Test of smart speakers: 9 products tested

The Google Nest Audio, or J2 as it’s known internally inside Google, is a long needed update of Google’s first smart speaker. In comparison to that speaker, everything’s new and better – well, almost everything. An obvious winner for best in test award.

Blends in

Externally, the speaker is completely covered in fabric and the only thing that breaks the pattern is the microphone control on the back and the Nest logo below it. The top has touch controls for pausing the music or controlling the volume, and in the middle of the front is the classic row of LEDs, which are concealed while they aren’t in use. This is a very discreet speaker that’s easy to hide in the home, regardless of whether you choose the grey model we had for testing or one of the four other colours.

And unfortunately this is where we find the unit’s biggest disadvantage. The first version of the Google Home Mini ran on a standard USB charger, which you could easily replace so it would fit in anywhere. Since Google’s home gadgets have become part of the Nest family, they have a proprietary power plug and a power supply that takes up at least two power outlets. We think that’s ridiculous. Also rather odd, but not quite as serious, is that the cable feels a bit short for you to easily hide the speaker.

Good sound twice

As well as the assistant part, which like the Nest Mini now also has better microphones and a built-in AI that over time speeds up the most common searches, the Nest Audio is mostly about sound. And in terms of sound, it isn’t as good as the Google Home Max for purely physical reasons, as is always the case with speakers.

At the same time, we get really good sound out of the speaker. Depending on the genre, you may need to fiddle with some of the sound settings in the Home app, but generally it sounds really good. In comparison with Sonos's smaller speakers, which are just above this in size, we feel the mid-range is lacking a little space and detail, but such a small speaker shouldn’t sound as good as the Nest Audio does. And you can turn it up really loud without the speaker losing control of the sound.

Nor does it stop there, as you can buy two of these speakers and connect them in stereo. This doesn’t mean the sound is twice as good, but the stereo separation creates a good bit of extra space in the soundstage that a single speaker just can’t provide.

Given the sound on the stereo solution, it would have been nice to have a line input for sound, but there isn’t one.

The Nest Audio is a completely new take on the now classic Google Home speaker, and it’s a huge upgrade in pretty much every way.

The Lenovo Smart Display takes advantage of the new trend for smart assistants with screens This isn't new, either from Google or from its main competitor, Amazon's Alexa, but after a difficult start Google have relaunched their concept. In comparison to Google's own Nest Hub, Lenovo's solution feels more complete, and so we name it as best smart display just now, despite its problems.

Fiddly positioning

The Lenovo Smart Display is available in screen sizes of 8 and 10 inches, but the design and the majority of specifications are identical regardless of the size. The unit consists of a screen with speakers on the left-hand edge and a cheap feeling wood veneer-effect sticker on the back.

While a Google speaker can be tucked out of the way quite easily, the display unit is intended to sit on a kitchen worktop or similar, and in this respect it’s really not particularly attractive. On the back, about half of the unit is covered by a triangular bulge that houses the electronics and also means you can set the speaker up vertically. However, everything in the interface, except for video calls, is set up for horizontal mode. The slightly odd shape makes it tricky to position the unit well.

Platform under construction

If you're used to Google’s smart speakers, you’ll recognise a lot here. The voice control works well and all of these commands function exactly as they do in a normal Google speaker. The sound quality ends up somewhere between the small and large Google speakers. In other words, it’s fine for phone calls, recipe videos and a bit of background music, but can’t replace a bigger speaker. The difference is, of course, that the commands are all shown on the screen, which in some cases can also display supplementary text or images.

The big thing about this unit is that the screen can also be used for video calls (only Google Duo), videos (primarily YouTube) and can display a calendar or switches for your smart lamps. The screen can also be connected to Google Photos so that it displays a slide show of “your top moments” when it's in idle mode. It’s not clear how it chooses these top moments.

At the same time, it's clear that the screen is a new area for Google’s voice assistant. Nor does it currently offer services like Netflix. The games you can play with your voice so far have no equivalents that use the screen, which otherwise seems to offer great potential. This isn’t Lenovo’s fault, but it means it feels a bit like a first generation product that needs time to mature.

Better privacy control

A single swipe dims the screen, which then just shows a digital clock. The screen itself does its job regardless of lighting, even though it could have reduced the brightness a bit better in dark rooms.

One major advantage compared to the Nest Hub, Google’s own speaker with a screen, is that there are two switches on Lenovo’s screen – one for the camera and one for the microphone (Google’s version only has one for the microphone). This gives more control over when the unit is allowed to see and hear things.

The Lenovo Smart Display does its job, even if the design makes it feel both bulky and hard to position. Just like the voice part of Google Assistant, the screen part needs to mature quite a bit. But if you have the need and can live with the shortcomings we’ve mentioned, the Lenovo Smart Display isn’t a bad choice.

Google Home is the original smart speaker from Google. It’s the same age as the Mini edition, but with a better foundation that means it still stands up today.

The speaker is relatively small. We’d describe the design as minimalist, stylish and functional. The top of the unit is a touch display. One tap on it pauses whatever you’re listening to, a longer press starts the assistant function and by swiping in the middle you increase and reduce the volume.

On the back of the unit is a button that allows you to switch off the microphone if you don’t want it to listen all the time.

Listens well in quiet environments

Overall, it’s a really good listener. It understands our commands correctly and the range of things it can help with is large and growing all the time.

One major disadvantage is that it has difficulty hearing instructions when there’s background noise, for example if there’s music on or somebody’s talking in the background. But it does really well in quiet environments, even if you’re far away and talking in a normal conversational tone.

If you’re several rooms away, you can use the Google Home app on your phone to communicate your voice commands.

Not brilliant as a speaker

Google Home performs OK on the sound front. It certainly can't match the slightly better dedicated Bluetooth speakers in the same price range, but still produces quite good pressure in the sound.

Unfortunately the bass drowns the mid-range at slightly higher volume, and the sound instantly becomes more shrill when there’s only treble and bass coming through. You have to play on medium volume to get reasonable sound quality. But it doesn’t sound like it costs in excess of £100 – more like a good bit less.

As a speaker, it works best if you connect it to a slightly higher quality wireless speaker system. Now you can also connect multiple speakers in a group. This allows you to enjoy multi-room audio with Google speakers, even though the app isn’t the most convenient way of controlling speaker groups.

Overall, Google Home is a great assistant for anyone who’s started expanding their smart home. And it’s also a reasonable speaker. But it’s the smart functionality and Google’s really great assistant that’s the big advantage. Being able to turn on and off lights or turn the music down with your voice and also get voice notifications are all really useful. The price tag feels perfectly reasonable. Google Home is a good buy.

Apple HomePod Mini is not only a new attempt by Apple but also a complete turnaround. It’s a younger sibling to the company’s original HomePod, which also manages to correct the problem many of us had with the first version: the price. HomePod Mini doesn't even cost one third as much as the original, which is very nice.

The Little Speaker That Could

“Nice” is a word we find ourselves saying a lot as we test this speaker. Thanks to its compact size, you can place this small ball almost anywhere. Nice. The speaker’s 360-degree audio also simplifies positioning. Nice. The sound quality that Apple manages to coax out of such a small device probably breaks some kind of record in terms of value for money. Nice. If you have two HomePods, it will only take two seconds to turn them into a stereo pair. Nice. Do you run Apple TV and want to use HomePod as a speaker for it, in either mono or stereo? That also takes two seconds – nice!

We carried out our test using an unofficially imported HomePod Mini. It has no support for Siri in Swedish and hasn’t been officially launched in Sweden yet – a disadvantage if you want to speak Swedish with it. Meanwhile, we dislike how the power cable is soldered to the speaker, instead of using USB-C or Apple’s Lightning connector.

Only for Apple Home

There’s no doubt about it – Apple HomePod Mini is surprisingly good. Not that Apple usually makes bad products, but because they’ve got something so small to sound so good at such a modest price tag. But then there’s the fact that it’s Apple. Besides currently only being able to speak English with it, everything is very much controlled by the Apple ecosystem. Want to listen to music? Apple Music is your only choice. Want to control your smart home via voice commands? Everything will need to be synchronised in Apple HomeKit in order to work.

Music can be solved from any service via Airplay, of course, but not via voice control. And while HomeKit is now quite well developed, it’s slightly more complicated than just linking accounts, as you do with Alexa or Google. The same applies to Siri. While Siri may have been the first of the modern voice assistants, she hasn’t exactly grown at the same pace as her rivals in terms of the number of features and integrations.

This makes Apple HomePod Mini a fantastic choice if you’re already deeply entwined in the Apple ecosystem and are familiar with what Siri can and can’t do. While the speaker is practically cheap enough to just test the system, you still need to be aware of how much Apple you’ll be getting for you to be really satisfied.

If you’ve just started to use smart speakers at home, the Xiaomi Mi Smart Speaker is a relatively inexpensive way to upgrade your sound from Google’s Nest Mini entry-level speaker. It’s still a very affordable speaker for the Google Home system, which offers really good sound for its price tag.

Easy installation

The actual speaker is roughly the same size as the Sonos One speaker, for example, and fits more or less anywhere. Unlike many other smart speakers, however, there’s no physical control to mute the microphone – making this one of the very few speakers without that feature.

The rest of the design is quite simple to blend in everywhere. Alongside the touch controls on the top, there’s a light strip that only lights up while it listens to you.

While we’d have liked to have seen USB-C or similar for power supply (now it’s a separate plug), it’s just as easy to install as any of Google’s speakers. As soon as we connected the power and opened the Google Home app, the speaker appeared for installation. A few clicks and the mandatory software update later, we’re up and running.

Good sound for the price

As far as the sound is concerned, we can confirm that this speaker works well as an upgrade to the smallest Google speakers. While they work best for speech only, this one is better for playing music in smaller rooms. We say smaller rooms, because the bass speaker isn’t powerful enough to fill any larger spaces. Generally speaking, there’s a big gap in sound quality between the lowest bass frequencies and the middle of the mid-range, and the treble tends to distort at a slightly higher volume. Yet we have to admit that it sounds surprisingly good considering its modest price.

This speaker lies exactly midway between Nest Mini and Nest Audio in price. If you can afford it, the boost in sound quality is significantly higher with Nest Audio, but if you only need a smart speaker at your desk or similar, Xiaomi Mi Smart Speaker is a better option for music than Nest Mini.

The Lenovo Smart Clock Essential is Lenovo's second attempt to combine a classic clock radio with smart speakers.

Attractive clock radio

The device itself is a small, funnel-shaped affair with a simple screen on the front, a night light at the back and an extra USB connector on the back to charge your phone (clever!). The sides are covered in grey fabric, which is only interrupted on the top by the control buttons. Very attractive, in fact.

The screen isn’t much more advanced than you can find on a standard clock radio. However, around the clock you'll find small icons for the alarm, date and even the expected weather. Simple – and simply everything you need.

English-speaking voice assistant

In terms of size, the unit is about the same as a Nest Mini, but with a display. This means we don’t expect the sound quality to be all that good. A Nest Mini sounds a lot better, but for speech and wake-up music it’s OK anyway.

What is a little disturbing, however, is that neither alarm nor night light is linked to Google’s assistant. These are operated directly on the device, except when you need to silence the alarm, which you do with your voice… Alongside this, of course, you can set normal alarms via Google’s assistant, but there’s no connection between the two.

Most of the time, the assistant hears what we want to say and obeys just as well as a normal Google speaker. But when it comes to switching off the alarms we’ve set on the clock, a rather peculiar bug appears when we try out the support for other languages. In the beginning, we can use another language (in this case, Swedish) to ask it to shut up. After a week, it starts to protest in English, and after two weeks it only wants to turn off the alarm in English. The rest of the assistant, however, is still alert to Swedish commands.

The Lenovo Smart Clock Essential is one of those things that does exactly what it says on the tin. While we’d have liked to see a better connection between the assistant and what we set on the clock, that’s a minor concern. In terms of what it is, it does its job perfectly.

The basic idea is fantastic: Harman Kardon's excellent Citation series plus a clock radio plus Google Assistant. However, the execution leaves a lot to be desired. Admittedly, our judgement is based in part on what we’ve come to expect when it says HK Citation on the box, namely gorgeous design, easy operation, and – perhaps above all – crisp and elegant sound.

It's hard to find many clock radio-like smart speakers that tick all these boxes in a good way, but we hadn’t expected HK to miss the target with this device.

Rather smoothed out

No, it doesn't sound bad. But it doesn’t sound that good either. The sound is markedly tinny, with a smoothed out treble and a definition that isn’t even close to what the Citation One speakers are capable of, for example. OK, so maybe we’re being a bit fussy. After all, this is a smart clock radio. Not a fully-fledged Sono competitor to replace a proper hi-fi speaker in a multi-room solution. This is just a complement. But all the same.

There’s a nice tension in the bass, although it’s not very deep. This can be put down to the form factor and of course isn’t a problem in the true sense, because this is just a clock radio replacement. It’ll primarily be played at moderate volume, and function is more important than bass. But we would at least have liked to see a clearer treble and a much less hollow mid-range.

So isn’t it at least attractive, then? Weeell... Same thing here. It's not ugly, exactly, but the Oasis is by no means as stylish as the Citation One speakers. It’s oval and chunky and has a fairly large display on the front. But it’s not very futuristic or "Danish furniture trend" in its visual style (even if it has woollen fabric from the Danish brand Kvadrat on the outside). It feels very much like… well, yeah… a clock radio.

Fiddly connection

We also experience a lot of problems when we try to connect the speaker via the Google Home app. Exactly why is difficult to say, but only after the fourth attempt does the speaker finally connect to our Wi-Fi, which otherwise works flawlessly. Although we named the speaker “Dining Room” (we’re testing it in the kitchen), it’s still called HK Citation Oasis in the list. We repeat the installation a couple of times and have the same problem, no matter where we place it. We try out connecting it via the Google Home app both on a Huawei Mate 20 Pro and via an iPad. And we get the same result, no matter where we place the Oasis.

It finally works as it should and has all those smart functions that make it really helpful as a clock radio. It has everything from DAB support to Google Assistant and wireless charging (place your phone on it overnight), with all that means in terms of convenience in this context (“Hey, Google… set the alarm for 06.30”). But given that it says Harman Kardon on it and costs the best part of £200, we can’t give it more than an average score.

For a higher score, it would have needed significantly better definition and treble, and a cooler appearance. A little disappointing, at least by HK standards. But that still goes a long way.

The Google Nest Hub is the smaller of two smart displays from Google.

Attractive and easy to position

Just like everything from Google Nest, the device comes with an oversized and really rather bulky mains adapter. Apart from that, you get a long cable and a well-designed product that’s easy to position.

The 7 inch screen rests on a rounded foot housing the speaker and electronics. The entire construction is as stylish and discreet as other gadgets from Google’s flora of smart devices.

The size of the screen is as much an advantage as it is a disadvantage. It makes it easy to position, but a 7-inch screen needs to be quite close for you to actually see what’s going on in a YouTube video, for instance. But it’s excellent for reading recipes on.

Few functions but good sound

Unlike the 10 inch Nest Hub Max model, this one doesn’t have a camera. This is an advantage if you don’t want a camera where the screen is going to be positioned, but it’s also a disadvantage because a smart screen is perfect as a device for video calls in your home. Video calls work, but only in that you can see the person you’re talking with, and not the other way round.

One advantage is that a Nest Hub can easily replace a Nest/Google Home Mini, for example in the kitchen, and with significantly better sound into the bargain. It’s still not quite as good as Google’s normal Home speakers, but you won’t be ashamed of playing background music on the Nest Hub.

The actual installation as straightforward as ever. Once it’s going, you have far more choice in terms of the settings. You can set Google Photo to display images on it, like a photo frame, and also choose various settings for how the screen should save power. The screen adapts to the ambient light and actually looks really good in most circumstances.

The Google Nest Hub suffers from not having a camera for video calls (with a shut-off button like the one for the microphone, of course). Other than that, it’s a really attractive and competent smart display for the home.

The Google Home Mini microphone switch microphone switch is the smallest of Google’s smart speakers, and it’s about the same size as a doughnut (a jam one without a hole in, of course). The size makes it very easy to position almost anywhere in your home without it having to be visible or take up space.

Large power pack

The cable included is also a good length to allow for easy positioning. Unfortunately, something that's the hallmark of all Google's home gadgets is a ludicrously badly designed power adapter that takes up far too much plug space. Fortunately, this speaker is energy-efficient enough to be run on pretty much any USB charger – but it would be nice to include that in the package.

At the same time, there’s only one button – to switch off the microphone – on the speaker. If you want to wall mount it you need to buy the accessories separately, and you can only control it via your voice or with the app. In other words, there are no volume or other buttons. Then again, it is a speaker designed for a voice assistant, so perhaps that’s not so important in this context.

Sound for speech

Installing the Google Home Mini is very simple. Plug it in, start the Home app and add it – that’s it. Beyond that, there isn’t much you can do with it. You can change the settings for volume, bass and treble.

But then, as we’ve already said, you don’t need more than that. This part usually works really well, and at least 9 out of 10 times we say “Hey Google” the speaker picks it up. This is even true if we put the speaker on top of a cupboard or something.

The sound when the assistant talks is really good. It’s clear and with surprising depth in the voice.

Of course, it’s not so impressive when you try to play music. In purely physical terms, a jam doughnut-sized speaker doesn’t offer much when it comes to sound resources, and you can hear that regardless of the musical genre. On low volume as a desk radio it’s OK, but no more than that. But the Google Home Mini still represents a simple first step into the world of Google smart speakers. During the year we’ve been testing it, the assistant has developed enormously, as have the accessories that support the system. The Google Home Mini is a really good voice assistant in a relatively OK speaker – but not such a good choice for anyone looking for a really good speaker with built-in voice assistance.