Microsoft's HomeHub will turn Windows 10 PCs into Amazon Echo-like devices, but 10x more powerful

Talk about perfect timing: more details about Microsoft’s HomeHub efforts have leaked online merely hours after Amazon announced the touchscreen Echo Show.

Now, Microsoft’s connected home ambitions aren’t really a secret. After all, Microsoft is said to be working on the HomeHub feature even before the Anniversary Update and Cortana on the Windows 10 lockscreen is all but one HomeHub features that shipped early.

So what’s HomeHub? Well, it’s basically Windows 10 with new home-centric and shared PC features. A tent-pole feature is said to be this always-on welcome screen that shows the family calendar, to-do lists, and notes. You know, sort of like that family board you’ve on your fridge. To facilitate sharing, there will be a shared desktop with apps that all family members can access without a password. Cortana is also expected to gain significant improvements; most importantly, a feature that can distinguish between family members.

HomeHub will also let users control their smart home devices through a dedicated app. Microsoft is said to be working to add support for Philips Hue, Nest, Insteon, Wink, and Samsung SmartThings devices. Cortana is expected to feature heavily here too, allowing users to send voice commands to control these devices. While HomeHub is mostly software, which means any Windows 10 PC should be able to run it, certain hardware such as a multi-mic array might be needed for far-field voice recognition to work well. According to The Verge, Microsoft is working with PC makers such as HP and Lenovo to create new HomeHub PCs or refresh existing ones.

HomeHub is expected to arrive in September 2017 alongside the next scheduled major update (codenamed “Redstone 3”) for Windows 10. (Fingers crossed it won't appear as some Windows 10 HomeHub Edition nonsense.) The feature certainly sounds like a huge deal, so I won’t be totally surprised if Microsoft announces this week at the Build developer conference that this update will be called “Windows 10 Family Update”. If we don’t hear more about it this week, there’s always the May 23rd event in Shanghai.

Source: The Verge.

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