Vivint Smart Home bundles two Google Minis with its starter kits, nudging users toward voice control

Before now, smart-home-as-a-service provider Vivint was happy to sell you a smart speaker--either an Amazon Echo or a Google Home--on top of its other offerings. Today, the company announced that it has partnered with Google to include two Google Home Minis in all its starter packages. Amazon had a long head start with Vivint, a Utah-based company that sells and services custom-installed smart home systems. Customers could use Amazon's Alexa digital assistant and Echo devices with Vivint Smart Home for months and months before they were able to do the same with Google Assistant and Google Home hardware. I know, because there's a Vivint system in my own home.