After having the Google Home Mini sitting in the living room for over a year, I finally have a chance to bring in the all-new Google Nest Audio for a quick test drive on the new exciting features it have in store for us.
Minimalist Design That Fits All Environment
On the outside, the new Nest Audio features a rectangular design that looks more clean-cut than the original Google Home. Its minimalist design allows it to blends well within a living room, or pretty much any environment you place it in.
Much like the current Nest Mini, the Nest Audio is furnished with fabrics made from recycled plastic bottles for its exterior, which is free from any physical features – except for a miniature switch that allows you to mute the microphone, as well as a connecting port for the power plug at the back of the device.
Hence, we’ll need to rely on the invisible touch controls situated at the top of the device instead. For instance, tapping on the left and right corners of the top will allow you to reduce or increase the volume of the speaker, while tapping on the middle area will allow you to either pause or play the music.
As always, you will be greeted by four solid white dots whenever you interact with the Nest Audio by saying the magic words “Hey, Google” or “OK, Google”.
Great Audio For Music Streaming
Coming to its audio quality, the new Nest Audio is sure to impress. For starter, the all-new Nest Audio offers loud and spacious sound that can easily fill a large room. That’s certainly an advantage of having a larger speaker.
Compared to the Google Home Mini, you can really feel the improvement in voice clarity, and how much more powerful and punchy the bass is. Overall, the Nest Audio is able to handle pretty much all music genre courtesy of its fine tuning.
On top of that, the Google Nest Audio arrives with an advanced Media EQ feature which according to Google, will enable it “to automatically adapt to the content that you’re listening to: music, podcasts, audiobooks or Assistant. Nest Audio also adjusts based on the background noise in the home, raising the volume so you can hear Google Assistant”.
Of course, if you want to take things further, you can get two of it and pair them together for an even more immersive stereo sound.
All these commendable upgrades make the Nest Audio a perfect companion for streaming music, rather than functioning predominantly as a virtual assistance. In this aspect, its definitely an impressive leap for Google.
Google Assistance Is Still The Leading Virtual Assistance
Moving on, the Google Nest Audio arrives with three microphones for voice reception. Most of the time, the Google Assistance has no trouble picking up voice commands or queries across the room even without raising my voice. What’s notable is that the Google Assistance still works like a charm even when music is blasting from the speaker.
In most cases, you can expect almost instantaneous response from the Google Assistance. Besides asking the Google Assistance to play your favorite track from Spotify or YouTube Premium, you can safely rely on it for any information you’re trying to find out.
So let’s say you’re planning to prepare carbonara for dinner, you can simply pop the question “Hey, Google! May I have the recipe for Carbonara?”, and it will prompt you whether you’re keen to learn about its ingredients first, or start off with the instructions to prepare the carbonara.
Subsequently, it ensures that you’re able to follow closely by proceeding with the next ingredient or step only if you issue the “Next” command. Likewise, if you missed out any ingredient or step, you can simply issue a “Repeat” command. Somehow, it works more
Interestingly, if you’re asking for direction to a particular location, the Google Assistance will even send the direction information to your smartphone (which you downloaded the Google Home app) after providing you the shortest route vocally.
Other than these functionalities, the Nest Audio is also designed to work seamlessly alongside other smartphone devices from major brands including Philips Hue, TP-Link, as well as many others. As such, you will be able to make use of voice commands for functions like controlling the lighting in your home or to turn on the Smart TV.
Incredibly Easy To Setup
No doubt, for those who have not own any of the Google Home or Google Nest products, one of the concerns may relate to the ease of setting up the Nest Audio.
If that’s the case, I can assure you that the Google Home Audio is incredibly easy to setup. All you need to do is simply to download the Google Home app from the Play Store if you’re using an Android smartphone, or from the Apple App Store if you’re using an iOS device.
Subsequently, you can easily follow the onscreen instructions and get everything setup in less than 5 minutes. You can have a look at this page to have an idea how easily the Nest Audio can be setup.
Conclusion
Priced at S$139, the Google Nest Audio is certainly one of the most value for money smart speaker in the market.
Whether you’re getting your first smart speaker or considering to upgrade your current Google Nest Mini, the Nest Audio offers you every reason to bring home one.
For first-timer, its S$139 is a fair asking price for an all-rounded smart speaker that brings you great audio quality along with the leading Google Assistance.
As for those who’d already owned a Google Nest Mini, its still worthwhile to get the Nest Audio if you’re planning to get an additional speaker for music playback.
After getting the Nest Audio, you can pair it with the current Nest Mini to form a broadcasting/ intercom system for your home as well. Therefore, the Nest Mini will still be useful even when you gotten the new Nest Audio.
