Today is the one-year anniversary of the original Google Pixel and Pixel XL. And what better way to celebrate Google’s first smartphones than with some great follow-ups?
At 9AM PT, Google will take the veil off its newest hardware, including new phones, new Home speakers, a laptop, a new Daydream VR set, and perhaps that mysterious Google Clip. That’s a lot to be excited for, but there’s more: expect some great new software features to go with all those shiny new toys, with Android 8.1 and Google Assistant front and center.
Google Pixel 2 launch live stream
Join us to watch the Google Pixel launch event live stream, starting at:
9AM San Francisco
11AM Chicago
12PM New York
5PM London
6PM Berlin
9:30PM New Delhi
12AM Beijing
2AM Sydney
Google Pixel 2 launch live updates
Can’t watch the live stream? You can follow our live updates right here. Refresh this page regularly to get a real-time summary of the announcements as they unfold.
Sundar Pichai begins the proceedings with condolences for the victims of Hurricane Irma, Harvey, and Maria as well as the tragedy in Las Vegas.
5,000km of new roads, 50,000 of new addresses, and more mapped in Google Maps this last year. Google Translate has over two billion translations per day, all thanks to machine learning.
Google is going to continue with its AI-first philosophy. That includes better conversational, sensory, multi-device, contextual input that learns and adapts as you go. The key combination is AI, hardware, and software all working together.
AutoML is Google’s automated machine learning program. It is more resource efficient and accurate than pretty much anything for tasks like object detection in images. Sundar shows an example using two kids at a baseball game. One is from the Dominican Republic and the other from South Dakota, USA. They’re communicating using Google Translate. It’s adorable.
Google talks briefly about bringing over 2,000 HTC engineers and some IP to Google to help beef up their products.
There are now 55 million Chromecasts around the world. Google Assistant received 100 million new answers to the search. Google WiFi is the highest selling mesh Internet product on the market. The Google Pixel did okay too.
Google continues to boast how their AI is freaking amazing, from photo taking to hear your voice accurately and other tasks. We believe them. The Pixel camera was pretty great. The idea Google has is to make things radically more helpful for the end user.
Rishi Chandra is on the stage now to talk about Google Home. Google Home is headed to China very soon.
Voice Match is a big deal. It makes profiles of people’s voices based on tone, pitch, and other characteristics. Voice Match is rolling out everywhere Google Home is available starting today.
Hands free calling coming to the UK starting this year. Good for them!
Isabelle Olsson to the stage to share more stuff!
Google officially announces Google Home Mini! It features a simple design, small stature, and it can easily be placed in most rooms. The fabric was custom made by Google to let sound and lights in and out. Neat! It comes in three colors, coral, chalk, and charcoal. Essentially, light red, gray/white, and gray/black. It apparently took 157 tries to find the right shade of gray. It will retail for $49. It’s up for pre-order today and full release is October 19th in most major retailers.
Rishi is back to talk about Voice Match again. We’re okay with it, it’s pretty nifty. Google is also going to allow for more complex tasks and routines.
Google Home can now control over 1,000 smart home products from over 100 brands. Adjustments to those things are improving as well.
Yoky Matsuoka, CTO of Nest, takes the stage!
Nest is going to integrate with Google Home and Chromecast to better control your home. Side note, Yoky has a cute little pet pig. Awesome. Another feature is Nest Hello. It will recognize frequent visitors to your home and tell you who’s at the door automatically without asking. That’s pretty awesome. Nest products can also integrate with Google routines to do things like turning security cameras on, arming security systems, and more. It’s all pretty awesome.
And Rishi returns!
A new Google Assistant feature is the ability to broadcast messages to all Google Homes within the house. It’s called Broadcast. Duh.
Google is also trying to make Google Assistant better for kids. The family link app released a few days ago was the beginning of this initiative. Google Assistant also has 50 new commands specifically for kids and families.
Google announced a new smart speaker called Google Home Max. It’s meant for hardcore listening. It boasts auto-tuning based on the music and space you’re in (called Smart Sound). It comes with Google Assistant is built-in (of course!). Rishi also says it’s really loud. We trust Rishi. It also comes with a 3.5mm headphone jack for use with your stereo or phone. It works with Chromecast and other Google Home products. Price is $399 with a launch sometime in December, in two colors (chalk and charcoal) in the US. It’ll launch in other countries next year. Buying it gives you a year long subscription to YouTube Red for free. Commercial time!
Matt Vokoun to the stage! Let’s see what he’s talking about.
Matt is going to talk about the Google Pixelbook. It “re-imagines the laptop experience”. It runs ChromeOS with Google Assistant built-in and Google Play Store apps support. That’s about as good of a laptop as Google can make without going with a competitor OS. It’s 10mm thick, 1kg in weight. It has a 4-in-1 design that includes a laptop, table stand, a tablet, and a tent mode. It has the same two-tone glass inlay like the Pixel phones. 12.3″ touch screen, Quad HD LCD, 235ppi are the screen specs. Intel i5 and i7, 16GB of RAM, and up to 512GB of SSD storage. Battery claims are up to 10 hours of use, USB Type C charging, and 2 hours of use in just 15 minutes of charging. It also includes Instant Tethering with Pixel phones during conditions when you don’t have WiFi. It’s only available on Pixel phones, though. It also comes with all the features of ChromeOS. Snapchat will even work with it. Nice try, though, because the iPhone X Snapchat features were, admittedly, way more cool.
There is now the Pixelbook Pen. It’s essentially Google’s version of Samsung’s S-Pen, but for the Pixelbook. You use it to point-and-select or circle or otherwise select stuff and Google Assistant will interact with it as appropriate. Some other specs include 10ms of latency, 60-degrees of angular awareness, and 2,000 levels of pressure sensitivity. Google partnered with Wacom for that. That’s a good thing.
Pixelbook comes in three configurations starting at $999 (and going up) with the Pixel Pen going for $99. Pre-orders are open today. Release date is October 31st from the Google Store and most major retailers.
Mario comes to the stage to announce what we’ve all been waiting for: the new Pixel phones!
They will have a 5-inch Pixel and a 6-inch Pixel XL. Obviously with Google Assistant built-in (including smart features for the camera). Aluminum body, glass inlay at the top like last year. The fingerprint sensor is in the center of the phone (and Mario takes a low-key rip at Samsung there. Good for him). No headphone jack (dammit, Google!). It comes with Bluetooth 5.0. The Pixel is a 5-inch Full HD OLED display. Pixel 2 comes in three colors: Kinda Blue, Just Black, and Clearly White. Screen is 18:9 resolution, that’s a 538ppi. HDR support is also included. Both phones are Daydream ready as well. The Pixel XL comes in two colors, Just Black and a Black and White pseudo panda bear option. Both phones have dual front facing speakers.
Both phones have the same specs. Up to 7 hours of charge in 15 minutes. Damn these people talk fast.
Both Pixel phones will come with an Always On Display. There is also a new Now Playing feature that identifies songs you’re listening to right on the Always On Display without turning the phone all the way on.
Hmm, a Pixel Ultra reference on the Pixel XL demo? What’s a Pixel Ultra?
The Google Search bar is now on the bottom of the screen. A new feature called Active Edge is essentially Google using the HTC U11 squeeze feature (that’s what they paid for!). You can squeeze the phone and access various features. Google Assistant is built-in, so all of the previous Google Assistant stuff we discussed will likely be on the Pixel 2. Both will launch with Oreo.
More coming!
What to expect
If you need a detailed summary of all the products and features we expect at the Pixel 2 live event, check out our previous coverage:
Google Pixel 2: Everything we know so far
What to expect from Google’s Pixel event today
Android Authority will be on the ground, so you can bet we’ll bring you first-looks and our take on all the new stuff at the show!
Come back often and let us know what you would like to see today!
Watch the Google Pixel 2, Google Home Mini and Max, Google Pixelbook (and Pen), etc launch right here: Live stream and live updates! (Updated)
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