Google’s Nest had a few new products announced today, at its Made By Google event in New York City.
Which included the Nest Mini and Nest WiFi. We’ve gone hands-on with both, and they do seem to be some pretty decent upgrades to products that Google announced years ago.
The Nest Mini is a more grown-up Google Home Mini
Over the summer, Google decided to rebrand the Google Home products to Nest. So gone is the Google Home Mini and in is the Nest Mini. It’s a much more appropriate name, instead of Google having two lines of smart home products.
The Nest Mini looks identical to the Google Home Mini, and that’s not a bad thing. The majority of the changes are on the inside. The Google Home Mini was never known for having impressive audio quality, given how small it was. But the Nest Mini is pretty good. It sounds very loud and can definitely fill a room with sound.
It does have a couple of new colors, including this really cool looking blue – which looks like the blue that it used on the Pixel 2, two years ago.
Adjusting volume is super simply now, as you can tap the side of the Nest Mini to increase or decrease it.
Google also includes a mount now for the Nest Mini. Allowing you to mount it on the wall. This isn’t the best way to do it, as it does still look sort of messy with the wire hanging down. But it’ll depend on where you are looking to place your Nest Mini.
Of course, we can’t forget the best part, and that’s the fact that the Nest Mini is sticking to the same price of $49.
Nest WiFi gives Google WiFi a much needed makeover
Google first announced Google WiFi with the first-generation Pixel. We’re not on Pixel 4. So it’s definitely time to update it. And Google has done just that.
It’s now Nest WiFi, coinciding with that rebranding it announced at Google I/O. Google also sought to make Nest WiFi have a nicer design. This is something we’re seeing more router manufacturers do these days. As customers like to hide those ugly looking routers. And that causes their WiFi signal to decrease by up to 50-percent. Resulting in a terrible experience.
So with the Nest WiFi, Google made it look elegant so you can leave it on a side table, out where it can actually get signal through.
It also comes in a slew of different colors now, like the blue that the Nest Mini comes in.
Nest WiFi does work with the smart displays and in the Google Home app. Allowing you to group different devices and turn them on or off at will. You can even set up a timer to automatically turn off the WiFi. This is good for those with kids, that want them to sleep instead of using their phone all night long.
The Nest WiFi is going to come in a two-pack (router plus beacon) for $269 and the three-pack (router plus two beacons) for $349.
Both the Nest Mini and Nest WiFi are available for pre-order.
