Technology often yields ridiculous conveniences, like being able to turn on your computer from miles away without pushing the power button. Wake-on-LAN has been around for a while, so let’s see how it works and how we can enable it.
What Is Wake-on-LAN?
Wake-on-LAN (sometimes abbreviated WoL) is an industry standard protocol for waking computers up from a very low power mode remotely. The definition of “low power mode” has changed a bit over time, but we can take it to mean while the computer is “off” and has access to a power source. The protocol also allows for a supplementary Wake-on-Wireless-LAN ability as well.
This is useful if you plan to access your computer remotely for any reason: it allows you to retain access to your files and programs, while keeping the PC in a low-power state to save electricity (and of course, money). Anyone who uses a program like VNCor TeamViewer, or keeps a file server or game server program available, should probably have the option enabled for the sake of convenience.
Wake-on-LAN is dependent on two things: your motherboard and your network card. Your motherboard must be hooked up to an ATX-compatible power supply, as most computers in the past decade or so are. Your Ethernet or wireless card must also support this functionality. Because it is set either through the BIOS or through your network card’s firmware, you don’t need specific software to enable it. Support for Wake-on-LAN is pretty universal nowadays, even when it’s not advertised as a feature, so if you have a computer built in the past decade or so, you’re covered.
For those of you who build your own rigs, take care when buying an Ethernet card. While most built-in cards on motherboards don’t need this step, discrete network cards often need a 3-pin cable attached to the motherboard to support Wake on LAN. Do your research online before you buy, so you’re not disappointed later on down the line.
The Magic Packet: How Wake-on-LAN Works
Wake-on-LAN-enabled computers essentially wait for a “magic packet” to arrive that includes the network card’s MAC address in it. These magic packets are sent out by professional software made for any platform, but can also be sent by routers and internet-based websites. The typical ports used for WoL magic packets are UDP 7 and 9. Because your computer is actively listening for a packet, some power is feeding your network card which will result in your laptop’s battery draining faster, so road warriors should take care to turn this off when you need to eke out some extra juice.
Magic packets are usually sent over the entirety of a network and contain the subnet information, network broadcast address, and the MAC address of the target computer’s network card, whether Ethernet or wireless. The above image shows the results of a packet sniffer tool used on magic packet, which brings into question exactly how secure they are when used in unsafe networks and over the internet. On a secure network, or for basic home use, there shouldn’t be any practical reason to worry. Many motherboard manufacturers often implement software along with Wake-on-LAN capabilities to offer hassle-free or largely configuration-free usage scenarios.
How to Enable Wake-on-LAN on Your System
To get started using Wake-on-LAN, you’ll have to enable it in a few places—usually your BIOS and from within Windows. Let’s start with the BIOS.
In the BIOS
RELATED:What Does a PC’s BIOS Do, and When Should I Use It?
Most older computers and many modern ones have their Wake-on-LAN settings buried in the BIOS. To enter the BIOS, you’ll need to press a key as you boot your computer—usually Delete, Escape, F2, or something else (your boot screen will give you instructions on what key to press to enter setup). Once you’re in, check under Power Management or Advanced Options or something of that sort.
On this HP computer’s BIOS, the setting is found near the “resume after power failure” option. Some aren’t so obvious: on my ASUS motherboard (below), the Wake on LAN option is buried two layers deep in the menu system, under “Power on by PCIE/PCI”, because the built-in network controller is behind the PCI controller—it’s only visible that this is the right option in the description text.
The point is, it isn’t always easy or obvious to find the relevant option, since BIOS menu systems vary so widely. If you’re having trouble, check your computer or motherboard’s manual or do a quick Google search. Remember that most manufacturers offer PDF versions of documentation online.
In Windows
You’ll also need to enable Wake-on-LAN in your operating system. Here’s how it goes in Windows. Open the Start menu and type “Device Manager”. Open the Device Manager and expand the “Network Adapters” section. Right click on your network card and go to Properties, then click on the Advanced tab.
Scroll down in the list to find “Wake on Magic Packet” and change the Value to “Enabled.” You can leave the other “Wake on” settings alone. (Note: one of our test rigs didn’t have this option, but Wake-on-LAN still worked fine with the other settings in this guide enabled properly—so don’t fret if it isn’t there.)
Now click the Power Management tab, and make sure the “Allow this device to wake the computer” and “Only allow a magic packet to wake the computer” boxes are enabled. Click OK when you’re done.
In macOS
Open up your System Preferences and choose Energy Saver. You should see “Wake for Network Access” or something similar. This enables Wake-on-LAN.
In Linux
Ubuntu has a great tool that can check to see if your machine supports Wake-on-LAN, and can enable it. Open up a terminal and install
ethtool with the following command:
You can check your compatibility by running:
If your default interface is something else, substitute it for
eth0 .
Look for the “Supports Wake-on” section. As long as one of the letters listed is
g , you can use magic packets for Wake-on-LAN. To enable this option, use the following command.
This should take care of it. You can run the command to check and see if it’s enabled now. Look for the “Wake on” section. You should see a
g instead of a d now.
How to Wake Your Computer with Wake-on-LAN Magic Packets
To send out Wake-on-LAN requests, you have a cornucopia of options available.
Depicus has an excellent series of lightweight tools to get the job done, including a GUI-based one for Windows and command-line-based one for both Windows and macOS. Wiki.tcl.tk has a great cross-platform lightweight script that handles the requests as well.
DD-WRT has great WoL support, so if you don’t feel like downloading software to do it, you really don’t have to. Or, if you’re out and about, you can use your Android device to wake your computers.
In addition, many applications support Wake-on-LAN within them. For example, if you’re trying to access your computer from afar with a remote desktop program, you can wake the sleeping computer with TeamViewer’s built-in “Wake Up” button, which uses Wake-on-LAN.
You may need to tweak other settings in that program for it to work, so refer to the program’s manual for more info on Wake-on-LAN.
In addition, depending on the program, Wake-on-LAN may only work if you send the magic packet from a computer on your existing network. If your program doesn’t automatically handle the network connections for Wake-on-LAN, you’ll need to set up your router to forward UDP ports number 7 and 9, specifically for the MAC address of the PC you’re connecting to. If you’re not sure how to do this, check out our guide on forwarding ports from the router. You may also want to set up a dynamic DNS address so you don’t need to check your remote computer’s IP address every time.
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You want access to your home computer wherever you are, whatever you're doing, whether that's via a remote desktop connection, SSH, FTP, web interface, or any other remote access you've set up. The catch is, you don't like throwing money away to an always-on system. Luckily you can have your digital cake and eat it, too, and today I'll show you how to boot and shut down your system remotely so that it's ready for you when you need it and it's not wasting energy when you don't. Determine and lower the cost of leaving your PC running
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The cornerstone of this setup is a feature available to almost all newer computers known as Wake-on-LAN (or WOL), which—as the name suggests—turns on your PC through your local network. Wake-on-LAN is a breeze to set up and use on your local network, and with a little legwork you can set it up so you can wake your computer away from your home network, as well.
First I'll show you how to enable Wake-on-LAN on your computer, starting with enabling the feature in the BIOS and finishing by choosing the correct system settings. Then I'll show you several methods you can use to wake your computer using this feature, from waking your computer through your browser to different applications made specifically for this purpose.
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NOTE: Wake-on-LAN only works with wired network connections.
Set Up Wake-on-LAN in Your BIOS and Operating System
The Wake-on-LAN feature can work in a couple of ways. First, it can boot your system from a completely shutdown state. Second, Wake-on-LAN can restore your system from a hibernated (Windows) or sleeping state (Mac). If you're working in Windows, you may need to tweak your BIOS (the firmware your computer's motherboard runs before it boots your operating system) before you start using Wake-on-LAN. Once your BIOS is set, you need to find and adjust a few system settings to allow you to wake up your computer using the Wake-on-LAN feature.
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Enable Wake-on-LAN in Your BIOS
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Dell Wake On Lan
To access your BIOS, restart your computer and press and hold the Delete key (or whatever key your BIOS prompts you to hold) to enter the BIOS setup. Once you're in the BIOS, head to the Power management section and look for a Wake-on-LAN setting. If you find one, go ahead and make sure it's enabled, then save and exit your BIOS and start up your computer. Not all BIOS will have a straight-up Wake-on-LAN option, and on some boards you may have to enable a 'Power On By PCI Devices' setting. It varies from board to board, so a little trial and error may be in order.
Now you're ready to enable WOL in your operating system.
Enable Wake-on-LAN in Windows
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To enable Wake-on-LAN in Windows, right-click My Computer (or Computer in Vista), select Properties, then click on Device Manager (in XP that's in the Hardware tab). Find your network card in the hardware list, right-click it and click Properties again. First go to the Power Management tab and tick the checkbox next to Allow this device to wake the computer.
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Now head to the Advanced tab, which is full of options for your network adapter. We're concerned with two options here. The first is the Wake From Shutdown entry near the end of the list. Scroll down to it and change the value to On. The next setting I tweaked was Wake-Up Capabilities (right below Wake From Shutdown), setting the value to Magic Packet. Hit OK and everything should be set. You're ready to use the Wake-on-LAN feature using one of the methods described below.
I also had to update the drivers for my network adapter through the Device Manager for it to work, so for good measure you might want to do the same (right-click your network card and select Update drivers and let it download the latest from the internet).
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Enable Wake-on-LAN in OS X
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To enable Wake-on-LAN for you Mac, open the Energy Saver Preference pane, click Options, and then tick the Wake for Ethernet network administrator access checkbox. That's all there is to it.
Methods and Applications for Waking Your Computer with WOL
Now that you've enabled Wake-on-LAN in both your BIOS (if necessary) and your operating system, how do we go about actually waking up your computer? There are actually a number of methods for doing so, from issuing the wake command using your router to apps made specifically for this process. Skyrim special edition archer build guide. I'll highlight a few of these methods below.
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Wake Your Computer from Anywhere with Your Web Browser
The easiest way to issue a Wake-on-LAN command from outside your local network is through your web browser, and the absolutely simplest way to do that is through your router.
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If you've followed either of our methods for turning your cheap-o $60 router into a super-charged $600 router with either Tomato, DD-WRT, or even HyperWRT (which we haven't covered), then you've got all the tools you need to turn on your computer from anywhere with an internet connection. Since I'm currently running Tomato, I'll show you how to work it there, but if your router supports Wake-on-LAN, it shouldn't vary much.
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First point your browser to the Tomato admin interface and give it your username and password to get started. If you're working outside of your local network, you'll need to either know your external IP address or have set up a free domain with DynDNS. Once you're in, click Tools -> WOL in the sidebar. All of your available devices are listed, and all you have to do to issue a Wake-on-LAN command is click on it. Simple, right?
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Geek to Live: How to assign a domain name to your home web server
by Gina Trapani
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If you don't have a router that can handle WOL, you can still wake your computer from your browser using services like Wake On Lan from DSL Reports. In order to issue the Wake-on-LAN command from outside your network through a service like this, you'll first need to set up port forwarding for UDP port 9 to the computer you want to wake up on your local network (here's how that works).
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Geek to Live: How to access a home server behind a router/firewall
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Now you just need to know your external IP address or have assigned a domain name to your home computer, and the MAC address of the computer you want to wake. To find a computer's MAC address in Windows, type ipconfig/all at the command prompt and find the series of 12 letters and numbers next to Physical Address. On a Mac, run the Network Utility application and write down the address next to Hardware Address. Give the webapp your IP address and the MAC address of the PC you want to wake up and voilà—the Wake-on-LAN command should be issued and your computer should start up or wake up straight away.
Wake Your Computer with Freeware
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If you don't have a router supported by the Tomato or DD-WRT firmware, there are still other simple tools made to send wake-up commands to your computer. For Windows, one good looking option is called Magic Packet Sender. It can save your WOL profiles so sending that command is quick and simple.
Mac users should check out WakeOnLan, which offers both a regular app and a Dashboard widget. It scans your local network and grabs all of the local devices so it's easy to find one and wake it up.
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What To Do Now that Your Computer is On
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We've covered tons of remote access possibilities here at Lifehacker, and here are a few of my favorites that you may want to use now that you've started up your computer:
Geek to Live: Set up a personal, home SSH server
by Gina Trapani
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Remotely Shut Down Your Computer
When you're finished accessing your home computer, you still may want to shut it down to save energy when you're finished with it. Fact is, now that you've got remote access, there are lots of different ways you can go about shutting down your computer remotely. If you're connected via SSH, you can shut down your computer from the command line. Likewise, you can easily shut down your computer graphically from a remote desktop or VNC connection the same way you would shut it down locally. If you feel like getting a bit more creative, here's how to shut down Windows with a text message.
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I haven't exhausted the methods you can use to remotely wake up or shut down your computer, but these should give you a good start. If you have your own preferred methods that I didn't mention above, let's hear your tips in the comments.
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Adam Pash is a senior editor for Lifehacker who wants access to his computer any time but doesn't want his electric bill to reflect that. His special feature Hack Attack appears every Tuesday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Hack Attack RSS feed to get new installments in your newsreader.
Alexa gets smarter and more useful every day. I've talked extensively about how you can control your lights and thermostat, brew coffee and even order pizza using only your voice.
But reddit user garyngwind has come up with a simple and clever way to power on your computer using Alexa. Here's how it's done.
What you will need
The sheer number of components to this setup may seem daunting at first, but it's actually quite simple. If you're familiar with Tasker and IFTTT, it shouldn't take more than 10 or 15 minutes to have everything up and running.
To get started, you obviously need an Alexa-enabled speaker and a computer. This will work with Windows and macOS, and it should work with most Linux computers. This setup also requires an Android smartphone or tablet, and you need to download two applications to the Android device: Tasker and Wake On Lan.
Finally, you need an IFTTT account with the Alexa and SMS or Android SMS channels activated.
Step 1: Enable Wake on LAN
Once you have all the required devices, applications and accounts ready, there is a small amount of setup that needs to be done on the Android device and the PC.
On the PC side, you will need to enable Wake on LAN. This allows you to bring the computer out of a low power state, such as Sleep or Hibernate, using another device connected to the same network. Enabling this is a little different per computer.
Windows
macOS
BIOS
Step 2: Setup the IFTTT recipe
The IFTTT recipe is the pivotal part of this entire setup. You will be connecting the Amazon Alexa channel to one of the two SMS channels offered on IFTTT.
The first is Android SMS, which will use your phone to text itself. It requires the IF app to be installed. The second is the IFTTT SMS channel, in which IFTTT will text you from a designated number. The latter is limited to 100 text messages per month.
For these recipes, you can customize the trigger phrase, which I have set to default to 'PC on.'
Step 3: Tasker and Wake On Lan setup
For those who are not familiar with Tasker, it's a lot like IFTTT but for native functions on an Android phone.
You can create Profiles, which are similar to the This portion of an IFTTT recipe. These Profiles trigger on certain events, times, locations or the status of an application, and fire off any Tasks that are associated with them. Tasks are a lot like the That part of an IFTTT recipe.
To bridge Alexa and your PC, you need to connect Tasker and IFTTT through an SMS, your Android device and PC using the Wake On Lan app. It's actually much easier than it sounds.
Turning on your PC with Alexa
Something to note is that this setup does not work when the connected computer is fully powered down. It should be in a low power state, such as Sleep or Hibernate. It also will not work if the connected phone is not on the same Wi-Fi network.
Shutdown Wake On Lan Realtek
With those things in mind, when you say 'Alexa, trigger PC on,' your phone will receive an SMS and Tasker will tell the Wake On Lan app to wake your computer.
There is a short pause before the SMS is sent, but in my testing that delay is typically only between 3 and 10 seconds, making this solution perfect for powering on my computer while I make coffee in the morning, before I ever open the door to my office.
Not 10 minutes after Amazon's surprise announcement of new Echo devices last week, I walked into a small meeting room in Google's Mountain View headquarters to hear about the new Google Home Mini and Google Home Max.
If there was ever a sign that Google had a big hill to climb to stay competitive in home speakers, this was it. But Rishi Chandra, Google’s GM of Home products, was characteristically relaxed about the whole thing, even joking about it. His take on Amazon's strategy of flooding the zone with so many different kinds of Echo speakers? 'It only shows we're in the early stages of this area, let's just say that. There are different approaches.'
Chandra is going to need to hang on to that sense of humor, because even though Google is expanding its lineup of smart speakers, Amazon has clearly captured consumers' imaginations in a way that the Google Home has not. Amazon is in the lead in this category, even though, in some ways, the Google Home and the Google Assistant are more technically advanced than what Amazon has been offering.
Part of Amazon's success has come because it's been able to offer lots of different kinds of Echos in more price categories. So Google is doing the obvious thing: offering different kinds of Google Homes in more price categories.
Google Home Mini
The Google Home Mini can pretty much be summed up in one sentence: it's a smaller, cheaper Google Home designed to compete head-to-head with the Amazon Echo Dot. The Home Mini is $49, available for preorder today. That's ostensibly the same price as the Dot, but Amazon often marks its product down.
The Mini comes in three colors: “chalk,” “charcoal,” and “coral.” It's a much more attractive device than the Echo Dot. It looks like a big, fabric-covered skipping stone. It's about four inches in diameter and just over an inch and a half tall. It also sounds quite good for its size. You're not going to really want to use it to listen to music, but a podcast or a news update would be fine; it's more than capable of making itself heard in a medium-sized room. You can also stream Bluetooth audio to it, if you want.
Google Home, just smaller
It's also more than capable of hearing you in a medium-sized room. Google's wake word detection for 'OK Google' or 'Hey Google' is quite good, even when the speaker itself is playing something.
The controls on the Home Mini are simple, even though it has no visible buttons. You can tap on the top of it to pause it, and you tap on the left or right side to adjust the volume. There's a mute switch on the back (which makes more sense than a button), and four indicator lights under the fabric on top, which are visible only when lit up.
It charges with Micro USB, not USB-C, because a Micro USB is a cheaper part. Since you'll almost never unplug it, it's not a big deal. But I still find it amusingly antiquated. Each Mini has a brightly colored anti-skid foot on the bottom that looks like a little Easter egg.
It's a very simple, straightforward device, a little ovoid puck designed to get the Google Assistant into more rooms.
Google Home Max
The Google Home Max is the much more interesting — and much more expensive — device. It's a $399 stereo speaker that's designed to take on other speakers from Sonos, Bose, and Apple's upcoming HomePod.
It's substantial: a stereo speaker with two 4.5-inch woofers and a couple of tweeters flanking them. All of it is hidden behind a fabric speaker grille (which is glued on, but can be replaced if you need to), and it comes in two colors: black or white. It honestly looks a little like Apple’s 2006 vintage iPod Hi-Fi.
You can set the Max down either horizontally or vertically; there's a clever rubber 'foot' that attaches via a magnet. There are touch controls across the top for volume, but really, you're meant to talk to it, because it's a smart speaker. You can buy two and set them up as a pair.
It will support Bluetooth, but you're more likely to use Google Cast to get audio on it (or just ask for music). If you must, there's a 3.5mm aux jack on the back next to a USB-C port that's primarily meant for an Ethernet adapter if you need a wired connection.
The demo time was pretty short, but it sounded great to my admittedly non-audiophilic ears. It achieved solid stereo separation, and there wasn't any distortion when the volume was cranked up, even as I felt the bass in my chest.
And you know what's coming next, because this is a Google product: machine learning. Like Apple's HomePod, the Home Max is designed to automatically adjust itself to create the optimum sound for the room it's in, and even for the position of the room that it's in. And like the HomePod, it does so in real time, unlike other speakers that ask you to wander around holding your phone up as they emit strange cheeps and chirps.
In one demo, a Google engineer picked up the speaker and moved it to the corner of the room. As you'd expect, the sound profile changed dramatically as the sound waves started echoing weirdly on the suddenly adjacent walls. Then, about 10 seconds later, it sounded completely normal and good again.
Google is using AI to adjust the sound profile in real time
I was more impressed with something that Google's engineers weren't even intentionally trying to show me, though. The music was playing really loudly as I was asking a question. Chandra muttered, 'OK Google, stop,' nearly under his breath. I barely heard him myself, but the Home Max heard him just fine, despite the loud music. Its four lights lit up immediately when he said 'Google,' and then it paused the music.
I asked about actually trying to use it as a soundbar, noting that syncing the audio on the Home Max with a video playing on a TV with Chromecast would probably be devilishly complicated. The response: a long pause as the engineers in the room looked at each other with wry grins on their faces. So Google's thinking about that, too.
Bottom line, though: you shouldn't think of the Home Max as a soundbar replacement or as something you'll integrate into whatever your current setup is. It's a standalone speaker, though it can work with a multi-room system if you have more than one.
Think of it more like a 2017 version of the iPod Hi-Fi: a big-ass speaker that costs 400 bucks and is designed to work with your portable device. We’ll see if Google can have more success with that idea than Apple did.
We will have to actually test the audio quality of these devices up against Amazon's latest offerings before we can say if they're better. But it sort of doesn't matter. At least with the main Home product, and especially with the Google Home Mini, good enough is good enough.
Where Google believes it has a significant advantage — one that isn't really getting the attention it deserves now that Echo has established itself as the Kleenex of smart speakers — is in the capabilities of the Google Assistant. It might not have the raw tonnage of 'skills' that Alexa has, but it's often smarter and more natural to talk to. (Except, of course, how awful it feels to say 'OK Google' compared to a nicer word like 'Alexa.”)
The Google Assistant is getting quite advanced, even though nobody seems to notice
Google wants to fix that attention deficit. To start, it's putting a name to the feature it launched earlier this year. It's called 'Voice Match' now: the Home's ability to recognize multiple voices automatically and provide answers based on that person's Google account. You can tell, talking to Google's engineers, that they think it's a significant advantage over the Echo that few are giving them enough credit for.
I also heard from both Chandra and hardware boss Rick Osterloh that in the year since the Home was launched, it has learned '100 million' more answers. I'm not totally sure what it means, but expect that number to be repeated a bunch in the coming months.
The Google Assistant is getting a few new features across every device that can run it. First and foremost, it's getting a second voice option to go along with the first one, though only in the US to start. The new voice sounds just as natural as the old one, for whatever that's worth. Kudos to Google for calling them 'Voice I' and 'Voice II,' instead of 'female' and 'male.'
You'll be able ask the Google Assistant to 'broadcast' a message to all the Google Home devices in your house like they're a household PA system. Since Voice Match knows who you are, Home can do things like set reminders on your actual Google account, and have them go off based on your location. There's a new find my phone feature (which again only works because the Home can identify your voice and knows which phone is yours). Google is also adding 'Routines' to the Assistant; it lets you chain together multiple actions under a single command like 'OK Google, I'm home.'
Because I live a strange life, one of my hobbies is needling Google employees about the phrase 'It's early days,' which is a go-to whenever the company has released a new product into a category where it's definitely not the market leader. That's absolutely the case with smart speakers, where Amazon is ahead. So 'early days' comes up a few times.
It's a shorthand for saying that Google is trying to take the long view, and it doesn't believe that the first company to go to market is necessarily the company that's going to win in the end. It's a reminder that even though it feels like we're looking at an established market, it's actually quite nascent. Or so Google contends, anyway.
'These products are just being introduced in different parts of the US, in different channels in the US — and even more so internationally,' says Osterloh. 'It's very early days for everyone in those places,' he adds. 'We believe we're in a good position given our capabilities and technologies. … So kudos to Amazon for taking an early lead in this space, but it is very much just the beginning.'
Up next: Google’s new Daydream View is designed for your couch, not your bagMore from Google's huge hardware announcementVideo Credits
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