Gadgetory

this is the Google home hub it's Google's smart display so the first thing you notice about this thing when you hold it in your hands is how tight it is look at this thing this is my hand and this is the length of the thing in its entirety compared to the other smart displays we've seen this thing is minuscule so this thing is not a camera the other smart displays we tested have a camera this is actually an ambient light sensor so as this thing shows pictures it can adapt to the brightness of those pictures based on the light it's picking up in the room these are microphones for your voice commands here's a little mute button on the back this does have fairly big bezels going around the screen which feels unnecessary and it's only a seven-inch screen still it's kind of cute it looks like a little bit like they took a tablet and they took a Google home Mini and they sort of squished them together but still I'm gonna give it cute it has that fabric back that's similar to the Google home Mini like the mini it's available in a few different colors and there's not that much else to say about this thing until we plug it in and see how it works so that's what we're gonna do the Google home hum is available starting today for a hundred and fifty dollars you can buy it in chalk charcoal aqua and sand you can control the volume with this toggle on the back otherwise use voice controls or the touchscreen but this isn't Google's first smart display not really the Lenovo smart display in the JBL link view both use Google assistant you can issue all the same commands that you went to an ordinary Google home smart speaker even the way the touchscreen works is very similar from one device to the next it comes in handy for watching videos and looking at pics you can watch live TV with you to TV it also shows more info if you ask about the weather or search for a place to eat search for a recipe and it'll show you the steps and you can scroll through them or multitask while you cook this touch screen and Google assistant are a pretty good combo if you're looking for kitchen help and that's the basics so is it good in short yeah but the smart display landscape is becoming more competitive and strangely this is Google's answer to this thing look at these two the echo show could practically eat this thing still I don't feel like these are being marketed to the same people and if you want something more like this consider the Lenovo smart display they're roughly the same size they're roughly the same price and they both have cameras and this one doesn't the NBA EQ sensor also works well the pics look much more natural than on a normal screen that blares them like a billboard Google assistant will even find your best personal pics for your ambient screen slideshow with a feature called live albums if I take a new pic and add it to my album of co-workers it'll show up on my screen automatically a couple of annoyances the integration with the nest hello video doorbell hasn't worked reliably for us so far it won't always announce who's at the door and show up on the screen like it's supposed to and even when it does you can't talk to the person with your home hub that's a strange omission that I'd hope will be patched soon but it's solenoid also Google had a few oversights here scrolling works well or not at all it can send directions to your phone but not if you ask directly for them and again I'm sure most of these are gonna get fixed but expect to encounter an occasional annoyance if you're buying this thing right now I've gotten to spend some time with it I really like all the new features packed into this tiny little thing scroll down for a view of your smart home you'll see shortcut buttons here for common tasks these lights show up based on the location of your home hub and you can tap here and see all of your smart home devices room by room it's really well organized and I really like it so this whole view is going to roll out as an update to Lenovo screen and JBL's screen as well but that doesn't take away from how useful it is the hub's a good fit if you want something smaller and more unassuming given its size you could literally find a spot for it almost anywhere near a plug it has a fine mic and the sound quality is passable but not nearly as good as the other smart displays we've tested it's not even quite as good as the Google home Mini but that's about the level it's at so again it's a different kind of smart display it's not the same premium behemoth as the others but it's an affordable and cute smart home control center that'll fit into any room and it fills that role very well