American audio manufacturer Como Audio - which recently launched its first multi-room system in the UK - is back with its take on the smart home speaker.

The SpeakEasy is, like Como's other products, a 'proper' hi-fi speaker. It's been designed by Como's founder Tom DeVesto, who has 40 plus years experience in the hi-fi industry but he's aware of the demands of modern day consumers. That that degree, the SpeakEasy has the Google Assistant built-in, turning it into a fully-fledged smart speaker.

The SpeakEasy is currently seeking funding on Kickstarter, where it just under £10,000 under its goal at the time of writing. 

With Google Assistant built-in, you can use SpeakEasy to control any supported smart home products you own, from the 5,000 supported devices recently announced by Google. 

Even though we haven't heard the SpeakEasy, we can practically guarantee it will sound better than the Google Home. It's thanks in no small part to the combination of a three-quarter inch soft dome tweeter, three inch custom dual voice coil woofer and Como Audio's own custom DSP equalisation technology.

A bass port on the back of the speaker helps to improve bass frequencies while the 25 Watt per channel Class D amplifier provides plenty of power. Everything is housed in an MDF cabinet, which can be specced in four different finishes: Walnut, Hickory, Piano Black and Piano White. With the SpeakEasy coming from a true hi-fi background, it supports a wide range of audio codecs, including HE-AAC, LC-AAC, CELT/Opus, MP3, Vorbis, Wav, and FLAC.

The SpeakEasy can wirelessly connect to other Como Audio systems to join a multi-room system, although this needs to be done using the Google Chromecast Audio dongle. Because it connects to the dongle, it means you can effectively connect to any other audio system you may have in your home. 

You're not limited to using the SpeakEasy at home either, as an optional 2,220mAh battery pack is available to let you take it with you on-the-go, providing up to eight hours of playback time.

Como Audio plans to begin shipping the SpeakEasy from November if the funding goal is met. You can pre-order one now from $219 with a Walnut finish. A $239 pledge will secure a special Kickstarter edition.