Customer Ratings & Reviews

I bought this because I have Google nest wireless doorbells and this was the only way to get the doorbells to ring out loud. Without this, I was just getting notifications to my watch and phone, but they were not audible or timely. Now with this little buddy I get a nice announcement when someone rings the bell and a screen that shows me who is there. I also get added features that I did not want, like YouTube and Netflix on a little screen in my kitchen. I like the "Good Morning" feature, which I have customized to give me news from the sources I trust (the factory setting news sources were a little frightening). My complaints are that it crashes regularly. Much like Alexa and other smart devices it only knows what I am talking about or asking for 65% of the time. I can only get certain apps to work properly. My Apple Music app does not seem to get along with this and I can't get Apple Podcasts at all, which is a huge disappointment to me. Basically, I got what I wanted: a doorbell chime, a few things that I also like: the morning news and weather, a bunch of things I don't want or need: spotify, YouTube, other apps I will never use, all on a device that sometimes crashes and can't deliver any of those things. I wish there were a better way, but I'll take this for now. I recommend it to people who need a doorbell chime for their Google Nest Doorbell.

I recently snagged the Nest Hub (2nd Gen) on a great deal, and it’s been a mixed bag of experiences. As an Apple user, I noticed the integrations aren’t as seamless as I’d hoped. However, there’s a lot to like, especially the display which doubles as a smart clock by my bedside. The design is sleek, fitting perfectly into the bedroom aesthetics. I love how it serves as a hub for controlling smart devices, although the full potential seems limited within the Apple ecosystem. The best part? Waking up to a screen that not only tells time but also eases me into my day with gentle alarms and a quick overview of my schedule. In short, if you’re deeply tied to Apple products, you might find some limitations, but as a standalone smart display and clock, it does bring a touch of modern convenience to the bedside.

It is a decent product, I don’t use it as much as I thought I would. Has some idiotic things which I hope will be fixed in a future update though. First off, you can not edit your Home Screen to pick what functions you want to see when you use it at a glance. Could be fixed in a upcoming update. The biggest pet peeve I have about it is it is trying to get me to play all these games. On some screens there are buttons that take up have the display trying to make me play find my fish or whatever. I didn’t get this since I want to play games and I doubt anyone did, and after talking to support there is no way to edit this as of now.

I wouldn't get it again, the software was not very good. The interface is not intuitive, a little confusing. A lot of useless functions.

Average run of mill smart speaker with a cheap screen.

I have approximately three of these, I like the screen and the ability to play my security camera output over them (wifi cameras). The price for these was much higher, fifty is about right if you ask me. For the first few years I had my network this worked flawlessly but recently google lost a patent infringement lawsuit over their speaker functions and has had to disable those functions in everything. Google is not doing a good job with those firmware updates on this device, several times a day the device gets very slow responding, stops responding, claims it can't access the internet or just gives constant "something went wrong" responses. It happens on all of these units that I have - I don't blame my router but I suppose it could be part of the issue. I'm hoping that google gets their heads out of the dark places and fixes all that but I think the customers are going to need to make more of an uproar because they don't seem to be in a hurry it's probably a huge job. For the moment, my lenovo smart clocks are pretty much running things in my house because they are not currently having the issues this unit is. I also have a couple of the google smart speakers which are also having issues for the same reason. If you are using a google pixel phone and find your google devices are complaining about updates but won't update then you need to run home from a non pixel device (I used an old samsung tablet) this is a current problem that google knows about but has not yet fixed thankfully it only happens with older devices that need a major update because they have not been online for a long period.

For context, let me be clear that I've never before owned or used a smart home hub device with a display so my experience with this product marks my first time. Here are my take-aways: First, Google assistant is responsive via voice and after using for about a week I can say this little guy picked up what I was saying accurately about 9/10 times or more. For whatever reason, Google devices tend to work more reliably with my hue lights than Apple's HomeKit or using other 3rd party apps, so that was solid as well. Also, this little thing is surprisingly decent for watching a quick YouTube video at my office desk or catching the news headlines during downtime. All good things, but here's where things fall apart: There's only limited app support so what you've got in the latest update is it. While I'm happy this thing has Netflix and Spotify, it'd sure be nice if it had at least 2 or 3 more mainstream options for streaming video. The real kicker for me though, is that I can't believe Android people put up with these interface issues and poor user experience. The system looks dated and its laggy as all heck - it feels like this thing is running with a 5 year old (or older) chip inside of it! Don't even bother using your finger or the gestures as the lag will frustrate you into just giving up and using your voice instead. I'm legitimately surprised that this is Google's gen2 "Nest hub" experience. I seriously expected more. All of that said, the sound quality is tolerable and the fact that this one will play video at all while I've been told the larger one doesn't is mind-boggling, so that's a plus. Am I satisfied with it? I guess so... but I don't think I'd ever pay full price or buy a second one without Google making improvements. Yes, yes, I understand this is the hub doing the most at its price range but the truth (for me) is that the Christmas sale price is what made it worth it for me and I couldn't see myself spending full retail for something this clunky and half-baked. It's like someone at Google had great ideas about life with ambient computers helping us and then outfitted said computers with gen1 Android processors and cheap parts. Not an ideal experience, seriously.

VERY temperamental on setup so three stars. I'm a "techie" and took the difficulty as a challenge. Others may not. Be patient. This thing goes through several updates before it settles down. Once I got it going I find it a good product. The screen is easy to figure out.

I wanted to love this, but I just can’t. The response time is slow when asking it to do something. Very limited streaming apps for tv. Home automation is OK and easy to link, but I think the echo show out does this device in many areas. Also based on it’s limitations the price point seems to high. $79.99 would be a better price point and if it was i’d probably look past some of its deficiencies, but at $99.99 there are better options from competitors.

This does exactly what it says, its basically a nest but with a screen. No camera so no video calls. Price is decent for what it is. I already have a regular nest and a seperate tablet, so when u found out this had no video, i exchanged for the bigger version.

The sound quality and the screen are great, but the lack of a web browser for displaying recipes or the ability to use the search function in YouTube kind of defeated the purpose of buying this for the kitchen. Eh, it’s fine.

Bought two of these when they on sale for $59, which i think is what they’re really worth. Decent speaker and good smart home hub but its OS is pretty laggy and there’s no camera to enable video features. Still think it is far better than the amazon echo show at similar price point even though the echo has a camera. In my experience so far, google’s assistant is much more helpful and responds to requests for changing temperature and lights than echo or my homepods.

Good device, I am continuing to have an issue using this device with and external Nest/Google camera. The screen will work well for several hours then turn green. Also, with the software updates the image from the camera will freeze. Support has not responded. This is the 2nd device. Other items work well, The only fault is the connection with the Nest/Google camera. Worked well until the software update in October 2022.

We have had a Lenovo Smart Display with Google assistant in our kitchen for the last six years and have loved it for providing a central video-based screen for Google Home functions. We often used it to give us recipes by saying something like “ok Google give me a recipe for the best krab cakes ever”. The device would then pull up recipes from websites that gave us a pictorial recipe at our fingertips. Well now comes “SafeSearch” from Google, which basically highjacked our Lenovo hub and prevented it from displaying ANY website. No more fingertip recipes. If we try the request above, a screen pops up saying it cannot show website views. And there is no way to disable SafeSearch in the Home app, nor is Lenovo updating the firmware to make the hub a SafeSearch compatible device. So to get our beloved visual recipes back, it seemed like we needed to retire the Lenovo hub and replace it with a Google hub. At least a Google device would be SafeSearch compatible. We purchased a 7” Nest Hub and brought it home for a try. Works great and did everything that our Lenovo did, including opening up websites again, The two downsides however are 1. Websites take considerable time to show up and load as you scroll down the screen. 2. Scrolling down the screen is done by swiping your finger up on the screen, but more aften than not you end up engaging the quick task bar at the bottom of the screen instead. The device clearly has a minimal chipset / memory, which is not surprising given the low price. It is also too small for decent scrolling operation. Our old Levono was an 8” device which was probably the smallest size to scroll properly with. Bottomline - we will be taking this back to Bestbuy tomorrow and give the big brother Goigle hub a try to see if it performs any better.. It is a bit concerning that Google basically deactivated website viewing on a device heralding this ability when we bought it. Google should at the very least allow the SafeSearch feature to be disabled if desired.

It’s ok, not like amazing. The touch sensing has a slight delayed response. it’s not the iPad lol. And you can’t select podcasts without asking google assistant for help, but it’ll play as long as you speak the full name clearly and accurately so you get the one you want. Also I probably won’t use Netflix but I do use the YouTube app. I love that it tells the weather and the time, and I can set a timer fast, and other convenient features, and I can pair the speaker with other speakers. The sound is surprisingly loud and clear for its small size. But don’t expect full bass sounds, it is not like a Bose or Sonos. I’m still able to control my Philips hue lights and speakers and my Hisense U8G android TV, and my Xbox series X. It’s a convenient little piece of tech for my nightstand, and was on sale for Black Friday ($49), but I wouldn’t want to pay full price for it. Also I do prefer google over siri and Amazon, fyi, so it was this or those other ones. I would like the big one but I have an iPad already, and I don’t need to watch movies on this. The only reason I would want to get the larger one would be for the camera feature.but again price wise I’d rather not, this one is just fine.

I bought this to allow me use the screen for more functions. To many limitations, couldn't search YouTube without using a phone. I doubt if a lot of people use the sleep function. The screen is also very laggy. The sound is much better then the mini though. Get this if you really need the screen.

I love the display on this, and the ability to have a central location for all my smart home stuff. The one issue I have had with it, that I had with the first gen one as well, is weird connectivity problems. It will randomly just pause itself in the middle of music or news. There have been a couple of times where it was buffering. But most of the time, it will pause when I’m in the shower. The first gen one did the same thing. I don’t know if it is a particular sound or frequency that causes it, but it is extremely annoying.

It's a good little companion to have next to my bed as an alarm clock, music speaker,

I got this Nest Hub at a steal during the Prime Day sale. It works well for all my primary reasons: checking the weather, playing Spotify music and watching YouTube videos. However, I'm just beginning to find out so many limitations with the Nest Hub. While watching YouTube, I'm not sure why I can't type in what I want to see. While playing Spotify, the music randomly stops and interface will have a glitch or two here. I think if Google can provide an update to make it more stable, it would best of great value.

Useful in limited ways -- does only one thing at a time. I got this device for my bedroom so that I could check the time, play music, check my calendar appointments, control my lights, and check the weather all at a glance. However, it was a significant letdown. I can sure ask, "Hey, Google!" and have it do things based on voice commands, but often, I am right next to the device, and if it's playing Spotify, I cannot simply look at the screen for time; I have to ask it. It often misinterprets what I ask, and I have to frustratedly ask, "Hey, Google! STOP!" and repeat. If it could display multiple widgets at once (same as CarPlay), I'd love it more, but for now, I'm just putting up with it, hoping in a software update they'll fix it down the line.