Google Home Speaker review: A modest update for the Gemini era
Of course, this speaker is not just for playing music. Like its predecessors, the Google Home Speaker has three far-field microphones to let you chat
Of course, this speaker is not just for playing music. Like its predecessors, the Google Home Speaker has three far-field microphones to let you chat with Gemini. It also has a stylish light ring around the bottom that lights up and changes color when you talk to it, when it is thinking and when it responds. It's very much like the light ring on older Amazon Echo speakers, and I prefer it to the new lights on the latest Echos or the four lights that lit up on the front of the Nest Audio. It's a nice visual touch for sure. The speaker does have familiar touch controls on top — tapping the left or right sides adjusts volume, while tapping the middle pauses and resumes media playback. So far, the microphones have no trouble picking up my voice across the room or over the din of music or conversation, either. While the hardware itself is an unassuming, logical update, that's only half the story. Google's previous speakers were designed with the Google Assistant in mind, but this one is the first explicitly meant to work with the new Gemini for Home voice assistant.
As the name suggests, it bakes in Gemini AI features, but there are some wrinkles beyond that. Google is also offering two different subscription options for managing your home, the $10/month (or $100/year) Standard plan and the $20/month ($200/year) Advanced option. Standard gives you 30 days of "event-based" video history from cameras or doorbell cams; Gemini Live for more interactive conversations with the virtual assistant; alerts for things like familiar faces on cameras, garage door and package notifications; and smoke and CO2 alarm notifications. The Premium plan doubles the event-based video history to 60 days and adds 10 days of 24/7 history for cameras and wired doorbells. It also includes video history search, more detailed notifications and event descriptions and daily summaries of recorded events. It sounds to me like unless you're really invested in a video security setup that the Standard plan will work for most people. Plus, the Google Home Speaker comes with a si month trial. If you don't want to pay a monthly subscription, you'll still have access to Gemini for Home which can do basic voice-activated tasks like playing music, setting timers and controlling smart home devices.
However, you'll need the subscription for Gemini Live to get the more conversational, back-and-forth experience for asking your speaker all of the random thoughts that might pop into your head. I know that people have had loads of trouble with Google's transition from the Google Assistant to Gemini, specifically around smart home automation. The Google Home subreddit is absolutely littered with complaints from unreliable execution to features ending up behind paywalls. I've had the Google Home Speaker for less than a week, and I also don't have the smartest home, so I can't say for sure how well this will perform for people with complex setups. But I was able to use the Google Home Speaker and Gemini to control a few speakers I had connected to the Google Home app as well as my RoboRock vacuum and a TV that runs Android. I also chatted with Gemini Live about the World Cup schedule and the weather in various locations where games are being played. Gemini followed my questions about who was playing today, who was playing tomorrow, how teams did in their prior matches, what the forecast was for during the match and so forth.
The BriefWire