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Google Home Speaker review: Great microphones and audio, but quirky controls hold it back

David Pierce

1d ago· 5 min readenReview

technology smart home music product review

Summary

A review of the Google Home Speaker (Gemini-powered) highlighting its excellent microphone pickup and wake word detection, good audio quality, but slightly odd or finicky controls. The device's real story is the integration of Google's Gemini AI assistant, which performs well for voice commands but has some quirks in its control scheme.

Source

The VergeGoogle Home Speaker review: Great microphones and audio, but quirky controls hold it backtheverge.com

Key quotes

· 4 pulled

Right out of the box, the new Google Home Speaker passed a couple of important tests.

Even with the volume at 100 percent and music blaring out of the speaker, it quickly ducked the audio and listened every time I said 'Hey, Google.'

In two days of testing, the speaker's three microphones haven't missed a single wake word — except for the time I stage-whispered to it from the other room while trying to avoid waking up the baby, but I'm not sure that's a fair test.

I set up the speaker in the bathroom and chatted with it from the shower; Siri hardly ever hears me over the running water

Snippet from the RSS feed

Our first test with Google’s new Gemini-powered smart speaker shows it has good audio, but slightly odd controls. Still, Gemini is the real story of the device.

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