The Google Home Speaker finally has a release date and with it, Google has also put an end to its mega-successful and long-running Nest Mini speaker. It leaves the line in a strange place, as Google has a product that doesn’t replace anything it had before, and it may not be to everyone’s taste either.
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The Nest Mini and the previous Google Home Mini are some of the most popular smart speakers of all time. This is partly because Google and everyone else handed them out like candy, and also thanks to their low purchase cost. Just $35 bought you not only a smart home voice assistant, but especially in the case of the Nest Mini, a pretty decent little speaker for simply listening to music in any room you want.
And now he’s dead.
Google discontinued the multi-year product amid the launch of Google Home Speaker this week. It’s a decision that makes sense at first glance, until you consider that there’s no real replacement here. The Google Home Speaker looks great, but the $99 product not only costs more than twice as much as the Nest Mini, it simply doesn’t fit the same use cases. The new speaker doesn’t have an easy mounting method like the Mini’s built-in screw mount, nor does the new form factor make sense in many places you could put a Nest Mini.
The Nest Mini will likely still be available at third-party retailers and on the secondhand market. years to come, but Google is effectively entering uncharted territory. For almost a decade, Google has offered a cheap smart speaker and now it doesn’t.
The Google Home Speaker doesn’t really fit the Nest Audio mold either. While I’m optimistic about its sound quality, our readers and simple physics disagree: the Home Speaker is highly unlikely to sound so good like Nest Audio.
It really leaves Google’s smart home lineup in a strange place. While the 2021 Nest Cam reboot was effectively made up of products replacing or at least replacing existing products, the smart speaker and display space is effectively trying to find an entirely new audience; It’s not the worst move given the abundance of these products, but it’s also pretty annoying for anyone who just wants an update or fits into that previously established mold.
However, I can’t help but feel that this is only the first step.
The Google Home Speaker is the only new product for the “Gemini era” of the smart home so far, but it feels more like a launchpad than anything else. Like the original Google Home from 2016, this looks like a product that could quickly see Google bringing back a new “Mini” in the future, or a new audio-focused speaker beyond that. love a proper sequel to the Google Home Max. We also know that smart displays are on Google’s radar and that recent appearance of a “Google Home Display” in progress really makes me feel optimistic about what’s next.
After several years of Google dragging its feet on this part of the smart home, I’m glad to see things are moving again, and even happier that Google isn’t rushing into a hard reset. Much like the company’s approach with Gemini for Home and this first new piece of hardware, “delays” aren’t a bad thing. They are what customers have asked for. – do it the right way.
What do you think?
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