Optus Mobile Review ALDI Mobile Review Amaysim Mobile Review Belong Mobile Review Circles.Life Review Vodafone Mobile Review Woolworths Mobile Review Felix Mobile Review Best iPhone Plans Best Family Mobile Plans Best Budget Smartphones Best Prepaid Plans Best SIM-Only Plans Best Plans For Kids And Teens Best Cheap Mobile Plans Telstra vs Optus Mobile Optus NBN Review Belong NBN Review Vodafone NBN Review Superloop NBN Review Aussie BB NBN Review iiNet NBN Review MyRepublic NBN Review TPG NBN Review Best NBN Satellite Plans Best NBN Alternatives Best NBN Providers Best Home Wireless Plans What is a Good NBN Speed? Test NBN Speed How to speed up your internet Optus vs Telstra Broadband ExpressVPN Review CyberGhost VPN Review NordVPN Review PureVPN Review Norton Secure VPN Review IPVanish VPN Review Windscribe VPN Review Hotspot Shield VPN Review Best cheap VPN services Best VPN for streaming Best VPNs for gaming What is a VPN? VPNs for ad-blocking The Google Home was dumbed down a little when it first launched in Australia, missing core smart features like the ability to make phone calls, but it’s come a long way since then. These days, the Google Home is more or less a part of the furniture, seamlessly integrating itself into our daily routines. So how does it hold up, and is it your best option for an affordable smart speaker? Google Home speakers connect to your home WiFi via the Google Home app on your iOS or Android smartphone, allowing you to play music from Spotify, set alarms, check the weather, and more. Google Home, and smart speakers like them, are also at the heart of smart home automation, a central hub for your compatible smart bulbs, security systems, and more. If you’re after a little more oomph, you can invest in the Google Home Max, which packs two 144-mm dual voice-coil woofers and two 18mm custom tweeters. You’re looking at spending around $399 for a Google Home Max, which is still a very reasonable price, but you might be considering a more advanced Google-compatible smart speaker (e.g. Sonos) at that spend. You can power up your Google Home’s output with multiple devices by creating a speaker group. If you’ve got multiple speakers spread out across your house, you can create a speaker group in the Google Home app. This allows you to sync multiple speakers to play the same track, resulting in more coverage across your house and a small choir of speakers, all blasting the theme song to Jurassic Park at once. When it works, it’s astounding. The one major issue with Google Home speaks to its otherwise seamless user experience; that’s how frustrating it can be when it doesn’t work. It feels petty to complain about the times this little genius slips up, but as you connect more devices, and become more reliant on the Google Home as a smart home hub, its occasional shortcomings become more apparent. Here are a few examples of what Google Home can do. Good morning is one of a few pre-built routines; there’s also good night, I’m home, and more. Each has a customisable sequence of actions to perform on command. Not only can you customise the actions and the order they’re performed in, but you can also handpick the finer details (e.g., which news sources you’d like in your routine). Otherwise, you can create entire routines from scratch, with custom initiation phrases. Asking Google for the latest headlines, weather, and my upcoming calendar events has become a regular part of my daily routine. And despite the average audio quality, it still offers perfectly acceptable sound for the rooms you will most likely use it in. For me, that’s the kitchen. Whether I’m washing the dishes or preparing dinner, Google Home’s services are always on call. Many people are still wary about the amount of data they share with Google, but you’re given plenty of chances to opt out in the Google Home app, and there’s even a physical microphone mute button if you really don’t won’t Google listening into your conversations. Muting the Google Home essentially transforms it into a fancy Bluetooth speaker, but at $149 here in Australia, I’d argue it’s still a good price even if you don’t take advantage of its smarts.
