Starting this week, Google’s Home smart speaker can now make phone calls to UK landline and mobiles for free.
The feature, first announced in the US, allows owners to ask either their Google Home or Google Home Mini to call anyone who’s in their contacts list.
Now to be clear, it needs to be a contact listed within your Google Account so if you’re using iCloud to store your contacts you’ll need to transfer them over to your Google account as well.
You don’t need a landline connection as the calls are all made over WiFi direct from the speaker and the service is completely free.
You’ll be able to call anyone within your contacts list whether that’s a mobile phone number or a landline.
Importantly, you won’t be able to use Google Home to call 999 or premium rate numbers including premium customer service helplines.
Google’s Home isn’t the only smart speaker to offer calling but it is the first to offer the service without any real limitations.
Amazon’s Echo does offer calling but only to phones that have the Alexa app installed or to other Echo speakers.
Apple’s HomePod can also receive phone calls but it has to be pushed to the speaker from your iPhone first so you can’t ask it to call anyone.