Google Nest Hub 2nd Gen Review

August 13, 2021 at 7:51pm
By Jason Stettner

This is of course, as titled the second generation Google Nest Hub. It provides some improvements over the original and acts as a central point of connection for the devices that may be part of your IOT network and or the Google Home setup you have going on.

It provides some on-screen functionality, but mostly acts as a place for all of the devices to meet. For the most part I have used this as a seven inch digital picture frame. It does a wonderful job of displaying images, with an almost 3D like effect to it if that makes sense. That aspect is really great, it also displays the time so when it comes to those two tasks it’s great.

It also functions as a generally solid speaker for music listening, and it can get loud enough to fill the room. I would have liked more bass there, but for the most part it does quite well for this function of audio listening. It won’t necessarily replace a traditional speaker, but it can be placed conveniently for both photos and some musical play.

I will note that it doesn’t support Apple Music in Canada, but some regions will have access to that. I had to instead Bluetooth send over audio from my phone. It would have been nice to have separate audio functionality as not to tether the devices.

I had a similar thought for the Youtube app player on there, that app was honestly rubbish. You could command videos to play, but had little to no control over regular search or selection. Considering this is a first party Google device and the company owns Youtube, there’s no reason not have better integration there. It’s almost perfectly for viewing videos while doing casual tasks or say cooking, and I think they can do better there.

Just a simple search feature or something. I felt like I was always needing my phone to start things and it would have been nice to have this be more standalone and less reliant on another device. There are a number of additional apps, which do various tasks. I’ll highlight the sleeping option which is an extra subscription choice.

I thought it was neat to have some level of alarm functionality built into this alongside a tracking level for how you’re sleeping. The general UI for the device is fine, but I did notice it was generally slow when moving through it, as if there were a bit of a delay. It didn’t have that smooth snappiness that I was hoping for. At the same time it functions fine enough, considering what it’s designed to do.

The screen is aesthetically pleasing with good options for brightness adjustment. I do wish there was less bezel though, it really sticks out. It does blend in slightly better when photos are displayed however, due to the awesome 3D like effect I had mentioned prior.

I suppose your experience with the overall look will also vary based on which color you get. I had Charcoal which was basically a white looking front with a blackish grey back. It sort of sticks out against my black designed tech and TV stand area. Other colors include Chalk, Mist and Sand though do keep in mind that the face doesn’t change with any of the options.

The front is always a white design, which does seem to stand out quite a bit against my current aesthetic. I do like the gesture controls this has built in, those were neat to use at times. Tapping the air to pause music or a video was nice and felt almost futuristic. That being said, keep in mind that this doesn’t have any sort of camera built in. So you can’t really use it for videos call which might have been nice feature wise.

It does have a built in microphone, but you can choose to turn this off for privacy with the slide of a button. Doing so will make you miss out on voice control options though. I just thought it would be helpful to provide information on that element. This does require a power cord to run which is expected, that is decently long but the plug-in is somewhat annoying since it’s circular. Bit of an odd choice with that aspect.

The Conclusion

The Google Nest Hub 2nd Gen is a solid option for connecting your devices together, I feel it has a ways to go in order to become more essential and yet at the same time it functions fine. I mostly just use this as a digital picture frame for which it looks quite nice. It is occasionally good for some music play, and it performs those needs well.

It doesn’t quite perform well enough in a video player capacity for that to be super helpful, but it can use your phone in combination with Youtube to do alright there. I just wish it mostly had more features, and or a sleeker design to it.

I think this does function well as being a place to control your growing selection of smart devices which is what it’s designed for. I still hope that it becomes more of a standalone offering in the future as this could very well become more essential in being a standalone experience, and one that handles the extra devices you have effectively as well.

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Google Nest Hub 2nd Gen Review product provided by Google

Rating Overall: 7.6