- What's up Facebook clan?
Pete Moriarty, here, and today,
I am unboxing my brand-new Google Home Hub.
Check it out, pretty awesome.
This just arrived.
It was announced at Google's event
just a couple of weeks ago.
I jumped on and pre-ordered as soon
as I watched the event, and it has
finally arrived, which is pretty cool.
So I'm gonna unbox it and tell
you a little bit about what this device does.
So a year or so ago Google came out with a Google Home.
I've got one of the original Google Homes here,
and they quickly followed up with the Google Home Mini,
as well, and I've been using both
these devices in my home since they launched.
I've got the Home that kinda sits
in the lounge room, in the main area,
and I've got the Home Mini, which sits in my home office.
And this is the easiest way to use Google's Assistant.
So that's gonna connect to your calendar,
connect to the Google Web, and answer
any questions that you might have,
and you can also use it to connect
to third-party apps, like maybe if
you've got some smart switches or smart light globes.
You can tell it to turn on and off the TV.
If you've got a Chromecast, like I've got
on the TV, sitting behind me, here.
You can tell it to play stuff from YouTube,
or play music from Spotify, or whatever,
onto the Chromecast, which is pretty groovy, as well.
To be honest, there's still a few things
that's missing in the Google Assistant land for me.
Number one is I use the Sonos music system
at home, and Sonos haven't built
in their integration for Google Assistant
just yet, which kinda sucks.
It means that I can't take full advantage
of just telling Google to play music,
and have it play all throughout my house, which I like.
Now, there is the option to use
something like Chromecast audio,
and you gotta buy one of those
and plug them into each one of your stereos,
but I like some of the app features
of the Sonos system, and the way
that it plays music, so unfortunately, no dice there.
The other thing with these is I went full-hog,
and I got smart switches, I got smart light globes,
and I connected them all up, and
while it was pretty groovy to be able
to tell Google to turn lights on and off,
I didn't find it all that useful.
It's all right, it's pretty cool,
but it's not absolutely amazing.
So the Google Assistant has been a kind
of okay experience for me, but not
completely life-changing just yet.
So why did I buy one of these Google Home Hubs?
Well, what I liked about this is this one
actually has a screen, as you can see it there,
and so the Google Home Hub, here,
is the first one to actually have a display.
Now, Google's trying to get more
and more integrated with the rest
of everything that's happening in your house.
As I said, light globes, smart switches,
streaming stuff over to your TV,
which I do use it quite a lot for,
and the Home Hub is designed to be
in one of two places, either in the bedroom,
next to your bed, and you can use
it as kind of like a night stand, displaying photos.
It can show off other bits and pieces
like your day, what's coming up
on your calendar events, and those kind of things,
or you are potentially gonna use it,
for example, in the kitchen, and you can use
it to play YouTube videos of maybe recipes,
and you might use it in the kitchen,
for example, to make that phone call, using Google Duo.
I don't really use that all that often.
We have too many messaging apps,
and Google Duo just seems to be yet
another plus one from Google that not that many people use.
Anyway, what I bought this for is
I don't like having any tech in
my bedrooms, so I'm gonna skip
out on that option, but I like the idea
of having this in the kitchen,
and being able to use it for YouTube cooking videos,
which I use quite a bit, and just being able
to have kind of my stuff, there, at my fingertips.
So for example, if I want to switch a light
on and off, it's there.
If I want to interact with something else
in the Google Home, like maybe
some content that I'm streaming
to a TV, I can adjust the volume,
I can start and stop, anything like that,
right from the Google Home Hub, here.
So that's why I bought one.
It was about $200.
I think it was maybe 220, and I think
that's a pretty fair price for what you're getting.
I think the main downside of this thing is
you're not actually getting a camera on it.
It's only got a microphone and an ambient light sensor
on the front, so unfortunately,
you're not getting a video hangouts experience,
which is what I was expecting,
and kind of what I thought it'd be
really handy for, to click one button
and video call a family member right from the kitchen.
Anyway, so this is the actual device.
This is the first time that I've opened it.
It's actually a little bit smaller than I was expecting.
It's about the size of, a little bit smaller than my hands.
I've got pretty big hands.
And I've ordered one in charcoal,
so you can see the back, here, is quite nice,
and apparently, it's got a fully-fledged speaker
in the back, there.
So apparently the sound out of this will be pretty good.
This is the little display, here,
and you can see there's a couple of sensors on the top.
It's got the proverbial off switch
on the back, if you want it to stop listening to you.
And there we go, that's it.
Let's see what else is in the box, here.
All right, cool.
So we have a Australian power plug.
I ordered this one directly from Google's Website
in Australia, but you can expect
to see these appearing in your local JB Hi-Fi,
I'm sure, before long, if they're not already out there.
Now, it looks like I have a getting started guide,
which is probably gonna give me the basics
of getting started with Google Home.
Plug it in, get the app, and then start talking to Google.
All righty, cool.
I will report back my findings
on how I go with my new Google Home Hub.
This was released and announced
just recently, in the last couple of weeks,
from Google, and I've now got one
of my own, here, which is pretty cool,
and I'll keep you posted on how it goes,
what I use it for, and if you have
any questions on the Home Hub,
just drop them right below this video,
and I'll be happy to answer them.
Until next time, take care.