The Google Nest Mini has officially been unveiled as the successor to the company’s most affordable smart speaker, the Google Home Mini.
Launched in 2017, the original Google Home Mini delivered all the smarts of Google Assistant in a compact form, allowing it to act as a cheap hub for your smart home, as well as nifty little speaker.
While popular, the Google Home Mini did have its issues; namely poor audio quality, which the tech giant is hoping to rectify with the new Nest Mini.
So how does the new model stack up against its predecessor? While we haven’t had the chance to test the Google Nest Mini extensively yet, we’ve poured over the specs to compare Google’s cutest smart speakers.
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Google Nest Mini vs Google Home Mini: price and availability
One of the most attractive aspects of the Google Home Mini is it’s low price; at just $49 / £49 / AU$79, it’s one of the most affordable smart speakers on the market.
Happily, the new Google Nest Mini is exactly the same price, so you won’t be paying a premium to get your hands on the newer Google Assistant speaker.
The Google Nest Mini will be available to buy from October 22, and it’s not clear whether the original Google Home Mini will be discontinued to make way for its successor.
Either way, we can expect to see the original Mini discounted over Black Friday and Cyber Monday, so if you’re in the market for a cheap speaker, it’s worth keeping an eye on our best Black Friday deals page for updates from the massive sales event.
The original Google Home Mini
Google Nest Mini vs Google Home Mini: design
Design-wise there’s not a huge amount of difference between these two smart speakers; they’re exactly the same size and shape, with the same chic fabric grille and four-LED display.
However, the Google Nest Mini’s fabric grille is now made entirely from recycled plastic bottles, while the external enclosure is made from “at-least 35% post-consumer recycled plastic”, according to the company.
Like the original Google Home Mini, the new Nest Mini comes in Chalk, Charcoal, and Coral, as well as a new color, Sky (in case you hadn’t guessed, this is a light-blue shade).
Both speakers feature capacitive touch controls, which allow you to control your music playback, while a microphone switch enables you to turn off active listening, stopping Google Assistant from constantly picking up your voice.
New to the Google Nest Mini is ultrasound technology; this means that when audio is playing, the LEDs will light up as you approach the speaker to help you see the volume buttons. According to Cnet, it does this by emitting tiny inaudible chirps that “bounce off objects in the environment, reflect back to the microphones and tell the device if someone is near”.
You can also now play/pause your music by tapping the top of the Google Nest Mini.
Unlike its predecessor, the Google Nest Mini is wall-mountable, making it a cool design focal-point for your home, as well as a hub for all your smart gadgets.
Google Nest Mini vs Google Home Mini: features
As they’re both powered by Google Assistant, you’ll find the Google Home Mini and Google Nest Mini share many of the same features, allowing you to control your smart home devices hands-free with your voice.
The things Google Assistant can do are incredibly varied; the powerful voice assistant is capable of anything from answering your general knowledge questions, to checking your emails and appointments.
It’s getting smarter all the time, using artificial intelligence to learn and adapt, maturing and becoming more useful with every passing day
For example, both speakers can place calls for free in the US, a feature that's also recently launched in the UK, as well as stream music through an assortment of music apps like Pandora, Spotify, YouTube Music, iHeartRadio and more. The new Nest Mini has been updated to support Bluetooth 5.0, which offers a stable connection when playing music wirelessly from your device.
Thanks to Google Assistant, the Home Mini and the Nest Mini can also send requests to pull up a YouTube video over to your Chromecast-enabled TV and control Internet of Things (IoT) devices like smart lights, smart security cameras, and more.
One new feature that’s coming to the Google Nest Mini (and all other Nest smart speakers and displays), is the ability to use it as an intercom; this allows you to talk to anyone in your home using your phone or another Nest speaker.
Google Nest Mini vs Google Home Mini: sound
Audio fidelity was never the Google Home Mini’s strong point, but as a desk buddy, the audio works just fine. Its 40mm driver won’t exactly blow you away with powerful bass and the 360-degree sound that Google promised back in 2017, but this mini speaker can get fairly loud.
Google says that the new Nest Mini has twice the bass power of the original Home Mini, with “a richer and more natural sound that allows you to hear more detail and is authentic to the artist’s intent”.
This boosted bass is made possible by a custom 40mm driver that’s designed to bring those bass frequencies to the forefront of the soundstage, while the company’s proprietary tuning software helps to “perfect the sound”.
Need a bigger sound? Both speakers can be grouped with other Google Home or Nest speakers to fill your entire home with music. New to the Google Nest Mini is the ability to pair two speakers for true stereo sound, bringing it in line with the third-gen Amazon Echo Dot.
Google Nest Mini vs Google Home Mini: takeaway
Without having thoroughly tested the Google Nest Mini, it’s difficult to say whether it will represent a huge improvement over the Google Home Mini. However, Google has introduced a few quality of life features that are sure to make using the Google Assistant speaker easier than ever before.
Subtle design changes, like the ability to wall-mount and the use of eco-friendly materials are a step in the right direction, while ultrasound technology makes the Nest Mini smarter than its predecessor.
We can’t exactly speak to the audio quality without listening to the Nest Mini, but Google certainly sounds confident in the sonic changes its made – whether they make a tangible difference to the bass response of this diminutive speaker remains to be seen.
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