Does Google Home Hub Have A Camera

It's official: The Google Home Hub, a smart speaker with a screen, is here, and information technology enters into a smart display market that is getting very crowded lately. Everyone seems to desire to sell you lot a screen for your counter. Even Facebook is in the game with the Portal and Portal+, ii smart displays you can utilize to talk to your friends on the social media platform.

But while other manufacturers are adding bells and whistles like large, 10-inch crystal articulate displays, built in smart dwelling house hubs, roving cameras, and stellar sound, Google surprisingly has kept information technology simple with its Home Hub. No huge screen similar Facebook's Portal+ 15-inch brandish. No congenital-in Zigbee smart hub like the Amazon Echo Show. No incredible sound like the JBL Link View. Just a unproblematic, seven-inch affect display, which is now available for pre-order at a very reasonable toll of $149.

I can run across why people feel creeped out — at that place are many examples of things going incorrect with cameras in people'southward homes.

Don't go me incorrect: Under the hood, the Habitation Hub is impressive. It's powered by Google Assistant vocalism applied science. You can answer your Nest Hello video doorbell directly from the device. It comes with six months of YouTube Premium for free, a articulate swipe at Amazon (Echo Show users tin't access YouTube due to an ongoing feud with the Google-owned visitor).

But perhaps the most intriguing thing about the Home Hub is what it doesn't have: a camera. It'due south a departure from the trend, as pretty much every smart display on the market has ane. That means that you can't brand video calls via Google Duo, Skype, or whatever other platform on the Habitation Hub. Just it besides means that you lot don't take to be worried that Big Brother — or the creepy hacker next door — is watching you.

While I initially questioned Google's logic when I heard about this, at present that I've had a chance to retrieve about it, information technology's a refreshing change. Not having a camera in a smart display is a expert thing, and here's why.

No photographic camera = Fewer privacy concerns

I have many friends who apartment out decline to buy any kind of smart speaker. They're shocked to know that I have several of them in my house (for testing purposes as office of my job). They're even more dismayed to learn that I have one with a screen.

"Aren't you worried nigh privacy?" They ask me. I explicate that I exam out smart speakers and smart displays for work, just that even and then, the idea of having the devices in my home doesn't bother me.

I can see why people feel creeped out, though. In that location are many examples of things going wrong with cameras in homes, like infant monitors and security cameras beingness hacked. Studies similar this ane show that as many as 50 percent of smart speaker users are worried almost privacy. And this report focused on the people who already own a smart speaker, not people who but apartment out pass up to put one in their homes in the start identify due to privacy concerns.

I had concerns. In this hackable day and age, you never know what can happen. And it's in my room. By my bed.

If you Google "smart speaker privacy concerns," you'll become oodles of manufactures where devices, always listening, have encroached on people'due south privacy in strange ways. 1 notable incident involved a Portland, Oregon, couple, who discovered that Alexa recorded a home conversation and and then sent it to a contact without their permission.

With the Google Dwelling Hub, Google has eliminated some of the concerns well-nigh the collection and exposure of our private information, at least on the video front. Google is smart to listen to those folks worried near hacks and unauthorized information nerveless about the states. While the chances of a home device with a camera being hacked is small, losing the camera on such a device shows me that Google is listening when it comes to our concerns about privacy.

Home Hub in your bedroom or bathroom?

At that place'south another class of people straddling the smart home fence: Those who might exist OK with putting a smart display with a camera in a kitchen (where anybody typically keeps their clothes on), but who might not be comfortable with such device in the bedroom. The camera-less, smaller Google Home Hub eliminates this business concern and will make people more comfy using it in any room in the house.

When the Amazon Echo Spot was introduced, it was billed as a cute little alarm clock replacement for your nightstand. I liked the device but had concerns about putting it next to my bed, fifty-fifty with the photographic camera turned off in the app. Why? Because in this hackable day and age, y'all never know what can happen. And it's in my room. By my bed. You understand what I'1000 saying.

Most folks are nonetheless making regular voice-on-voice telephone calls.

Google purposefully made the Home Hub smaller than a Lenovo Smart Display or Echo Show, and that means that it can actually fit on a nightstand if you lot want to put information technology there. And you tin put information technology there without worrying about a camera being in the chamber like the Amazon Echo Spot.

Heck, you could even put it in your bath if you wanted, without the fearfulness of a camera somehow getting turned on. That makes it more versatile, and that makes me feel better about having the device in my home. I'm certain others will feel that manner, likewise.

Cameras in smart displays aren't really necessary anyhow

The biggest argument I've heard in favor of putting a camera in a smart display is that it allows you to make video calls, which can be genuinely useful. My hubby, son, and I oftentimes chat when he's out of town through the Amazon Echo Testify on our kitchen counter.

Simply as far as I tin can tell, video chatting is nonetheless the exception to the norm, meaning that nigh regular folks are however making regular voice-on-phonation phone calls. Skype or Google Duo calls are reserved for occasional connections with grandma, assuming everyone knows how to utilise the technology.

And even when video calling is happening, it's typically through done through our smart phones, tablets, or laptops. In that location's a reason land lines are disappearing: Inappreciably anyone is gathering around the phone, or in this example, the smart display, to talk on the telephone.

I'd be willing to bet that the bulk of people who own smart displays are not using them to video chat.

Furthermore, not enough people have smart displays to make a photographic camera on the devices an absolute necessity. It'due south true that if you have an Alexa device with a screen and the recipient of your call does, too, you can take a nice video chat. Simply I have an Echo Show, and I don't know a single one of my friends who has i. Even if I did, it might be weird if I just dropped in on them.

Perhaps that will change, but for at present, I'd be willing to bet that the bulk of people who own smart displays are not using them to video chat very ofttimes. And to be honest, I don't know if they ever will.

Google is conspicuously listening to consumers about privacy. For anyone put off by its recent security fiasco, that might be reason to reconsider buying a smart display. And in a tech world increasingly dominated past more bells and whistles, not less, it's nice to see that Google had the fortitude to hold back a bit. Just considering you can do something doesn't hateful you lot should.

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