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How To Make Phone Calls With Google Home
Richard Goodwin
17/08/2017 – 10:00am
Google Home now supports phone calls – and unlike Amazon’s Echo, it’s actually been implemented rather well
If you’re in the UK, this doesn’t work, unfortunately. But if you’re reading this in the US, you’re in luck – Google Home will, very soon, be able to make free phones calls.
This feature took awhile to arrive, and we’re still waiting in the UK, but for US users the ability to call contacts via Google Home is now on the way and should be here in a matter of days.
The calls are free, providing you’re in the US or Canada, and how it works is super-simple: just say, “Okay, Google… call Bill”, and Google Home, using your Android contacts, will make the call.
This is a really cool feature – and one I am sorely missing in the UK – as it means you can use Google Home as a wireless conference calling device.
Amazon Echo does this too, though Amazon’s method is a little more clunky, as it requires the other person to have an Echo or else it just runs through the app, which isn’t ideal.
Google Home’s approach is done over Wi-Fi, so it doesn’t use your phone’s minutes – in fact, your phone doesn’t even factor in the call process with Home.
The ONLY negative about Google Home’s incoming call functionality is that, unless you’re a Google Fi or Google Voice user, the recipient of your call will not get a caller ID when you ring them, and this could result in them not taking the call, as you will show up as “unknown”.
This new feature will begin rolling out in the coming days to Google Home users in the US.
When will Google Home call functionality come to the UK? Unknown at present, but let’s hope we don’t have to wait too long.
In the meantime, check out these 20 awesome things Google Home can do for you right now.