Google Nest Audio Review

Finder score: 4

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Google's latest smart speaker, the Google Nest Audio is a very effective replacement for the standard Google Home speaker, sitting well above the Google Nest Mini in audio terms, but still well below that of the Google Home Max or other high-end smart speakers. If you're already comfortably in the smart home space with the Google Assistant it's an easy recommendation, especially if you want something that won't obviously stand out in most home décor.

Design

Design

• Choice of five colours – but only two in Australia
• Unobtrusive rectangular shape
• Touch inputs plus microphone switch

• Read more about the Google Nest Audio's design

  Google's no stranger to the home audio space, and there's a lot about the Google Nest Audio that feels familiar in design terms. We've seen Google wrap simple mesh fabrics around everything from simple smart speakers to costlier smart displays, and the model as reviewed came in what might as well be Google's "default" colour, namely chalk.

  There is a colour issue specific to Australians with the Nest Audio, because you get a choice of either Chalk – grey in the real world – or Charcoal, AKA "Black" if you're not into marketing speak.

  The issue is that internationally Google also produces the Google Nest Audio in Sage (or "green"), Sand (or "pink") and Sky ("Blue") tones. We don't get those colour choices in Australia, because… well, when I asked Google why, I really didn't get an answer. It turns out there are some things even Google can't search for.

  

  If you're particularly keen you could import one, but for an item that's meant to be designed to be shown off in the home, it's a pity we don't get more official colour choices.

  From a design standpoint, there's also no escaping the fact that the Chalk Google Nest Audio is very grey, but its power cable is bright white. On the plus side, Google's dropped its use of annoying circular plugs for an easier to use rectangular plug, which means it plays much more nicely with standard plug sockets and power boards.

  The Google Nest Audio is essentially a rectangular vertically oriented speaker, measuring in at 175x124x78mm with rounded sides that give it a slightly distinct tone. I say slightly distinct because it does work well for being unobtrusive if that's what you want. By the same measure you could even call it a little dull, not helped by the lack of those colour choices.

  Like the Nest Mini, your inputs are limited to touch controls on the top of the Google Nest Audio as well as a mute switch around the back of the speaker. That's also where you'll find a tiny Google logo and the circular power input for the Google Nest Audio. Sadly there's no 3.5mm audio jack, so you can't hook up other audio sources to the Google Nest Audio or use it to make other sound systems effectively "smart".

Performance

Performance

• Good audio output for its price range
• Great microphone pickup
• Google still struggles with some band names or music track choices

• Read more about the Google Nest Audio's performance

  Setup of the Google Nest Audio is very simple indeed, and if you're including it in a home where you've installed other Google devices you'll already be familiar with how this works.

  You plug in the Google Nest Audio where you want it to live, fire up the Google Home app for iOS or Android and let it know that you want to install a new device. I have no idea if it's an inherent code advantage or the quality of the Google Nest Audio's Wi-Fi, but I always seem to find Google's own brand Assistant devices are "found" on the network far more rapidly than third party devices. The Google Nest Audio was no exception to this rule, with setup taking less than five minutes before I could get to testing its audio quality.

  Read Google's breathless hype around the Google Nest Audio, and you might think that what you're getting for $149 outright is a direct competitor to some of the very best smart speakers in the market today.

  That's not what the Google Nest Audio is, however.

  Google has upped the ante relative to the old Google Home speaker that the Google Nest Audio effectively replaces, with an embedded 75mm mid-woofer and 19mm tweeter handling audio output duties, leading to a much better sound relative to that older speaker.

  That's important, because what the Google Nest Audio is designed to take on isn't the high end of smart speakers anyway. It's to tackle Amazon's dominance of the smart speaker market in the USA, where Alexa is the market leading brand in assistants.

  Here in Australia it's more of a mixed battle, with Google able to rest more easily on the inclusion of Google Assistant by default in Android smartphones, but with Amazon's own recent Echo speaker upgrades there's still a battle to be fought here.

  That being the case, Google has fired a substantial hit against Amazon in terms of audio quality. Testing with a range of music sources revealed a nicely wide range of capabilities. As an example, testing with Prince's guitar-heavy Bambi revealed a good understanding of both the drum kick and forceful guitar lines of that song, while switching it to his Around The World In A Day with its much softer, Sergeant Pepper-Esque lead track at the same volume still kicked it cleanly across my home office.

  Why yes, I have been listening to a lot of Prince, but that's primarily down to the release of the Deluxe Edition of his best album, Sign O' The Times.

  Its many tracks proved a great workout, from the boppy pleasantries of Starfish and Coffee to the thumping beats of Housequake and the more subdued nature of The Cross. Truly, it's an album with everything, but I'm getting off the point here. The one issue I hit here was getting the Google Nest Audio to actually understand what it was that I wanted to play in the first place,

  This is a question not of the quality of the microphone pickup on the Google Nest Audio – which is superb in its class, and easily able to detect the relevant "Google" alert word from across the room – but the way that it tries to parse and understand your music choices when it comes to band, song and album names.

  For Sign O' The Times, sometimes it'd launch me into the right album, but often it would decide just to play the song of the same name, or a cover version, or that an error had occurred and I should try in a few minutes. One benefit here is that you can cast to the Google Nest Audio from any compatible app, and that's what I ended up doing to preserve my sanity and stop me arguing with an otherwise generally smart speaker.

  

  The Google Nest Audio can get quite loud, although this isn't a speaker that's really designed to fill a larger room; within Google's own categories that's where the Google Home Max resides. I've mostly been testing it within my home office and bedroom, and for those spaces it's proved fine for music and podcast playback across multiple genres from the Finder Pocket Money podcast, my own Vertical Hold podcast and plenty more besides.

  Like any other Google Assistant speaker you can also use the Google Nest Audio to control any of a number of smart home devices through the same Google Home app that you'l need to set it up with. Here it's no better or worse than the way any integration operates across the entire Google Home ecosystem. I've pretty effortlessly used the Google Nest Audio to control groups of Philips Hue lights on the same network, but then I'd be seriously concerned if I couldn't do that given that other Google smart speakers manage that without fuss.

Should you buy the Google Nest Audio?

The reality for Google is that the classic Google Home speaker was showing its age, and by updating it with considerably better internals, Google's kept it very relevant in the competitive smart speaker space.

It's not quite going to be the smart speaker for everyone, however, even if you do want to use Google as your primary smart home assistant. If all you want is basic voice pickup, the Nest Mini 2nd Gen is still cheaper, but with worse music playback. If you want true room filling sound, the Google Home Max should be your go-to option, presuming you don't instead shift to a third party solution like a Sonos ONE for example.

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Image source:Alex Kidman