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If you’re already using a Google Home, buying one or more Google Home Minis is a no-brainer. Once you have a voice-controlled digital assistant in one room, you’ll want them all over the house. At the Home Mini’s announcement, Google said that you could tap and hold on the top of the speaker to activate the listening feature, in lieu of using the “OK Google” or “Hey Google” wake words.
Use it on its own or put one in every room of the house - we guarantee you will find the way it makes your life easier. Also, Google needs to figure out how to better arbitrate devices, so I don't get so many phones and speakers responding every time I ask a question. Commands were executed immediately — when we ordered the Home Mini to start a video, the Chromecast was already loading the video while the Home Mini began to acknowledge our request. It is possible the immediate response is to be credited to the fact that both devices are made by Google, but our hope is the same will be true when we are able to connect various smart home devices. Once we were set up on the device, we were impressed overall with how well the Mini responded to our directives – in English, anyway.
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In his spare time, he also tests out the latest drones, electric scooters, and smart home gadgets, such as video doorbells. Before his tenure at Tom's Guide, he was the Reviews Editor for Laptop Magazine, a reporter at Fast Company, the Times of Trenton, and, many eons back, an intern at George magazine. He received his undergraduate degree from Boston College, where he worked on the campus newspaper The Heights, and then attended the Columbia University school of Journalism. Without anything else playing, both the Home Mini and the Echo Dot were able to hear my voice from across the room, even when I talked in a low voice. However, once I started cranking tunes, I had to raise my voice to a near shout to make myself heard by the Mini.
We're seeing more Alexa-enabled speakers than Google-enabled speakers coming down the pike in the next few months, and Alexa has maintained its lead in third-party services. In spite of that fact however, it’s impossible not to recommend this little device. Its Assistant smarts, large list of features and low price make it easy to take the plunge on the Home Mini. Vocals and the like chime through clearly, but come in at the expense of, well, everything else.
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If you want to solely use the Home Mini as a set of Bluetooth speakers, the Google Home app offers up pairing settings, though they are rather buried within the app. The Google Home Mini looks as if Google turned the Home upside down, then smushed it down to size. As such, you’ll find the fabric texture on the top of this device with the matte plastic on the bottom half. Also, if you like to compare tech to food, this device looks like a macaron. The Home Mini is the cheapest way of buying into the Assistant yet for those looking to buy into Google’s smart home ecosystem. While it's a good value for the price, its poor sound performance makes it a better desk buddy than a standalone speaker.
Sure, Google will grant you instant access to your Google Play and YouTube accounts, but you’ll need to help the Mini sign into Spotify and Pandora via the app first. To add smart-home devices, all you need to do is go to a devices list in the app and click on the ones you want to add. Google says the Nest Mini has three spatial microphones that listen to and analyze the surrounding environment for voices.
Set-up
Until a few days ago, you could also tap and hold on the center of the Home Mini to activate the Google Assistant, but something went awry with that feature. I’ve had a Google Home since its early days, and have found it to be more sophisticated than the Echo. It’s better at understanding my requests, and it’s much more helpful when I’m seeking general information. But the Echo series is compatible with more devices, and it’s vastly superior at controlling my smart home system of choice.
On the underside you’ll find a rubberized base that compliments the fabric mesh and hides a microphone mute button on the back side near the power port. Last but not least, on the underside, you’ll find a place for a universal mount for easy hanging on a wall - a first for Google’s speakers. The set-up will help you connect to music services – Spotify and Google Play Music are offered here – and to nearby Chromecast devices , and then you’re just about done. Once the Google Home Mini is happy that it’s learnt your voice and enough about you, it’s ready to get started being your virtual butler. Despite the lack of physical buttons, the Home Mini still has touch controls you can use. To adjust the volume, you tap the sides of the device, or you can long press the sides to play and pause music.
Embedded in the fabric are four multi-colored LED lights that let you know when the Home Mini is listening, processing, or muted. They are not nearly as bright or easy to see from across the room as the Echo Dot’s spinning ring of lights. It does look very cool and presents nicely, but that clearly comes at a cost to the product’s usability and longevity.
Isn’t it annoying when you’ve misplaced your keys somewhere at home while running late to an appointment? Your Google Nest Mini can help you track them down, if you’re using one of Tile’s Bluetooth trackers. In order to track them down, you simply just say, “Hey Google, where are my keys? Google recently brought out the Google Nest Mini, which is incredibly similar to the original compact model but with a few key differences.
I compared the same songs across both devices, and the Dot consistently came up short, without even a hint of a bass. Your milage may vary, of course -- if you listen to a lot of audio through your phone's speaker, the Mini will be an improvement. The Home Mini can stream audio, video or images from Google Photos to any Chromecast-enabled device . Controlling audio and video was one of my favorite features with the original Google Home, and that's still the case here.
The microphones are also making use of a new feature Google calls ultrasound sensing. The speaker emits tiny inaudible chirps, which bounce off objects in the environment, reflect back to the microphones and tell the device if someone is near. This is turned on when music is playing, but you can opt out of it if you like in the Home app. There's also the option to call your home speakers from the Home app if your mobile device has Google Duo installed. Google added several new features and improved sound quality to its second-generation smart speaker. Regardless of which color you go for, the Nest Mini has a fabric mesh on top that covers three touch-capacitive buttons for raising and lowering the volume, and play/pause.
Perhaps Google should have invested in more than two microphones, or some better noise-cancellation software for this device. Setting up Nest Mini takes a but few moments and requires a phone, such as the Google Pixel 6, with the Google Home app installed and a local Wi-Fi network. You’ll have to go through several steps, such as adding the speaker to a room, giving it a name, and registering your voice.
The Echo Dot with Clock will cost $10 more than the Nest Mini and you won't be able to mount it on your wall . However, you will get a practical LED display and the tactile joy of whacking the top of a smart speaker to snooze the alarm. The Google team also redesigned the speaker inside the Nest Mini, making it larger and just a bit heavier with more space around the components to create a fuller bass sound. In 2016, Google showed off its first smart speaker, the Google Home. Small but mighty, this speaker came with all the smarts of Google Home but at an affordable $49.
Fantastic value with all of the features you could want, it’s not to be dismissed. For such a small speaker, it's pretty loud—you can hear it easily from across the room. You mostly won't interact with the Mini itself, but its controls are handy. Tap on either side to turn the volume up or down; tap quickly in the middle to pause or play, or press and hold to get Assistant.
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