Google Home Speaker Review: Solid, Reliable, and Slow

I have sort of a love-hate relationship with Google speakers. When they first came out, their main competition came from Amazon and their Echo devices. Back then, Echo speakers were pretty good at asking about the weather and ordering from Amazon – and that was it. So, I went the other way and used the most comprehensive assistant (at the time) – Google. I spread Google speakers all over my house and mainly used them to set timers, control my smart home, and ask about the weather.

Fast forward about ten years, and the landscape has changed quite a bit. Most notably, AI has emerged and disrupted this particular industry. Amazon has Alexa Plus, Google has Gemini, and even OpenAI is preparing to launch its own hardware. Meanwhile, established player Google has added a new $99.99 smart speaker to its arsenal, and I’ve been testing the Home Speaker in recent weeks to see how it compares to the competition.

Google speakers have always had a pretty consistent design language – the round body with the woven covering – dating back to the Google Home Mini almost a decade ago. The Google Home Speaker has a similar design principle. It is round with a silicone disc on the bottom for better grip and also has a mute button near the bottom of the speaker.

The Home speaker features a new light ring around the bottom that is dynamic – changing color and patterns depending on whether the speaker is listening, reflecting or responding. It’s pretty, and I think it’s a nice addition; perhaps a preview of the HiLight feature available on Pixel Pro phones. The rest of the enclosure is covered in this mesh fabric for a cohesive look.

The top of the speaker is touch sensitive. When you press it, two LED dots appear that allow you to increase or decrease the volume. I’m still a bit of a grump in that I don’t like the fact that I have to first press the top of the speaker to make these dots appear before I can actually adjust the volume. I find this a bit annoying, but I understand the argument. LEDs that were always on or any other signals may have detracted from the overall design. It might just be the least bad option.

Inside the box is the Google Home speaker with a connected cable that ends in a USB-C jack. There is also a power adapter/wall wart in the box for plugging in. The cable is about three feet long, so you shouldn’t have any trouble reaching an outlet.

Once you plug it in and start it, you set it up through the Google Home app. It walks you through the setup process and is pretty straightforward. You can assign it to a specific room to keep things clear from a household management perspective.

Once the device is configured, it simply waits for your command. You activate it with the typical “Okay, Google” or “Hey, Google” command, followed by what you want the speaker to do. When you activate it, the ring lights up at the bottom to indicate that it’s listening. It turns into a multi-colored circle when he thinks and responds.

The great thing about the design is that it goes with everything. My review sample is the Porcelaine (read: white) colorway, which is about as understated as it gets. For the more daring among you, the colors Berry (red) or Jade (green) may be preferable, but I am definitely more in the conservative camp when it comes to interior design.

The interaction is similar to Google’s previous smart speakers. You always get the same two activation phrases: “Hey, Google” or “Okay, Google” and from there you can converse with the speaker. Two things are relatively new on this device. The first is official Gemini support. Google Assistant is, for all intents and purposes, dead, having been replaced by Gemini.

Overall, this is a good thing, because it gives the speaker more abilities and more personality. You can now have a conversation with the speaker, which was not possible before. You can ask the speaker a question and then add a follow-up without activating the trigger phrase a second, third, or fourth time.

This can also be a double-edged sword. You can ask the speaker a question, get the answer, then resume your other conversation with your friends, only to have Google hear and even respond to a question or statement you didn’t ask. This is a similar issue to what happens with Meta’s AI assistant on glasses. He waits and seems unable to detect who you are talking to.

But the speaker offers a key advantage: access to Google services. You can ask Google when your next appointment is on your Google Calendar, but strangely, you can’t grant it access to your email. I mean; I suppose it’s not strange from a security perspective, but if you want the person you’re talking to to access your email, who am I to tell you that you’re wrong?

The biggest problem with the speaker is the time it takes to execute the commands you ask it to execute. Comparing the smart home controls side by side between Gemini and Alexa+ (which I tested with my Echo Show 11 and Echo Dot), Google’s controls seem absolutely glacial in comparison. Google takes a long time to do what you ask of it.

Of course, for perspective when I say it takes a very long time, I mean about five to ten seconds from the time I ask Google to turn on my light to the time it actually does it. In comparison, Alexa is usually closer to half a second. So we’re not talking about minutes here, but there’s still a day and night difference between the two. I don’t know where the problem is or why, but I find it irritating every time, especially when Alexa is just a command away.

You could, in theory, group pairs of speakers together in the same room to connect to a Google TV and use them as speakers if you wanted. Google only sent one speaker and I no longer have a TV set up with a Google TV dongle, so I haven’t been able to test this feature.

Of course, this is a speaker, so we have to talk about how it sounds, and given its size, it sounds excellent and fills a room very well. That being said, these speakers aren’t very big and physics still plays a big role in sound, so you won’t get the bass you’d want from a TV audio system anyway. I don’t even know why Google included this feature: the sound just isn’t good enough for watching movies.

But if you just want to listen to a few tunes while you work or clean, the Google Home speaker will do the trick. The sound is very clear across the spectrum – the mids don’t get muddy, as can happen with cheaper speakers (or even other speakers in this price range). This is a nice, well-rounded speaker – no pun intended – that can also answer a few questions for you and quickly add tasks to your lists and calendars.

Overall, this is a great speaker to buy at a decent price. The sound quality is pretty good, considering its size. You get a free trial of Google Home Premium, which is nice, but it’s also a way to lock yourself into another subscription. The speakers don’t produce as much bass as some people might like, that’s for sure, but if you’re looking for a nice little speaker to put on your shelf, you could do worse.

Meanwhile, Amazon is offering half-price speakers that fulfill orders five times faster. In a vacuum, you won’t notice the Google Home speaker lag, but if you use both, you’ll quickly find that Google is the more annoying of the two. But it’s also arguable that Google’s method of connecting with other ecosystems is a bit smoother: you don’t need to search for skills, just connect the app.

Is this enough to stand out? It’s up to you, but another thing to consider is the $99.99 price tag. Although Amazon’s $49.99 Echo Dot isn’t quite as sturdy of a speaker, it’s much cheaper and, in some ways, better performing. I’m not sure Google still has the power to justify this price difference.