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I also appreciated that when I made a request, Google Assistant displayed the words it heard me say on the screen, so I knew if it had misheard me. . While it’s not as large or loud as the Echo Show, the Google Home Hub is an affordable and capable alternative for those looking for a smart display. While it’s not as large or loud as the Echo Show, the Google Home Hub—now called the Google Nest Hub—is an affordable and capable alternative for those looking for a smart display. Overall, the Google Home Hub provides excellent value at just $149, as long as you’re already a big user of Google’s services.
Fortunately, the panel is bright enough for easy viewing even with glare shining in through the windows. It does its job as advertised, brightening the panel in daylight and switching to a dim clock before sleeping at night. Viewing angles are great, and the image quality maintains whether you’re looming above the screen or stood to the side. With the light-sensor built into the screen, Ambient EQ adjusts the colour temperature of the display to match the ambient lighting.
Google Home Hub review: the smart display to buy
Sadly, though, although the Home Hub boasts that it can play live TV, I was disappointed to see this only works via YouTube. Out of the entire library of products, though, what works best with Google Home Hub are the Nest family of products including its smart thermostat, smart security camera and video doorbell system. In practice that means the speaker will dial down the blue light output when it’s on your bed stand before bed before automatically turning the display down to near invisible levels when you turn off the lights. You can also cast from some apps on your phone to the Home Hub, like iPlayer and ITV Hub, but not others, like Google’s own Slides app. Not that you’d really want to show a slideshow on there, but the point is, it is a little limited right now.
We did find that sometimes Google didn’t know how to do step-by-step instructions for certain recipes (such as vegetarian recipes — Google must just hate herbivores), but we expect this will improve over time. You can also personalise the screensaver with arty photos, or those stored in Google Photos, and as long as they’re tagged you can set it to display photos of a specific person or album. Both, however, are excellent products and, while a lot will depend on your personal home ecosystem, my preference is for Google Assistant over Alexa. It’s just that bit smarter, both at understanding what it’s being asked and providing the right answer. For me, then, that makes the Nest Hub Max the best smart screen you can buy right now.
Google Home Hub review: The small smart display with big potential
We stream Coheed and Cambria’s A Favor House Atlantic on Deezer and the tricky and snappy track nips along happily across the frequencies with a relatively generous dollop of texture through the vocals. The album continues to Blood Red Summer and guitars are sensibly handled within a cohesive mix. You can tweak the bass or treble under the Hub’s audio tab in Settings, but with these set at neutral for our test, we struggle to enjoy the promised bass injection in the updated model.
The Lenovo Smart Display, for example, is available in both 8in and 10in configurations and the larger one currently sells for £180. Swiping up from the bottom of the Hub’s screen is another easy way to access volume, brightness, alarms and settings. Google clearly sees this particular Nest Hub as a lifestyle aid above all else – it even wants to optimise your sleep. When the electric bass kicks in, the Nest Hub again sounds a bit weak and underwhelming. If you're looking for a powerful audio experience on the Nest Hub, you're going to be disappointed.
Google Nest Hub Max review: Design and display
Not only can you turn your lights on in this overview, but you can also change their brightness and colors. The screen is so small, however, that it’s not something I’d ever use to watch a movie or TV episode. In a few YouTube videos, the people were so tiny that I could barely make out their facial expressions. To me, the Google Home Hub only really makes sense in the kitchen, and that’s where mine ended up. It’s the hub of activity in the morning, where you’ll take Assistant up on those calendar reminders, traffic reports, and perhaps even chuck on some tunes to get you in a good mood. In the evening, the Home Hub doubles up as a recipe book and you can even catch up on your favorite shows while frying up something tasty.
The Ambient EQ feature is undoubtedly why videos look so good on such a small screen, but it's at its best when the Nest Hub has a picture on display. Unlike most of the other smart displays, the Nest Hub doesn't have a camera, which might be a negative for some, but privacy-minded folks will appreciate its absence. Otherwise, it offers all the same features as the other smart displays for a reasonable price.
Setup and Google Assistant
The app used to be strictly for setting up Google's smart speakers and connecting your smart home devices. You can also segment your gadgets into multiple homes if you have an office and an apartment. Change the temp of your thermostat, and you'll see buttons and sliders to tweak the temp further or change the mode.
Yes the Echo Show has its advantages but, for the vast majority of folks just starting to build out their smart home, the Home Hub is what we’d recommend instead. Google Home Hub released on October 22, 2018 for $149, £139 (around AU$210 and R2,999) in the US and UK, with availability for Australia to follow after. However, you're now able to get a sizable discount on the speaker in both regions thanks to Black Friday 2018. Combine the Home Hub’s simplicity and intelligence with the functionality offered by the speaker itself and you have the makings for a must-have smart home ecosystem that has only a couple of shortcomings.
You can ask Google Assistant the same things here as you would with a Google Home – the weather, how the traffic is, the latest news – only now it also provides visuals. You can also ask for YouTube videos, which is handy for a kitchen-bound screen if you like to see recipes and so on. Play the same songs on the inexpensive Tribit Audio Stormbox Micro over Bluetooth and there’s more volume and an extra ounce of detail and dynamics. It’s not really a fair comparison – you buy the Nest Hub for its screen, voice response, smart capabilities, ability to control your lights, door camera, thermostat and possibly even to monitor your sleep. Google’s Nest Hub isn’t great for watching videos or TV, or for blasting dance music, but it wasn’t designed for those things. It’s meant to add a convenient visual element to Google’s voice assistant and to help with a bunch of everyday tasks, from cooking dinner and calling grandma to checking the weather and reading the news, all in one place.
I’ve been PCMag’s home entertainment expert for over 10 years, covering both TVs and everything you might want to connect to them. I’ve reviewed more than a thousand different consumer electronics products including headphones, speakers, TVs, and every major game system and VR headset of the last decade. It’s much smaller than you might expect, with a really good-looking 7in screen that appears to be mounted into a small fabric cushion that’s only visible at the bottom.
Our comprehensive tests help you buy the very best for your money, with our advice sections giving you step-by-step information on how to get even more from your music and movies. Everything is tested by our dedicated team of in-house reviewers in our custom-built test rooms in London, Reading and Bath. Our coveted five-star rating and Awards are recognised all over the world as the ultimate seal of approval, so you can buy with absolute confidence. The display gives the impression it's floating on top of the speaker section, which is a forward-firing full range driver, as well as a pair of mics for picking up your voice commands. Together, these should give you far more options for which devices you can string together and give you more control of your burgeoning smart home.
Check the weather, and you'll see illustrations of the forecast for the week. Google has recently brought custom Routines to everywhere in the world, after an initial US roll-out. Routines let you control several devices at once with a single voice command, say making it easy to shut down your home when you go out. As the Home Hub is powered by Google search, it’s far more accurate when finding local businesses and answering generic questions than the Echo devices.
Some buyers will actively prefer that there’s a screen but no camera – big brother is not watching you – and while the sound is acceptable rather than great, its usefulness, screen and affordability cannot be denied. One mark against the Nest Hub is call handling; it isn’t the Hub’s strongest suit. Remember, you can receive video calls on the Hub from Duo users, but with no camera, the caller won’t be able to see you.
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