Google Home Max Discontinuation Marks The End Of A Pre-Nest Era

It might be hard to believe but smart speakers have been in the market for more than half a decade now. Amazon launched the Echo, which was then seen as an oddity, in late 2014 and Google followed it up with the Home speaker two years later. Google would eventually expand that into a new line of "Home" branded smart speakers but now that will just be a footnote of history as the last of its kind, the Google Home Max, as officially sold out and has been discontinued.

The Google Home Max was pretty much Google's attempt to preempt the launch of the HomePod. Apple pretty much tried to steer the narrative away from its very late smart speaker and focus on the audio quality of the HomePod instead. The HomeMax's large size and hardware were designed to compete with the HomePod and Sonos and was indeed reviewed favorably.

That, however, three years ago and audio technology has improved since then and so did Google. Smaller speakers can now boast of the same audio quality as the gigantic Google Home Max and at a significantly lower price. The fact that some people still bought these last stocks from Google's Store is, in fact, more curious. Regardless, those stocks have now completely been depleted and Google has no plans on making any more of these.

Not that it has bowed out of the smart speaker market. Instead, it is focusing those efforts under the new Nest brand which puts all its smart home products under one name. The Google Home Max pretty much closes the chapter on Google's "Home" chapter.

That said, it told Engadget that owners of the now discontinued Google Home Max need not worry about anything. The device will continue working with Google's services and will even get security updates. Until when that will be the case, however, only Google knows.