Google Home Max 2: release date, news, features, and rumors

The Google Home Max was the search giant’s solution to integrating its powerful voice Assistant with high-spec audio quality, and at $399 (£399 / AU$549), the minimalist smart speaker delivered a powerful punch to both your home and your wallet. 

With the Pixel 3 event looming on the horizon, we could well be in for an update of the audio-focussed smart speaker in the form of the Google Home Max 2. If so, here’s what we’d like to see:

A little weight loss and more design elements

As Google’s largest smart speaker, we would expect it to be fairly heavy - but at 11.6 pounds (5.3kg), we think the Google Home Max 2 should probably seek to shift some of these extra pounds to appeal to a wider audience and make it more easily portable around the home. 

We liked how the original Google Home Max could be oriented vertically or horizontally thanks to a magnetic resting pad, so we’d like to see this feature again should the Google Home Max 2 have a similar rectangular design. 

When we reviewed the Google Home Max, we were impressed with the elegant and minimalist design, however we expect an updated model to include a few more design features, or even to come in a few different colors to ensure it fits in with a wider range of decor styles.

Lower price

There’s no escaping the fact that the Google Home Max is pretty expensive, and we recommended that many people would be better off purchasing a Google Home and supplementing the soundstage with a Google Chromecast Audio, which allows you to stream from your smartphone, tablet, or laptop without the hassle of pairing your devices. 

Saying that, audiophiles will be well aware that the price of the Google Home Max is nowhere near as high as the cost of some top-end speakers. Still, it would be nice to see the Max made accessible for more users.

Better Google and more of it

Surely there’s no better time than a new product launch for Google to announce new software updates for Google Assistant? At least that’s what we’re hoping. 

What we’d really like to see across the Google smart speaker ecosystem is better connectivity with Google’s own apps and features. For example if the new Google Home Max 2 could pull up our emails from Gmail and read them aloud, that would really set it ahead of the competition.

Google Home Max 2 news and rumors:

At this moment in time Google is yet to confirm whether we will see the launch of an updated Google Home Max at the Pixel 3 event on October 9, and with rumors of a new Google Smart Display device circling, it’s even more unclear. 

According to a recent leak, this could take the form of the Google Home Hub, which according to Android Authority, will cost $149 (around £115 / AU$200).

Still, we don’t yet know whether this means we won’t see the Google Home Max 2 at tomorrow’s event, but we will be covering all the breaking news on the day, so stick with TechRadar for regular updates.

• Google Home Max review: big and smart

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