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The speaker shares some design cues with other Google products, including the soft rounded edges of the Pixel phones, and custom fabrics of the Google Home. There’s also the issue that although the Home is more ambitious with its media playback, it hasn’t worked out a way for you to access this functionality in a way that’s simple enough to be done with your voice. There’s little point in having all that functionality when it’s a chore to use. Yeah, by far and away, Google Home probably has the largest song library of any audio device on the market.
The lack of a camera is probably a plus point for those, like me, who will never video call anyone, and you can still do things on the touchscreen with the mic muted. Voice calling from the Google Nest Hub, however, is very easy and doesn’t require Google Duo like calls from the Lenovo Smart Display do. You can call either an individual in your Google contacts list, or give Google a number to call. Privacy advocates may welcome this choice, but as someone who enjoys video calling, I found it disappointing. I think the Lenovo Smart Display, which has a camera but also a shutter that can cover it up, has found a good middle ground.
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Progress through the recipe by tapping or asking for the next step, or jump back one to view the whole thing. Asking how to get to somewhere displays a map into which you can zoom with your fingers on the touchscreen. Using Google’s Voice Match recognition system the Home Hub can identify who is asking a question or giving a command and provide personalised answers.
The removal on YouTube is just one of many that Pornhub has experienced in the past few years. In 2020, Mastercard and Visa cut payments from the adult content firm, and Instagram banned it most recently permanently. Setting the Home Hub up is a simple case of downloading the Home app to your Android or iOS device, logging into your account and connecting it to your home’s WiFi. As a desk, kitchen or bedside speaker, however, it is perfectly acceptable.
Philips Hue review
Read our full Google Nest Hub review to learn about all the upgrades you can expect. The Home Hub provides great value, providing that you're happy using Google's other services. The software has seen some improvements, though most of the core features remain the same.
It’s also where you’ll be when using the broadcast feature to call everyone down for dinner. The Google Home Hub is about much more than just adding a display — it’s designed as the Hub for all of your other smart appliances. To this end, Google has also revamped it’s Home app to simplify common functions and introduced the Home View to the Home Hub.
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We tested the Google Home with a Nest setup and found that its commands were easy and intuitive to give. Instructing the speaker to ‘play’ or ‘pause’ works well, but if you tell it to play another song then it suddenly forgets that it’s casting and will instead play the new song from the Home’s own speaker. Simply set up a Chromecast with a name that’s easy to pronounce, and you can tell your Google Home to cast your favourite songs or even videos to your Hi-Fi and TV respectively.
As a result, using the Home Hub was far easier and quicker than using my phone. I did have a bit of trouble getting the service working at first, as my Home Hub wouldn’t connect to the Nest Hello’s video stream. Disabling the Google Assistant service and re-enabling it soon had it working properly. Powerful, flexible and brilliantly using the screen to deliver more results, the Google Home Hub pulls in the full power of Google's services, but this isn't the best display for video and music.
Price and availability
The key advantage the Home Hub holds over its smart speaker counterparts is Home View, which lets you manage all your smart devices – lights, thermostats, cameras, media devices and so on – from one dropdown menu. Google’s Home Hub is powered by the same virtual assistant that helps with everyday tasks both on your Android smartphone and the company’s range of smart speakers. The only difference is, being accompanied by a 7in touch-sensitive display, it can present info on screen, whether that’s the weather forecast, upcoming events or Google Maps directions. Google still doesn’t support all the smart home devices that Alexa does, the audio quality isn’t as good as on a dedicated speaker, and there are a lack of basic video apps at this stage. The ability to Chromecast covers some of these issues, but we had problems casting from Netflix and Google’s own apps at launch.
Strangely, Ambient EQ was the only setting I couldn’t change with a voice command. The Google Nest Hub supports a number of music streaming services, including Google Play Music and YouTube Music, Pandora, Spotify and Deezer. And as a bonus, you can pull up videos just by saying “Hey, Google, play a cat video.” You’d have to navigate to YouTube through a browser to do the same on the Echo Show. Although Google advertises the Home Hub as “thoughtfully designed for any room,” I initially had a little trouble seeing where it fits into my household. Youtube and casting feel redundant in a living room with a TV and Chromecast.
It already hooks into some of the largest platforms now by including Nest, Philips and Samsung’s SmartThings, and given a few months that number will grow even more. Then there’s the issue of selecting specific episodes, which Google Home is unable to do. Ask it to play a show and it will start from where you last left off, but you can’t ask it to play a specific episode. Also, if you have an Android smart TV, you can now use Google Assistant to communicate with Netflix, asking it to play content just like if you had the Nvidia Shield set top box. In more positive news, Google announced that Assistant has now made its way to more than 500 million devices. That means not only does it come built-in to Google Home, it works on over 5,000 different devices - from cars to phones.
It can access all sorts of streaming services – Google Play Music, YouTube Music, Spotify and Pandora – and works as a WiFi speaker thanks to its built-in Google Cast capabilities. While Google Assistant, the voice and smarts inside the speaker, might be the main attraction here, Google Home is actually a pretty capable audio device as well. More recently, Google Home speakers have undergone a name change; nowadays, new Google speakers fall under the Google Nest mantle, including the Google Nest Hub Max and the Google Nest Mini. While there are certainly ways it can improve, the Home Hub is a solid stab at a Google-branded smart display.
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