With two young children and a busy career as a photographer, Lauren Bride was keen to try out the new Google Nest Audio to review if the voice-activated smart assistant would help organise her life – and also see if it was easy enough for her four-year-old to use.
Simple Design That Fits in Your Home
The Google Nest Audio is streamlined and fairly neutral, so it just blends into the background – it would go great in any home. It’s not an obvious big piece of tech, it just looks like a little speaker. I also love that the casing is 70% recycled materials so that’s an excellent step towards greater sustainability.
Top-of-the-line Sound Quality
The Google Nest Audio uses a woofer for low-frequency sounds, a tweeter for high-audio frequencies and has in-built tuning software, which combined created a really clear, crisp sound. It also has the ability to adapt the sound to whatever room you’re in, so whatever you’re listening to sounds great – and I listen to a lot of music and podcasts throughout the day.
The sound is so crisp and clear and really easy to turn up and down. Even when it was up as loud as we had it, there’s no distortion, so we found it to be perfect for our needs at home.
SEE ALSO: Connect 101: How to Set up and Connect a Smart Home
Ease of Use
It’s really easy to use and intuitive. All you need is the Google Home app on your phone to link to your devices, which is really straightforward; I just followed the instructions and it walked me through setting it up.
My four-year-old and seven-year-old have great fun asking for all sorts of facts about animals and Christmas and different events – it's a really fun and interesting bit of interactive tech. The fact that my four-year-old can run it is a huge selling point, and probably means it is appropriate for all ages.
It’s easy to use for people who aren’t that tech savvy – to be able to do things via voice activation is really a huge plus – and I imagine there are applications there for people with disabilities, too.
Built-in Personal Assistant
When I’m busy, it’s easy for me to check what I’ve got going on. I found it really fantastic for setting an alarm in the kitchen while I was cooking. When you’ve got things going into the oven, you don’t have to wash your hands, pick up your phone and set up an alarm manually – you just say ‘Hey Google, set an alarm for 10 minutes’. It really added to my convenience.
I love having it in the hub of our home – where I work, where the kids are, where I plan meals and add things to my shopping list.
You can also use the Google Nest Audio to control compatible smart home devices like lights and locks – I don’t have any set up but I’m thinking about getting some of the lights to make life a bit easier.
Rating: 10/10. It does everything it says on the box and more. It’s more intuitive than I expected. Overall, I’m really impressed with how easily the Google Nest Audio fits into our lifestyle.
