Google Home Review

Google Home is a feature-packed smart speaker that can also serve as a smart home hub. Although it’s not the same as the Amazon Echo, it’s a reliable choice for a smart speaker/hub.

Let’s talk a little more about what you can expect from your Google speaker.

Sometimes we think Google’s products are minimalistic to the point of sacrificing function. But we have no complaints about the Google Home hardware.

The Google Home has a lovely visual design. Most of the models are a little more innocuous-looking than an Amazon Echo, with a sleeker, more rounded look that won’t look as foreign in your family room. Some people even compare the regular Google Home to an air freshener. (We say essential oil diffuser.)

You can get your Google speaker in the following colors:

• Aqua
• Chalk
• Charcoal
• Coral/Campari
• Sky/Como Blue

Color availability varies by model. Sadly, none of the speakers come in every color, so if you like one shade better than another, you may be limited in your choices.

So what can you do with your Google Home?

Google Assistant is customizable. You can choose between male and female voices, and you can also select two languages from the following 13:

• Brazilian Portuguese
• Danish
• Dutch
• English
• French
• German
• Hindi
• Italian
• Japanese
• Korean
• Norwegian
• Spanish
• Swedish

That’s a lot of languages (last year, Google offered just six), but it’s far from every language on the planet. Your language may still be excluded for the time being.

The Google Home is primarily a speaker, so music is a must.

Use Google Assistant to make a call, even when you have an iPhone. (You just have to do some legwork with your settings.) If you have a Nest Hub with a screen, you can even make a video call.

You can also use your Google Home system for an intercom call within your home.

Lean into the assistant part of Google Assistant by adding events to your calendar and checking the weather.

Trade in “Let’s google it” for “Hey, Google.” With Google Assistant, you can get the answer to your question by speaking out loud.

You can use your Google Assistant to order food, look up recipes, and get restaurant recommendations.

If you say, “Okay, Google, random fun,” Google Assistant will pull out a random activity. The activity could be a game, quiz, story, joke, or riddle, among other things.

To learn about more Google Home features, check out our article about having fun with Google Home.

Many people use their smart speakers as smart home hubs. They hook all their smart home equipment up to their speaker and then control it all using voice commands. But to do that, the smart speaker and smart device(s) need to be compatible with each other.

Your Google Home or Nest Hub should work with the following brands, among others:

• Abode
• ADT
• Alder
• Apple TV
• AT&T Digital Life
• August smart locks
• Chromecast
• Honeywell
• IFTTT
• LIFX
• Nest (includes Nest Thermostat, Nest Protect, Nest cameras, and Nest Secure)
• Philips Hue
• Samsung SmartThings
• SimpliSafe
• Sonos
• WeMo

You don’t have to be right near your Google Home to use Google Assistant. You can also direct instructions through the Google Assistant app on your phone.

Google Home setup is quick and easy. You just need your Google smart device, your Google account, and your phone. The Google Assistant app guides you through the process so you don’t have to figure it out on your own.

The Google Home is excellent, even in comparison to the Echo. It’s a classy smart speaker that works well and has lots of fun features.

When Google acquired Nest back in 2014, it opted not to rebrand the Nest smart speakers.¹ Google currently sells the following speakers:

• Google Home Mini
• Google Home Max
• Nest Hub
• Nest Mini
• Nest Hub Max

The standard Google Home was recently discontinued.

The Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max are essentially Google Home speakers with screens attached, but the Google Home Mini and the Nest Mini are almost identical. Initially, it sounded like the Nest Mini was a rebrand of the Google Home Mini, but Google is still selling the two separate products. So we’re not sure what’s going on there.

In any case, if you’re trying to choose between a Google Home Mini and Nest Mini, the Nest has some slight design improvements. It's made of a different material and has better speakers. You can turn your music on and off by tapping the top, and you can even mount your Nest Mini to the wall.

Also, the Nest comes in blue (Sky, according to Google). Otherwise, the Nest Mini and Home Mini are more or less the same device.

These two apps are very similar. The main difference is that the Google Assistant app can fulfill some voice commands that your Google Home can’t. That’s because Google Assistant is a smart assistant (like Apple’s Siri). It runs your Google Home, but it exists outside of it.

It depends on what you’re looking for.

Echo’s offerings don’t directly correlate with Google Assistant. Some of them are for extremely specific use cases. But in our mind, the Echo Dot is the equivalent of the Google Home Mini or Nest Mini. The Echo and the Google Home are on par, and so are the primary smart display offerings, Echo Show and Nest Hub Max.

So what happens if you put the Google Home up against the Echo? You learn that Google Assistant isn’t Alexa 2.0; it has different strengths and weaknesses than Amazon’s leading lady. For instance, it’s better at research (Google’s built right in). It gets you access to YouTube, and it’s better with flexible wording. You don’t have to speak as precisely for Google Assistant to understand you as you do with Alexa.

But it also has its drawbacks. We noticed that Google Assistant has some spatial issues; the nearest Google Home won’t always pick up on what you’re saying. Amazon’s Alexa doesn’t have that problem. And, of course, Google Home can’t order or track your Amazon packages for you.

In general, we suggest choosing your speaker based on what other smart home brands you want to connect with. Some brands are Google- or Amazon-compatible only.

Sources

1. Wikipedia, “Google Nest”