Google Home Hub review: the smart display to buy Google
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He wants the smart home to make him feel powerful, and it's getting there. Home View is also available in the Google Home app, giving roughly the same level of control, although it doesn’t currently let you change bulb colour, which is a little strange. Third-party services are available, such as to give you Tube line status updates, but you can’t see or install the list of skills; rather, when you ask a question, Google will ask if you want to use a third-party skill to answer.
At most, the Home Hub will display three videos on screen at a time - which can mean it might take a few minutes to find what you’re looking for. Those companies and products are just the tip of the iceberg of what’s supported with more makes and models being added to the platform all the time. Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. If you’re more interested in controlling your smart devices than you are watching movies or making video calls, the Google Home Hub makes a compelling claim to be the center of your smart home.
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On the back of the Nest Hub you'll find a switch that mutes the microphone and buttons for controlling the volume, and that's it. If you want to do anything else with the Nest Hub, you'll need to use its touchscreen or give it a voice command. The Google Nest Hub might look like the Echo Show, but it performs more like the Echo Spot. Its relatively low-resolution 7-inch touch screen and weak speaker mean it doesn't come close to the room-filling power of the Echo Show or the other Google Assistant smart displays we've tested so far. It's more capable than the tiny Echo Spot, and its modest footprint makes it ideal for placing near your bed or on a crowded desk or shelf.
Some recipes are American, mind, so you have to get your head around odd measurements, such as a quart. Google has worked hard coming up with a common design language for its more recent products, combining soft-touch plastic and material across its range, from the Google Home Mini to the new Nest Thermostat E . A Peek Inside the FBI's Unprecedented January 6 Geofence DragnetGoogle provided investigators with location data for more than 5,000 devices as part of the federal investigation into the attack on the US Capitol. When I first took the Google Home Hub out of its box, I couldn't help thinking it resembles a 7in tablet stuck onto a large pumice stone. However, despite its appearance, the tablet is not removable and the chalk-coloured, stone-like rear is actually a speaker that doubles up as its stand.
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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.
Previously, she was a staff writer for Tom's Guide, where she wrote about everything from artificial intelligence to social media and the internet of things to. In her downtime, you can usually find her at poetry slams, attempting to exercise, or yelling at people on Twitter. At first, I had a bit of trouble figuring out how I was supposed to use the Nest Hub’s touchscreen. When you aren’t using the device, it cycles through your Google Photos as a screensaver. That’s a neat feature, but at first, I couldn’t remember whether I needed to swipe left, right, up, down, or just tap to get back to the home screen. It also won’t take up much space on your nightstand, table, or kitchen counter.
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Setting up the Home Hub is a breeze, and the general interface is intuitive. The home screen will be immediately familiar to anyone who has used an Android phone, with cards showing information about what you’ve watched recently, the weather, news or your commute, and so on. Google’s search prowess clearly gives Google Assistant an advantage in the richness of information displayed, but it is the integration with Android that really stands out, here. Another standout feature is being able to find recipes and follow their step-by-step instructions on screen, but you can also benefit from seeing countdown timers, calculations, translations and to-do lists on screen.
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.
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You’d never need to use these if you didn’t want to since you can adjust these settings with Google Assistant as well, but they’re nice to have if you need to be quiet, or don’t feel like barking commands. The Google Home Hub isn’t without its problems, though these are gripes I’ve had with Google’s smart home ecosystem for a while. Setting up devices is very simple, but adding multiple accounts to the Hub was a pain for me. Even once I’d sent and accepted the required invites, I still had to rummage through individual device settings in the Home app to kickstart the feature. The app’s settings menus are still a labyrinth that could use simplifying.
From this point of view, Google has nailed what it is to have a smart display. In my Google Assistant guide, I’ve covered everything in more detail, but I’ll cover the specific points for the Home Hub here. Around the back of the screen, there are dedicated volume buttons and a switch that turns of the microphone to stop the Home Hub from listening in. For sound, you can just swipe up from the bottom of the display and use the touch controls instead. It’s perfectly adequate as a kitchen or bedside radio, but I wouldn’t recommend buying it as the main speaker for listening to music. For this, you’re better off picking up a Chromecast Audio to add to existing speakers and simply selecting it as the primary music output for your Home Hub.
Alternatively, the Google Max remains the best-sounding of Google’s own smart speakers. Adversely, if you put it next a window in broad daylight, it’ll dial the brightness back up - though, it will top out around 400 nits. That number is fine for photos but, it does stop videos from looking their best (something we’ll touch on a bit more further in the review). We really liked the Google Home Hub’s visual interface when interacting with a smart home though. It was much more preferable to switch the lights using the display than just voice, as you get a preview of what the colour and the brightness is going to look like on the screen itself. If you have a Nest Hello doorbell, you can see who’s at your door without having to consult your phone.
It’s so small, in fact, that the screen portion is about the size of a large phone or small tablet and the base is so petite that you could easily pick it up and place it in the palm of your hand. Because there are a lot of similarities, the Google Home Hub is a device we almost feel like we’ve used before. For example, it has the auto-updating Google Photos gallery and Home View, which shows your entire smart home at a glance and adds Google's touch to things. Five years later and the Echo range of smart home products has become a driving force in turning smart voice assistants from the stuff of science-fiction into a helping hand in our homes.
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