smart assistants might be improving by leaps and bounds but its pretty clear that they still have a long way to go. What do you think?
