Google Home Speaker with Gemini: $100, preorders June 17

Google’s Gemini-powered Google Home Speaker opens for preorder on June 17 and goes on sale June 25, priced at $100. The device replaces the old Assistant-focused firmware with Gemini and ships in Berry, Jade, Hazel, and Porcelain, with Berry and Jade limited to the United States.

What is the Google Home Speaker and when does it arrive?

The Google Home Speaker is Google’s first stand-alone smart speaker since the Nest Audio in September 2020; preorders begin June 17 and retail sales start June 25 at $100. Google announced the speaker last fall alongside new Nest cameras and doorbells and had originally promised a spring 2026 launch; Ars Technica notes the initial announcement came last August.

The speaker is compact, described by Google as significantly smaller than the previous Nest Audio, and uses an orb design intended to deliver 360-degree audio. It comes in four fabric-wrapped colors and includes capacitive touch controls on top, three far-field microphones, and a hardware mute switch.

How does Gemini change the speaker experience?

Gemini replaces Google Assistant on this device, letting users speak in natural, multi-step sentences, make mid-sentence corrections, and carry follow-up queries using Continued Conversation in all supported languages. Gemini Live enables uninterrupted back-and-forth dialogue and offers 10 selectable voices, but the Live mode is restricted to newer devices and requires a Google Home Premium subscription; buyers get six months of the service for free.

Google says early access to Gemini in Google Home has attracted more than 3.5 million homes across 20 countries in more than 10 languages, and the company has applied more than 2,500 bug fixes to Gemini and Google Home since opening early access. Anish Kattukaran, chief product officer at Google Nest and Google Home, says "most people are engaging twice as much with Gemini versus Google Assistant," underscoring the company’s view that Gemini raises interaction frequency.

What are the hardware and audio trade-offs?

The speaker runs local models and hardware meant to better isolate sound and filter background noise, and it includes a glowing ring of LEDs around the base to indicate listening and processing states. It supports Thread and Matter for smart home hub roles, and includes Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.4 connectivity.

Ars Technica reports the device uses a single 58 mm full-range driver and a quad-core A55-based processor clocked at 2 GHz with a dedicated NPU for local processing. That contrasts with the Nest Audio’s 75 mm woofer and 19 mm tweeter; Ars concludes the Home Speaker’s audio should sit between the Nest Audio and the smaller Nest Mini. Wired frames the audio improvement relative to the Nest Mini, saying the Home Speaker’s driver is "twice as large" as the Nest Mini’s and calls it a "massive audio upgrade" over the Mini, while also noting it is a smaller speaker than the Nest Audio and thus not a like-for-like larger-speaker replacement.

You can pair two Google Home Speakers with Google’s Google TV Streamer for an "Immersive" audio output, create speaker groups in the Google Home app, and cast music or podcasts as with earlier Nest products.

Why it matters

Google has remade its primary consumer speaker to showcase Gemini rather than Assistant, shifting the product from a simple smart-home controller to a conversational AI endpoint. The company is also testing a subscription path for higher-tier features via Google Home Premium, bundling six free months with each new speaker; how many buyers convert to paid subscriptions will determine whether Gemini can be a sustainable revenue stream for Google’s smart-home strategy.

What to watch

Track Home Premium adoption after the six-month trial ends and whether Gemini Live retention justifies the $10 per month/$100 per year price TechCrunch cited for the tier. Also watch Apple’s expected revamped smart speaker later this year and Alexa’s continued global rollout, both of which TechCrunch and Wired cite as near-term competitive signals.