5 important things we still don't know about Google Home (GOOG, GOOGL)

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Google Home, which was unveiled last Wednesday, is designed to be a direct competitor to Amazon Echo.

Amazon Echo has become extremely popular since its initial debut two years ago. It's a big Bluetooth speaker with a ton of built-in microphones, which lets Echo hear you and speak to you. Just plug it into a wall and it's always on.

You can use Echo to play music, set alarms, and add items to your shopping list, but you can also ask it questions about movies, culture, sports, and more. It's constantly getting new features all the time.

Google Home will work almost exactly like Amazon Echo: Just plug it into a wall and boom, you have a personal assistant that's always on and ready for your command. Google Home looks like a pretty cool product, but there's still much we don't know.

Here are the five most important things we still don't know about Google Home.

How much does it cost?

This is a biggie.

Amazon Echo costs $200, but Amazon recently unveiled two new Echo products that will give you a similar experience. The $90 Echo Dot lets you connect a small hockey puck-sized Echo to any speaker you have in your home; the Echo has all the microphones you need, and the speaker you already own provides the audio output. There's also the $130 Amazon Tap, which is an Echo speaker you can take with you wherever you go. You can connect it to WiFi or a mobile hotspot to play music, give you the weather, or even order a pizza or an Uber.

We're hoping Google Home costs less than the $200 Echo, but frankly, it probably won't cost less than the Echo Dot. In my opinion, spending $90 to get the Echo Dot — essentially the full Echo experience sans speaker — is an incredible deal, so hopefully Google doesn't price its Home speaker too high.

When will it come out?

We imagine Google Home will be ready by later this year, but when is "later"? Will it be available before the holiday rush, in September or October? Or will it be difficult to actually get one of these units until early next year?

If customers need to wait ample time to buy a Google Home, they might start looking elsewhere (and to be frank, Amazon Echo already has a pretty big head start when it comes to features and consumer awareness).

What's the microphone situation like?

Microphones are by far the most important aspect of Amazon Echo.

The Amazon Echo is packed with seven different long-range microphones so it can hear you anywhere in your home. I've routinely used Amazon Echo in my bathroom with the shower running and the door closed. That's pretty impressive stuff.

If Google wants Home to be useful, it will need a similar microphone structure so it can properly hear commands. Microphones are part of the reason why Apple's Siri assistant isn't very good or reliable: It often has trouble hearing what you're saying, which leads to a frustrating experience that's far from natural-feeling. Hopefully Google Home doesn't skimp in the microphones department; it'll need this if it hopes to compete with Echo.