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PGTS Humble Blog

Thread: Internet Standards & Competition

Author Image Gerry Patterson. The world's most humble blogger
Edited and endorsed by PGTS, Home of the world's most humble blogger

Home At Last.


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Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2018 23:00:00 +1100

Earlier this month Dick Smith Online offered Google Home for an attractive price. Well below others in the Australian market. Your blogger thought it was a great offer ... However there were a few unexpected issues.

The reason Dick Smith Online had offered the item at such a low price was because they had imported it direct from the US. They just bundled a power transformer with the unit so that it could be plugged into a standard Aussie 240V socket.

I was quite pleased with my Google Home, but soon began to think it would be much better if I could occasionally relocate the device without Mrs. Google losing her tiny mind because I'd unplugged her power source.

So I found a battery base (Called Ninety7) on Amazon and order one. It arrived quite promptly. However I was disappointed that it would not charge.

I sent it back to Amazon and they sent me a replacement. Unfortunately I had to pay the rather hefty shipping cost, since they had only allowed $15.00 US for return shipping.

The replacement battery wouldn't charge either ...

Fortunately the original Google Home had shipped with the original transformer. It had some fine print on it ... So fine it required a magnifying glass ... But it seemed that it was not very fussy about the input AC voltage, but the output DC voltage was 16.5.

However the Australian adaptor that Dick Smith included was 12V. It seems that Google Home is not terribly fussy about the input voltage ... It worked quite happily with 12V ... But the Ninety7 battery base was much more particular.

It seemed that all I needed was an adaptor for the US style plug to the Aussie style. I probably could have used a pair of pliers to twist the pins into the Aussie shape, but I was concerned that the pins might break if I did that. So I went down to Jaycar and bought an adaptor.

The battery pack charged ok with the 16.5 DC input.

All this time, Google Home functioned flawlessly ... However after she has settled a few debates (like which country has the greater area .. etc) ... I found myself only making two requests ... "Stream ABC Radio National" and "What's the forecast?".


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