The Google Home Speaker marks a real leap forward for the company's smart home lineup, combining more natural Gemini-powered intelligence with strong sound quality.
The Google Home Speaker is more compact than the now-discontinued Nest Audio, but lacks features found in competing smart speakers from Amazon and Apple. If you're in the Google Home ecosystem, it's worth a look, but doesn't do much else than the previous generation.
If you're someone who already has some Google or Nest speakers and aren't happy with how the Google Home app and Gemini are working, this new speaker doesn't change that. Hopefully Google will continue to improve things on the software front, because the Google Home Speaker does a good job of holding up its end of the bargain.
Overall, it's a capable smart speaker, especially for the size. What's nice is that the Google Home Speaker is also a Matter hub and is compatible with Matter over Thread to connect just about any modern smart-home device. I like the range of features and experience a little better than Alexa+, and Google continues to make good-looking devices that I don't mind placing in my home.
The Google Home Speaker is a smarter assistant and a worse speaker than the older Nest Audio. Unless you specifically want Gemini sitting on your counter, there's no reason to pick this over a cheaper Bluetooth speaker that actually sounds good.
