In an attempt to compete with the wildly popular Amazon Echo, Google is launching Google Home today.

Google Home is a voice-activated speaker that was designed to help you with your everyday life around the house. You activate it by using the "Ok Google..." and Home starts listening. You can check the weather, play music on Spotify, Youtube music, and others, change your Nest (or similar smart) thermostat with your voice, and many other home automated tasks.

What's really interesting about Google Home is that it hooks into the most powerful search engine on earth. Ask it questions just like you would the search engine, and it will provide intelligent responses.

The home assistant is selling for $129, but if you buy Google Home, you can get 6 months of YouTube Red for free (YouTube's ad free/original content package).