The original Nest Hub was a perfectly capable smart display, but as Google’s only model at the time, it felt a bit lacking compared with Amazon’s much larger Alexa-powered lineup. The second-generation Nest Hub ($99.99) improves upon it predecessor with a feature you won’t find on any other smart display: sleep tracking. Thanks to a built-in Google Soli motion-sensing chip, the 7-inch Nest Hub can accurately track your sleeping and breathing when placed on a bedside table. While it still lacks a camera for video calls, it offers several other upgrades, including 50% more bass for improved audio, a Quick Gestures feature that lets you pause or play content simply by waving your hand, and a machine learning chip that caches your common commands for faster response times. Offering tremendous value for the price, the second-generation Nest Hub earns our Editors’ Choice award for Google Assistant smart displays.
Getting to Know the New Nest Hub
At $99.99, the second-gen Nest Hub is debuting at a lower price than its predecessor, which arrived in 2018 as the $149 Home Hub. Google later renamed that model the Nest Hub, and last year lowered its price to $89.99. It also offers the $229 Nest Hub Max, which features a 10-inch touch screen, a webcam for video calls and home monitoring, and stronger audio, but no sleep tracking abilities.
The new Nest Hub stands out for its Soli motion-sensing chip, which allows it to track your sleep when placed on a nightstand. The new Nest Thermostat also features a Soli motion sensor, so it can automatically turn the screen on when you walk in front of it.
The addition of sleep tracking on the new smart display marks Nest’s first foray into the health and wellness space, a move that makes sense given that Google also owns Fitbit. While Sleep Sensing is available on the new Nest Hub for free until 2022, you might have to pay extra for it after that. The feature could eventually be included with Fitbit Premium memberships, but Nest is still working that out, a spokesperson says. The company is also currently exploring other ways to integrate experiences with Fitbit.
Setting Up and Navigating the 2nd Gen Nest Hub
Setting up the new Nest Hub only takes a few minutes. Just plug it in, download and open the Google Home app on your phone (it’s available for Android and iOS), tap the plus sign in the upper left corner, select Set Up Device > New Devices, and follow the on-screen instructions.
During the setup process, the app asks if you want to enable Quick Gestures, a new feature that lets you control the Nest Hub with hand motions instead of having to actually touch it. With Quick Gestures enabled, you can simply wave your hand in front of the display to snooze your morning alarm. In testing, this feature worked perfectly, and is incredibly convenient when I’m still half asleep in the morning and want a few extra minutes of shut eye. If you keep the Nest Hub in your kitchen, meanwhile, you can use Quick Gestures to pause a cooking video when your hands are dirty.
The Nest Hub’s interface is intuitively organized and easy to navigate, with tabs at the top for Your Afternoon (or whatever time of the day it is), Wellness, Home Control, Media, Communicate, Family, and Discover. Your Afternoon is a home screen from which you can access the weather, news, smart home controls, your previous night’s sleep data, and other useful features based on the time of day. At night, the home screen offers a button for relaxing sounds.
Better Audio, But Still Not the Focus
The second-gen Nest Hub has 50% more bass than the original, but it’s still pretty weak compared with Amazon’s $129.99 Echo Show 8. That’s not too surprising, because the Echo Show 8’s base is much bulkier, making it a better fit for counters and desks than nightstands.
The new Nest Hub can fill a small room with audio, but it doesn’t sound better than a similarly priced dedicated Bluetooth speaker. When blasting The Knife’s “Silent Shout” at full volume, the drivers distort a bit on the bass hits at the beginning of the song. The highs sound good, but the bass is unfulfilling, especially compared with listening to the same track on the Echo Show 8. Ultimately, the audio performance is more on par with the smaller Echo Show 5.
Better Audio, But Still Not the Focus
The second-gen Nest Hub has 50% more bass than the original, but it’s still pretty weak compared with Amazon’s $129.99 Echo Show 8. That’s not too surprising, because the Echo Show 8’s base is much bulkier, making it a better fit for counters and desks than nightstands.
The new Nest Hub can fill a small room with audio, but it doesn’t sound better than a similarly priced dedicated Bluetooth speaker. When blasting The Knife’s “Silent Shout” at full volume, the drivers distort a bit on the bass hits at the beginning of the song. The highs sound good, but the bass is unfulfilling, especially compared with listening to the same track on the Echo Show 8. Ultimately, the audio performance is more on par with the smaller Echo Show 5.
Read More: https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/google-nest-hub-2nd-gen
