The Google Home Max takes aim at Sonos speakers with big sound and dynamic AI smarts

As expected, Google announced the Google Home Mini during its hardware event on Wednesday. It also pulled the Mini's antithesis out of its sleeve: the Google Home Max, a bigger, louder smart home speaker that takes direct aim at Sonos's popular audio gear on the very same day that Sonos revealed a smart speaker of its own. And the speaker leverages Google's AI smarts with a handy new feature dubbed Smart Sound. The Google Home Max wraps dual 2.5-inch high-excursion woofers and custom 0.7-inch tweeters in a polycarbonate housing with acoustically transparent fabric, as you can see in the blowout image below. Google says the hardware can achieve volumes up to 20 times more powerful than the standard Google Home speaker.