Huawei was working on a Google Assistant smart speaker before Trump ban

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge

Huawei was planning to follow other tech giants in releasing a smart speaker, according to The Information, but then the US government threw the company’s software partnership with Google into disarray. Like Google’s own Home speakers, Huawei’s was to be powered by the Google Assistant and respond to customer voice commands. The plan was to announce the Huawei-branded speaker at this year’s IFA conference in Berlin and sell it globally, with Huawei selling it on the web to US shoppers.

But when US president Donald Trump imposed trade restrictions against Huawei in May, the speaker collaboration with Google quickly dissolved.

Manufacturers of these smart speakers, including Amazon, Apple, Google, and others, are increasingly being taken...

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