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Google Home can now make phone calls for free

You can now make hands-free voice calls with the Google Home smart speaker.

Lynn La Senior Editor / Reviews - Phones
Lynn La covers mobile reviews and news. She previously wrote for The Sacramento Bee, Macworld and The Global Post.
Lynn La
Tyler Lizenby/CNET
Watch this: Alexa introduces voice calling and messaging

Google on Wednesday announced that its voice-activated smart home speaker, Google Home , can now make phone calls to mobile numbers and landlines. In addition, if you are in the US or Canada, calls will be free, the company said at its annual I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California.

By offering phone call capabilities, Google is expanding its ever-growing list of Home features. You can also connect the speaker to smart home appliances and use it play music or ask a variety of search questions. Earlier last week, Home's competitor, the Amazon Echo , received an update that will allow it to patch phone calls as well from device-to-device. However, the Echo can both make and receive calls, whereas Home only supports outbound calls.

Google cites customer privacy for its reasoning to not support incoming calls. Likewise, if you own an Echo and are worried about unwanted calls, you can learn how to disable Alexa calling here.

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