Hello everyone, thanks for tuning in again. It's time to get started with
another smart home versus battle here. The Google Home Hub, the brand-new seven inch
smart display from Google vs. the Lenovo 8" Smart Display here with
Google Assistant on board. Let's get going. Alright now if this is the first
time on Automate Your Life for yourself, go ahead click that subscribe and get
that bell notification going here, we're going to give you back time in your life
through automation in in a number of ways. Now today is a little bit
different, I'm going to help you make a purchasing decision. If you're looking at
either one of these two devices or you just want to know which of these two
devices you should be looking at now as far as I'm concerned the first thing to
talk about here is the software on these two devices and the reason I say that is
because some of the early differentiators here were related to
when the Google Home Hub launched here in what was stated was that you know we
had an extra menu for navigation in terms of home control so you could pull
down and right away go to all your smart home lighting you could also in the end
get to the rooms and therefore all of your devices and it looks a lot like the
Google Home application now since that time the Lenovo Smart Display has been
updated with that very same menu the other thing that people were talking
about as being such a big differentiator was the ability to be included in
multi-room audio and now both devices can do that as well so as far as I'm
concerned the software is now equal on these two devices there's basically an
extra welcome video or welcome / setup video here that Google has put on this
device that is not here on the Lenovo Smart Display at least the last time I
checked in terms of those software menus and those different things let me show
you here in a quick demo what both of these devices can accomplish as I showed
earlier you can pull down and then tap into the lights function
and both of these devices can scroll through your different rooms your
different lights and you can tap on and then you get this control interface here
that you can adjust your devices on now you can turn on and off and if you had
color you could also adjust that the second component of that menu is the
media now media allows you to actually cast the different devices so you can
bring up any of your cast enabled devices and then you're going to be able
to push music to them and here comes music from the Google Home Hub over to
the Lenovo Smart Display now vice-versa here let's get the Lenovo Smart Display
starting music over on the Google Home Hub the other component of that menu is
called broadcast and this just allows you to broadcast a message to all of
your Google Assistant-enabled devices in the home the next differentiate ur to
talk about is obviously price the Google Home Hub regularly retails at 149
dollars u.s. whereas the Google or the Lenovo Smart Display rather the 8 inch
version is retailing at 199 US and the 10 inch is at 249 us now what I'll say
is we're starting to see a creep closer and closer in general on this device to
the price that Google has put out now Google on their own here has already
discounted the Google Home Hub both of these devices right now are for sale
during Black Friday for $99.99 u.s. so quite a discount and bringing those
prices closer for a short time but overall there's about a 50 dollar
differential here between the two devices now for that $50 differential
that we're talking here the Google Home Hub is a 7 inch tablet with no camera
onboard and something called this ambient EQ sensor right here now that am
EQ sensor what I'll tell you is it does a very good job of adjusting the
brightness on the screen the lack of a camera is made up for by the fact that
you can still go ahead and utilize Google Duo phone calls you're going to
be able to see the other person they're just not going to be able to see you so
that capability is still there on the flipside here you are getting a camera
and it can be physically hidden by this switch on the side so it's not just a
software hidden component there it is actually a physical blinder that
basically comes across the front of the camera there so a physical block means
it can't be hacked and therefore I feel like the privacy concerns that Google
talked about you know the reason they chose not to put a camera in here has
been largely mitigated by what Lenovo has done here of course that means you
can do Google Duo video calls and you know in the future who knows what other
services will be available to utilize that capability now on top of that what
what else do you get this is a better speaker and what I'll say and I'm about
to show you that differential this sounds much more like a Google Home Mini
this sounds much more like a Google Home and again let's go through a sound demo
all right now I think you could tell this was pretty close to a Google Home
Mini this was pretty close to an actual Google Home and you know at times it
sounds better at other times it sounds worse it depends really what you're
playing but ultimately the speaker is better over here on the Lenovo Smart
Display whether or not it's the eight or the 10 inch I've been able to test both
one other little thing to mention here this basically this device has one other
feature that the Google Home Hub doesn't that's it right there and I find this
works kind of tilting on edge here like that for Google Duo video calls because
a lot of people are using their phone basically in that portrait mode and it's
an it's an Android phone and they're just looking at it like this in front of
their face and you can have a video conversation in this way otherwise I
find myself saying I can only kind of see half of you here and asking people
to kind of turn that way the Google Home Hub obviously can't do that you can't
turn it like this to get it to work like that so this little bit of design extra
from Lenovo I think really helps if you're you're wanting to make a lot of
those Google Duo phone calls alright now as I continue down the path here of this
comparison review I think lots of people rate at this point or sitting there
going well it's pretty clear this is the better device and it's whether or not I
want to spend $50 but that's not what I'm here to tell you today what I'm here
to tell you is each of these devices has their place and the reason I'm saying
that is because they are designed entirely differently if you look at the
very small form-factor design here from Google what you have is a tiny device
that can sit on a bedside and reacts both to the lighting changes in say your
bedroom this would also work very well as a companion device in a living room
and that's what I would find and you don't have to have a huge
bedside table or side table in your living room to place this on so in my
opinion this is the perfect device for a bedside table whereas moving over here
you kind of have a well not kind of this is a much longer wider device it demands
attention and it's going to be a centerpiece and this is what we've kind
of seen from Google in the past they're not trying to be the centerpiece with
each of their devices they're trying to be there but not be the center and this
is a device that is the center of attention when it sits on my counter and
I have a very large counter in my kitchen but when it sits there it's a
centerpiece even there and so again this has a different usage and what I'd say
is this is more intended for a kitchen it could be a living room piece as well
but again I trend a little more to this for a living room companion device to
use for chromecast or to cast to your TV on a chromecast device this is a little
bit big shiny bright it can be adjusted in terms of brightness and it does have
an auto brightness capability as well but just with the large screen and the
large footprint of this device you're going to feel it a little bit more in
the room next to you there you have it guys
that's basically all I'm going to go through you have a differential in terms
of some of the hardware physically in here you've seen those little signs up
through the video here but really the differential between these two devices
is so small that really I think what it comes down to is where you want to place
one of these devices and for me this is a bedside table or even a living room
side table this is your main display sitting in a kitchen or a very very
public place where you have a big space without a big space this can sometimes
overpower a room whereas this really can't overpower a room but it is always
there always capable has all the capability
he's possible right now for Google Assistant and I think over time both of
these devices will be updated I'm not worried about either of them because the
software is essentially the Google Assistant the cast firmware version and
the Smart Display version that is all managed within the Google Home
application we may see the odd feature that does not work across both but I
think that will be more Hardware based and both of these devices really have
the same set of hardware other than the camera
so overall each have their place guys and I think really that's what you need
to consider is where am i placing this smart display in my home so there you
have it thanks for watching and we'll see you next time.