Google Home Hub (Charcoal)

Okay. There are Bluetooth speakers. Smart Bluetooth speakers (Alexa and Google). And then there’s that is a cross breed of tablet and Bluetooth speaker that can control functions of your home, search the web and social media platforms and even FaceTime with the command of your voice! It’s as simple as “Hey Google play the news” with no added subscriptions or contracts! Videos can be broadcasted from your phone onto the screen making your phone a remote and saving some $ with You-Tube-Red as you can still use all other functions on your phone while broadcasting YouTube videos to your hub! Connect your pandora, Disney+, Netflix and so much more! I absolutely love my !!! I know I’m lame ha ha ha but my favorite functions are the alarm clock that displays your Google ... MoreOkay. There are Bluetooth speakers. Smart Bluetooth speakers (Alexa and Google). And then there’s that is a cross breed of tablet and Bluetooth speaker that can control functions of your home, search the web and social media platforms and even FaceTime with the command of your voice! It’s as simple as “Hey Google play the news” with no added subscriptions or contracts! Videos can be broadcasted from your phone onto the screen making your phone a remote and saving some $ with You-Tube-Red as you can still use all other functions on your phone while broadcasting YouTube videos to your hub! Connect your pandora, Disney+, Netflix and so much more! I absolutely love my !!! I know I’m lame ha ha ha but my favorite functions are the alarm clock that displays your Google schedule as soon as you disable the alarm and the fact that I can tell my Nest Hub to FaceTime family COMPLETELY hands free!! It’s perfect for broadcasting shows for little ones who get to tapping away on cell phones! The speaker is loud enough to hear throughout my apartment but it’s not a surround system at all! Not as loud or nearly as much bass as my JBL Charge 4 Bluetooth Speaker but definitely has more functionality’s! A plus is I am able to piggyback Bluetooth speakers from my Nest Hub to be able to control and play music in multiple rooms at once.

Don't do it

I will start by saying that I'm one with tech, so this review is not derived from ignorance.This thing sucks. I think most people would like this in their kitchen for recipes, but let me tell you unless that recipe is coming from a Google partner, it won't show it. It's not like you can manually search a recipe since there is no text field, or log in to something like pinterest, so whatever it pulls up from your voice search is what you get. Don't even ask about pinterest, it's a no go with this device.As for sound quality, it's a steaming pile of shhh. I thought I would get a quality upgrade from the Google home mini/nest speakers (which I have many) but I was sadly mistaken.It will however turn off your lights and control other smart devices but so will your ... MoreI will start by saying that I'm one with tech, so this review is not derived from ignorance.This thing sucks. I think most people would like this in their kitchen for recipes, but let me tell you unless that recipe is coming from a Google partner, it won't show it. It's not like you can manually search a recipe since there is no text field, or log in to something like pinterest, so whatever it pulls up from your voice search is what you get. Don't even ask about pinterest, it's a no go with this device.As for sound quality, it's a steaming pile of shhh. I thought I would get a quality upgrade from the Google home mini/nest speakers (which I have many) but I was sadly mistaken.It will however turn off your lights and control other smart devices but so will your mini's and your phone. Do you really need a display for that?So you can stream Netflix and YouTube to it...whoopee! It's a 7 inch display so you might as well just watch it on your phone and just like most other things with this device, you better be pretty specific in telling it what to stream because you can't input text to search.What is this thing good for? I'm still trying to figure that out after a month of use. It's no more handy than a nest mini even though you'd think it should be with a display. I suppose if you want to be tacky and display your personal photos, you can do that but this thing is so underutilized and restrictive that it actually angers me that I was dumb enough to buy it.In conclusion, you might as well stick your cash in the oven and bake it on 450 for 2 hours because it would be less of a waste than spending it on this junk.

Google Nest Home Review

I am going to rate this 4 stars because it's a lot of fun. We decided to dive into some smart home stuff this year, and bought this hub as well as a few minis and various lights. Getting everything to work together is fun and an ongoing experience. We placed the hub in the kitchen so we could view recipes, use as a photo frame, listen to music, control lighting, leave reminders and set timers. To begin, it's super easy to use as a timer when cooking, I no longer have to stop what I am doing and set a timer. As a photo frame it's great. For music, we find the speaker to have less presence than we would like, with the minis actually sounding better. You can pair it with a bluetooth speaker or a mini, but not both. Aside from that, most music in the kitchen is just ... MoreI am going to rate this 4 stars because it's a lot of fun. We decided to dive into some smart home stuff this year, and bought this hub as well as a few minis and various lights. Getting everything to work together is fun and an ongoing experience. We placed the hub in the kitchen so we could view recipes, use as a photo frame, listen to music, control lighting, leave reminders and set timers. To begin, it's super easy to use as a timer when cooking, I no longer have to stop what I am doing and set a timer. As a photo frame it's great. For music, we find the speaker to have less presence than we would like, with the minis actually sounding better. You can pair it with a bluetooth speaker or a mini, but not both. Aside from that, most music in the kitchen is just background anyway. Using your voice to turn on the lights is fun although not really necessary in our house. What is also nice is that we speak 2 languages in our house and the hub will listen and respond accordingly in the correct language, once you set this up in the Home App. Now for what does not impress us, If you want to watch a particular recipe video, that's not an option. You can say, Hey Google, show me a recipe for meatloaf, and it will find some. It will not find "the" recipe you saw before on your favorite cooking page. It won't use your Chrome bookmarks which is really a point they need to incorporate into this. I already know which one of my bookmarked recipes I want to make, so asking it to pull that up would be ideal, rather than showing me random recipes that I have not tried or may not have the ingredients on hand for. Another point I am wondering is why the actually call this a hub, when it actually has less functionality than using the Home App on my phone, and the minis have the same functionality minus the screen. Overall, it's fun. If it's in your budget give it a try. I think as smart home technology progresses this will hopefully have more uses to us. As for now, it's pleasant and useful enough.

Great product when new, but was shipped a used one

Goggle Hub is an amazing item to add to any smart home. They work great on getting information and integrating smart home item into your ecosystem. Unfortunately the one I ordered here from this seller was used garbage. It looks like it had been bought and sold at least 4 or 5 times over again. The outside box had stickers that were removed yet the adhesive stayed and attracted dirt and was quite disgusting. The Google Nest itself was just sitting there in the box with no protective film on it like new and was definitely opened and used before. The cable and plugs were just thrown inside the box. This Google was definitely not "New" and had been returned numerous times. I saw this and sent it back myself. I am sure it will be sold again.

It will surprise you; all of the ways I use my hub

I use Chromecast, have a Pixel, and have a couple google speakers already, so it isn't surprising I wanted a display that could seamlessly connect me with all those products. We've also started to get into the smart home trend, and we figured it would be nice to have something that lets us connect those as well.All that said, the Hub was better than I expected. It has a user-friendly interface that helps you see what you need to at a glance. It is quick to respond and gives clear results. When you need to give further information, you can speak back or press a button on the screen. The images on the screen are crystal clear and we used the Google home app to display our favorite google photos app on it when it isn't being used and it looks sharp.Originally, we ... MoreI use Chromecast, have a Pixel, and have a couple google speakers already, so it isn't surprising I wanted a display that could seamlessly connect me with all those products. We've also started to get into the smart home trend, and we figured it would be nice to have something that lets us connect those as well.All that said, the Hub was better than I expected. It has a user-friendly interface that helps you see what you need to at a glance. It is quick to respond and gives clear results. When you need to give further information, you can speak back or press a button on the screen. The images on the screen are crystal clear and we used the Google home app to display our favorite google photos app on it when it isn't being used and it looks sharp.Originally, we had this in the kitchen. It was awesome; we would watch youtube on it while eating breakfast, listen to the daily news while doing dishes (skipping the boring stories with a command or button), have it read ingredients and steps for recipes (either our own or ones we ask for) for us as we cooked, and used it to monitor our smart home devices.After we started renovating our kitchen, we brought the hub into our bedroom as an alarm clock. This also works really well. The device dims and turns into a black-screen-with-white-numbers clock when it is bedtime. For privacy, we use the switch on the back to turn off the microphone when we don't want it listening. It doesn't have a camera so we never worry about being watched. In the morning, you can have it act as an alarm, so we started keeping our phones away from the bed so we aren't on them so much before we sleep. It will play any sound you want, then I have tell me the news so I feel up to date in the morning. It is incredibly customizable so you can have the morning experience that helps you best. When our kitchen is done, we'll likely buy the bigger one for our kitchen and keep this in the bedroom, because it's the best alarm clock I've had.All said, I would say the Nest Hub is worth the price, but I'd still wait for black friday for sales on it. If you can afford it, though, and wonder if it will work as advertised, it does and it will surprise you with how much it can do. You will definitely find more uses for it than you even bought it for. In my book, that's a good sign of a great product.

It’s okay.

This device is very interesting. Has a bit of a learning curve. I am not computer savvy so maybe that’s the problem. I also have an Alexa echo 8. My boyfriend monopolizes it. Alexa is much more user friendly. Google requires some research to use. I still haven’t figured out video chat.It works well for simple requests such as recipe look up and such. Maybe I just need more time to play with it. Again it’s okay but I prefer Alexa.

Lacks Customizability and Updates

I purchased this for my elderly grandmother but she rarely used it for more than the clock feature. There are only three “readable” full size clock faces and none which can show the time and date at the same time. The options to have the date time and or weather are only available with photo frame mode and appear much smaller in the corner “difficult to read” she said. It would be nice to have more display options that could show relevant info. The product hasn’t had any updates or customizability changes of the years and remains fairly limited. It would be nice to have a Home Screen that could have widgets to adjust the size of or more full screen clock options. This product was clearly not tested with people older people. I ultimately settle with a another clock ... MoreI purchased this for my elderly grandmother but she rarely used it for more than the clock feature. There are only three “readable” full size clock faces and none which can show the time and date at the same time. The options to have the date time and or weather are only available with photo frame mode and appear much smaller in the corner “difficult to read” she said. It would be nice to have more display options that could show relevant info. The product hasn’t had any updates or customizability changes of the years and remains fairly limited. It would be nice to have a Home Screen that could have widgets to adjust the size of or more full screen clock options. This product was clearly not tested with people older people. I ultimately settle with a another clock product. I guess playing music or YouTube videos is useful while in the kitchen but otherwise misses a lot of potential and forgotten as a product in there line.

Next level of customer service

I was facing issues with my Google home hub device where the device is restarting on its own, not responding to commands intermittently with an error something went wrong. I reached out to support team here are the next steps happened. 1) Support team mentioned to do a factory reset the device and monitor it for some time and asked to reach out to them again in case if I face the issue again with VIDEOS of the issue 2) I saw the issue happening again and recorded the video(Device not responding and error issue) somehow and shared with the support team 3) Support team reverted back asking for a video for restarting the device issue as well. I explained them that it would be difficult to capture it as I might not have mobile in hand every time and difficult to ... MoreI was facing issues with my Google home hub device where the device is restarting on its own, not responding to commands intermittently with an error something went wrong. I reached out to support team here are the next steps happened. 1) Support team mentioned to do a factory reset the device and monitor it for some time and asked to reach out to them again in case if I face the issue again with VIDEOS of the issue 2) I saw the issue happening again and recorded the video(Device not responding and error issue) somehow and shared with the support team 3) Support team reverted back asking for a video for restarting the device issue as well. I explained them that it would be difficult to capture it as I might not have mobile in hand every time and difficult to capture it. They said it’s required to process a replacement. Probably they were expecting me to stop doing everything and just sit in front of the device with my mobile in hand to capture it. 4) I reverted back to them that it’s not feasible to capture the video 5) Support team reverted back with a response to factory reset my router and work with my internet provider if their configuration settings is causing an issue and then they resolved the case immediately after sending this response. I didn’t changed the router configuration in the past 2 years and got this device around 6 months back and it used to work initially for first 2 months and now I started seeing this issue. It would be good if support team stop sending the template responses and wasting customers time instead of investigating the issue. Never expected such a pathetic support from a company like Google

Practical product, well designed and made, really nice to use

The screen is very good - sufficiently high resolution, sensible size, and the brightness control is always just right. Sound is loud and very clear but don't expect a hi-fi speaker because it has little bass. Although based on the same software and AI, the Nest Hub really capitalises on its screen, giving it many advantages over Google's Smart Speakers. I use the timers a lot, and often several at once when cooking. Being able to see their progress all at once is great, and they have fun themed sounds and animations if you name the timers. It's also great to see at a glance that what you said was understood, because your voice recognition results appear at the top of the screen as you speak. When it's not busy it can show photos from albums and I completely ... MoreThe screen is very good - sufficiently high resolution, sensible size, and the brightness control is always just right. Sound is loud and very clear but don't expect a hi-fi speaker because it has little bass. Although based on the same software and AI, the Nest Hub really capitalises on its screen, giving it many advantages over Google's Smart Speakers. I use the timers a lot, and often several at once when cooking. Being able to see their progress all at once is great, and they have fun themed sounds and animations if you name the timers. It's also great to see at a glance that what you said was understood, because your voice recognition results appear at the top of the screen as you speak. When it's not busy it can show photos from albums and I completely underestimated how nice this is. The whole family enjoys seeing forgotten photos pop-up unexpectedly, which would normally otherwise only see the light of day when searching for something else. Search results appear with more context, and they're surprisingly intelligently displayed - gently scrolling over the part of the web page with the relevant answer. There's no camera so you can't send video calls but the speakerphone audio quality is excellent. If your kitchen counter has too much stuff standing close around the Hub I noticed the precision of the voice control is reduced, but it's excellent otherwise, and works amazingly well with a lot of background noise. It has real volume buttons on the back that you can use by feel, but you can also use gestures on the screen to show a touch volume slider. The only downside I can think of is it's not going to fill a large living space with dance music, but for an average room it's more than enough. It seems very well built, but if it went wrong I would have to get a replacement right away as I would really miss it.

Pretty neat gadget

This is a fun little gadget. It's great to walk into my apartment and tell it to turn on my various lights and to play music for me. Even when I'm not using it it's nice to have a large clock face on the wall to look at.I know this thing is not supposed to be wall-mounted, but with some very minor skills one can install it in a wall like I did (attached photo).The far field microphone isn't great, sometimes from just across the room I have to yell at it. But even with the speakers in the wall the sound is pretty good. I can listen to music from other rooms, I might have to tell it to turn the volume up to 80 or 90%, but that's no biggie.It works with my off brand Wi-Fi thermostat. This thing will connect to almost any brand of smart device you can imagine. I wake ... MoreThis is a fun little gadget. It's great to walk into my apartment and tell it to turn on my various lights and to play music for me. Even when I'm not using it it's nice to have a large clock face on the wall to look at.I know this thing is not supposed to be wall-mounted, but with some very minor skills one can install it in a wall like I did (attached photo).The far field microphone isn't great, sometimes from just across the room I have to yell at it. But even with the speakers in the wall the sound is pretty good. I can listen to music from other rooms, I might have to tell it to turn the volume up to 80 or 90%, but that's no biggie.It works with my off brand Wi-Fi thermostat. This thing will connect to almost any brand of smart device you can imagine. I wake up in the middle of the night and if I am too warm I call out to turn the temperature down to 72° and the mini split beeps acknowledging it. I really do love this thing. I may not feel that way if it were much more expensive, but for only a hundred bucks I don't think there's any way of going wrong with this