Electronics & Gadgets Blog
Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) Review, A Comprehensive Look at the Smart Home Hub's Features and Benefits
by Samuel Kalenga on Aug 11, 2024
Silicon can be a cold and inhospitable place. With the Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen), the smart home tech giant is pushing back against that all in service of greater smart home display lets you consume content, listen to music, control your smart home, and improve your sleep all in one place. In many ways, the Nest Hub (2nd Gen) builds on the merits of its predecessor – the Nest Hub, formerly known as Google Home Hub and ostensibly on the verge of extinction – by giving it a larger screen and improved sound. It’s a product that works first and foremost because it’s fundamentally useful. It won’t ever try to force you through anything, even though it would like for you to use it. Whether that’s for managing your smart home, consuming entertainment, or improving your sleep, the Nest Hub (2nd Gen) is a promising step in the right direction. This complete review explores the features, advantages, and potential disadvantages of the Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen), allowing you to decide whether it is the right smart home hub for you.
A Closer Look at the Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen): Design and Aesthetics
Tiny and tubular, this minuscule interpreter has a compact and sleek design that will suit any décor, with a fabric-covered base – in one of three shades of chalk, charcoal or sand – that gives it a nifty, minimalist aesthetic. Set in smooth, rounded walls, the device’s 7-inch touchscreen display is vibrant and crisp for viewing photos, recipes and videos, and touch-responsive too.Features That Make the Nest Hub (2nd Gen) Stand Out: A Deep Dive
The Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) comes with a wide range of features that can complement your life seamlessly. These are just some of the essential things that make it truly unique.- Larger screen for enhanced viewing pleasure boasting a 7-inch touchscreen display versus the original Nest Hub display, the 7-inch display on the 2nd Gen Nest Hub is a huge upgrade over the 5-inch screen with the first generation Nest Hub, allowing you to see photos, videos and recipes easier and more clearly. Whether you are viewing your photo album rolls, watching a cooking video or even your regular TV show, the larger display enables the visual viewing of media.
- High-res audio for better sound: The 2nd Gen Nest Hub’s speaker delivers rich sound, thanks to a software upgrade that ‘reimagines’ audio quality. It sounds great for music, podcasts and audiobooks, and the improvement also helps video calls by making people easier to hear.
- Gesture Controls for Naturally Interaction: Gesture controls make the Nest Hub (2nd Gen) easy and natural to use. Just a wave of your hand across the device to control your music playback, dim the display, and swipe between menus. Nothing to press or touch, it makes things easier for your daily life. Sleep Tracking To Better Understand Your Sleep Habits: The most compelling feature available on the Nest Hub (2nd Gen) will bring you deeper sleep insights using motion sensor to analyse your night-time activity and sleep scores, including sleep time, sleep cycle, amount of deep and REM sleep, and night-time awakenings. You can use this data to understand your sleep issue and change your behaviour to sleep better.
- Control with Your Voice: Google Assistant Integration: The Nest Hub (2nd Gen) is tightly integrated with Google Assistant – the voice-activated virtual assistant – so you can use it to control your smart home devices with your voice, make reminders, check the weather, access tons of other functionality, and also get answers to your questions. In this sense, the Nest Hub (2nd Gen) is a central hub for managing your tasks and making your life easier with the help of the Google Assistant.
- Staying Connected Through Video Calls: You can make and receive video calls on Nest Hub (2nd Gen) with Duo, a video calling app by Google. The video calls feature turns the Nest Hub into a family-and-friend communication station very conveniently. This feature becomes especially useful for those lacking smartphones to call you back.
- Smart Home Control: With the Nest Hub (2nd Gen) as the digital central hub of your smart home, you can not only control a large selection of smart devices, such as lights, thermostats, security cameras and more, but you can also have the Google Assistant manage and automate it all for seamless functionality. This feature helps you set schedules, adjust the lighting in your home and control the thermostat remotely, all with the simple command of your voice or just a swipe of your finger on the screen of your Nest Hub (2nd Gen).
- Photos and Videos: Personalise your Nest Hub (2nd Gen) by having it display photos from your Google Photos library, turning your device into a digital photo frame. Set up a slideshow revealing your favourite snapshots or watch curated photo albums. With its screen supporting streaming video, watch YouTube and other video platforms, resizing your entertainment to a giant screen.
- Recipes and cooking: The new Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) can show you recipes from Google Search and more than 20 apps and services, making it a good companion in the kitchen. You can follow recipes guided by Google Assistant while it appears on the display or even change timings and get tips about bill of material and cooking techniques.
Benefits of Using the Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen): Enhancing Your Daily Life
Here the benefits posited of purchasing a 2nd Generation Google Nest Hub (from the Amazon listing): The Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) brings you closer to what matters. See every detail on the larger 7” display. Pair it with a Nest camera for a hands-free video call with your kids or for the elderly in your life. The stand introduces a new level of versatility, making it easier to keep your screen within sight but out of the way.- ###User-Friendly interface You will only connect: ### Easy to navigate The interface of Nest Hub (2nd Gen) is devised in a user-friendly way – it’s sophistocatedly easy to navigate via. This will help you to start using it without problems even if it’s your first time with such kind of gadget. There are intuitive menus and logical tabs to help you find what you’re looking for. ###Touch-control The touch screen responds to touch gestures, ease of use inspired by smartphones. Balanced price-to-feature ratio: The Nest Hub (2nd Gen) strikes a good balance between performance and price with a feature-set and general user-experience that is impressive but still very affordable. If you’re willing to spend just a little more to join the smart home revolution, or perhaps upgrade your existing smart home, then this is the product you want. Seamless Google Everywhere Integration This is a Google ecosystem device. It works with Google Assistant, Google Photos, Google Calendar, Google Maps and Google Play Music. It integrates with other Google devices, such as your Pixel phone and smart display, to make them synergise. For instance, you can look at your calendar appointments, improve them (with help from Google Assistant), enjoy your favourite albums on Google Play Music, and get directions from Google Maps, without touching your phone, all just by talking to your Nest Hub
- Sophisticated Privacy Features for More Peace of Mind: Google has updated some sophisticated privacy features on the Nest Hub (2nd Gen) with a microphone mute button and a camera cover (even though the Nest Hub doesn’t have a camera). This gives users a little more peace of mind in knowing that the microphone can be manually shut down, and that their voices are not always transmitted to their providers.
Comparing the Nest Hub (2nd Gen) with Other Smart Displays: Navigating the Market
The Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) is at the forefront of devices offering smart home displays but you need to weigh it up against some formidable market competitors to find the one that stands out for you. Check out some of these key competitors:
- Amazon Echo Show 5 (2019): Alexa’s budget smart display Having a screen opens up many more use cases than a featureless voice assistant like an Echo Dot. So, if your budget is a bit tight, the second-generation Amazon Echo Show 5 (2019) comes into contention as one of the best options for anyone looking for an Alexa-powered smart display. Available since early 2019, it comes with a 5.5 inch screen and a reasonably good speaker; price-wise, it costs a third of what you’d pay for the larger Echo Show 10. Marginally smaller than the Nest Hub (2020), and with limited ambient lighting features, the Echo Show 5 is by no means a sufficient substitute for Google’s display, but it could be a good way to get your very first smart display (albeit with the extremely source-restricted Alexa). The Amazon Echo Show 5 would be a good match for anyone looking for basic smart home control and entertainment.
- Facebook Portal: Video Calls & Family-centric Home Connectivity: The Facebook Portal is really optimised for video calls. It comes with a home-camera with pan-and-tilt to track you in the room to give a better video calling experience. The Portal might be better suited to people who care about video calling friends and family, but is otherwise less suited to more general smart home functionality. Smart Clock: a less-expensive, smaller version of the Nest Hub with a bedside friendly size, voice controls and minimal smart home features.
Potential Drawbacks to Consider: A Balanced Perspective
Yes, the Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) has many pros, but it also comes with some cons:- Limitation to smart home platform: Integrations are sometimes required A Nest Hub (2nd Gen) does indeed work with a wide range of smart home platforms – but bear in mind that some might need to be controlled via a third-party integration. This could lead to either a lack of compatibility or control over said device. This is why it’s advisable to check out the control capabilities of any given device before investing. 3. No Built in Camera: This is a flaw as users must purchase an attachment with attendant expense.But this tie-in with a separate attachment makes this tablet a wonderful privacy enhancer and does reduce exposure to security concerns as there is no built-in camera.No built-in camera means greater security and privacy, but if you use videocalls a lot this is a flaw.
Conclusion: A Versatile and User-Friendly Smart Home Hub That Delivers
It’s a commendable second-generation device with an expanded screen and improved audio, and it also has a new feature. This Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) is easier to set up, fit in, and program for customised news feeds available when needed, or when good sleep tips are desired. The device is quick to flower into a smart home hub and is useful as a central corral for any Google device user, linking to calendars, YouTube, streaming services, phone accounts, home security and automation. The tablet-like interface on the touchscreen is intuitive, small and quick. You might have been put off by the lack of any built-in camera (yes, of course, you can include your security cams, but they’re not the same) and the fact that some smart home devices might not work with it or that you will be locked into Google services, but this is still a really versatile and easy-to-use smart home hub. It does pretty much anything you might want it to do, it’s reasonably priced, and if you can get onboard with Google services, it’s a good way to make life easier and maybe a little bit better than it was before.FAQs: Addressing Common Questions
What is the price of the Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen)?
At the time of writing, the Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) retails for under $100 from some retailers (check what deals are currently available), making it a low-cost smart-home hub with a decent suite of features.What are the dimensions of the Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen)?
At 6.9 x 4.7 x 3.8 inches, it’s small enough to fit on a nightstand, a countertop or a bookcase.Does the Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) have a built-in camera?
No. It doesn’t have a camera, but Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) can be used to make video calls using Duo, which is Google’s video-calling app – the camera will be enabled only when you’re on the call.