Why I recommend the Google Nest Mini.
This won’t be a particularly thorough overview of the Google Nest Mini; you can find countless reviews on tech sites which, given they’re written by tech specialists, are far more exhaustive than this post. No, this is much more along the lines of what I would tell a friend or loved-one, if they asked what I thought of the little speakers.
In case you’re lost, I’m talking about the small version of Google’s smart-speaker. You plug them directly into the wall, and connect them to your local wifi, as well as your Google account, and away you go. They’re activated through saying “Hey Google”, or through your smartphone/computer/tablet.
First of all, we’ll get to the final verdict, so you’re not left in unbearable suspense: I like them. I use them every day, in multiple ways, and I can confidently say they’ve improved my life enough for me to write this post.
The Setup
I have three of them throughout my house. One is in the kitchen, one in the main bathroom, and one in the basement living room. I have a relatively small house, so they cover the main areas I’d like them, and I don’t particularly want any more — it’s the goldilocks of smart speaker set-ups for me.
You might have guessed from their name, but in case you hadn’t realized: they’re small. They can fill a room well enough, but they won’t be shaking any pictures off the walls. No, these are quite small, but again, they’re perfectly loud for my purpose(s).
They’re little round pod-like things, with a long white cable for plugging into the wall; no battery for mobile use, sadly. Initially, that long cable was a little annoying for me, as I detest cables winding everywhere, but as a fan of all things tech, I’ve learned to adapt. With these, the solution was a little device you pop the speaker into, so the wire wraps neatly inside, giving you something to both hide the cable, and keep the speaker off of any surfaces, and affixed directly to the wall/plug. Those are hard to describe, so you can see a picture of it below — they’re available to purchase readily enough, or you could print your own, should you have a 3D printer.
After you’ve done the initial setup on your smartphone, and placed them just how you’d like them, you can then customize them in a few ways. The only one I’d really like to mention there is grouping. You see, when you’d like to play music, you can play them on one speaker, or on a group of them. I have mine set up in two groups:
“Upstairs” is the kitchen and main bathroom speakers. They’re relatively close to each other, and the upstairs sitting room is right between the two, so it works well enough.
“Everywhere” includes all three. This is mainly used for when we’re cleaning or doing other household chores that might take us up and down the stairs repeatedly.
There are other settings you can customize, but the grouping is the one that fundamentally changed the functionality for me, allowing them to be much more enjoyable than three individual speakers would be. Again, if you’d like to learn about all the features they have to offer, I’d suggest looking into a proper review.
The Smart Part
So, these are smart speakers — which means you can speak to them, and they will respond appropriately (most of the time). That begs the question: What can you ask of them?
Here’s a list of things I regularly ask of my little spy assistant, starting with the more interesting ones:
Translations; my mother-in-law doesn’t speak English, and I don’t speak Portuguese, but activating “translator mode” allows us to speak to each other as naturally, and clearly as we could if we had an actual translator present. I speak, it translates, then emits a soft “beep” telling us it’s ready for the next input. All you have to do is activate it, and tell it which two languages you’d like, and it will continue to translate until you turn it off, or you stop speaking for a few minutes.
Children’s activities; I have yet to look into this properly, but I’ve recently discovered the “Animal of the Day”, and my son loves it. Ask for the animal of the day, and you get a brief little overview, some music, and an animal sound. It then asks you if you’d like to learn more about specific topics on the animal until it’s done (about 4-5 minutes max). Then, it’ll ask you if you want to know the “Activity of the Day”, giving your kid a simple activity based on the animal of the day, like drawing a picture of the animal in its natural habitat, or imitating the sound for an adult to see if they can guess the animal.
Broadcast; this one’s super fun, and the bane of my wife’s existence. If you tell it to “broadcast”, it will ask you what you’d like to broadcast. You then say your message to the speaker, after which it will play a loud-ish recording of what you just said to all the other speakers in the house. I’ve had a wonderful time scaring the life out of my wife, and sharing my dad jokes with her from across the house. [Pro-tip: you can also broadcast from the app on your phone, even when away from the house]
Music; connected to any supported music streaming service, you can ask it to play your playlists, an artist, a specific song, a themed playlist, a genre, etc. I’ve rarely encountered an issue in the speaker not playing exactly what I’ve asked. I love being able to just ask for a tune that pops into my head, without even looking up from the dishes/work/cleaning/etc.
Podcasts; just as with music, you can ask it to play your podcast of choice, on your speaker of choice (if you’ve got multiple speakers, or even groups of them).
Timers and reminders; I think this one is self-explanatory, but it’s infinitely handy — especially for cooking.
General information; it’s never been easier to learn any fact you could possibly wonder. Debates are settled in an instant, measurement conversions are a snap, and simple instructions for a variety of uncommon tasks are delivered in a clear and functional format. I’ve used Apple’s Siri version of this for years, but Google’s version is infinitely more useful, functional, and practical.
The Dark Side
I can’t go on and on without mentioning the invasive nature of these devices — these ones, in particular. Google is notorious for listening-in when they aren’t supposed to, and selling your data to third parties.
It’s a factor I’m ok with, for now.
If a competitor comes out with better privacy and similar functionality, I’ll be a convert before you can say “Bye Google”. But for now, it’s far better than any alternative I’ve tried, and the convenience outweighs my privacy concerns.
That said, I’m off Facebook, and deleted WhatsApp for their privacy policies, so who knows what I’ll say next year. I just thought it was worth mentioning.
Let’s Wrap This Up
For something that wasn’t supposed to be exhaustive, I’ve certainly written enough words already, so I’ll keep this part short.
The Google Nest Mini speakers do what they say, and they perform extremely well. Their recognition of what I’m asking is near 100%. The way they present information or media is equally impressive. They’ve become an integral part of my routine, and my home.
The last thing I’ll say is the thing I’ve loved the most: By having a nearly infinite library of music available to me anytime I’m home, simply by asking, I’ve found myself listening to music far more often than I was before. I believe music is fundamentally important, and by increasing my likelihood of listening to music, these speakers have easily justified their price of admission — tenfold.
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