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What can we do with Google Nest Mini?
In the following chapters, we will show you how to enter the world of Google home assistance, offering you the links where you can buy speakers with integrated Google Assistant and illustrating, as precisely as possible, what are the features that you can take advantage of right away.
Where to buy Google Nest
Who is interested in Google Nest (once called Google Home) can buy it directly from the Google site, spending less than € 30 (for standard shipping).
The model we have recommended is the Nest Mini (it is the new name of the second generation of the Google Home Mini), but we can also focus on the Nest Audio (less than 100 €), which offers a larger speaker and emits a stronger and more engaging sound (we can use it to listen to music with very good quality in a room). If, on the other hand, we want a speaker box also equipped with a monitor, we can take a look at the Nest Hub, available from the Google website for less than 70 €.
Google Nest features
Google Nest is the future, is the smart device that manages houses as we have always seen in science fiction movies! With voice assistance, we will give life to a real one home automation, which can revolutionize everyone’s life and is certainly an interesting and tasty purchase to make.
With Google Nest, it becomes possible to turn on the lights with your voice, raise the thermostat, start listening to music (even in streaming from Spotify or similar services) and see a movie on Netflix (on model with monitor). You can also ask Google how much flight tickets cost to get to some city, find out the results of the matches, be dictated to a recipe to cook, or ask for information of any kind. The Italian version of Google Home, at the moment, is more limited than the English version because it supports fewer applications and doesn’t allow you to make phone calls or send messages, but it works well for many things it can do.
In summary, Google Nest can be useful in these scenarios:
- Home automation: the main purpose of these assistants is to command home devices connected using voice commands.
- Integration with Google products: if we have other Google devices in the house we can interface with great ease.
- Voice assistant: to ask about news, weather, or anything else that can be searched on Google and to set reminders, appointments, and timers.
- Music: to listen to your favorite songs and radio.
In the following chapters, we will try to show you in detail how Google Nest works in all three scenarios so that you can immediately have the most complete picture.
Integration with home automation
As for home devices, the main brands of home automation products can be managed by voice with Google Home in order to control system lights and switches: Philips Hue, TP-Link, D Link, Xiaomi, LIFX, Wemo, and Google Nest thermostats; the list of supported devices grows visibly but, in order not to be mistaken, just buy home automation devices that have the logo Google or Google Home.
If we don’t know where to buy compatible home automation devices, we recommend that you read our guide Domotica (Smart Home): the best devices to install and use.
Integration with other Google products
Google Home also works very well as a voice interface to control Chromecast devices or to check the modern Android TV or Google TV.
We can then manage what to see on TV by choosing the program, video, film, or TV series with voice commands to start on compatible services such as YouTube or Netflix.
Obviously, if we have Google Nest thermostats, integration is automatic, as well as for other devices marketed by Google; if we do not know where to buy Google products that can be integrated with Nest, we recommend that you take a tour of the official Google website.
Handyman voice assistant
As for the voice assistant function, the information that you can hear from Google Home is there, besides the encyclopedia questions (like “When was Tom Cruise born?“), even personalized requests, to remind us, for example, the date of the next trip, time to get to work, today’s weather, last-minute news, and appointments stored in the calendar. You can also set an alarm, start a timer, and draw up a grocery list or to remember as a reminder. For example, you can ask Google Home “to turn off the oven in 20 minutes” or to warn us when to go out to go somewhere based on traffic.
As for the news of the day, you can listen to the reading from newspapers such as Corriere Della Sera, La Repubblica, RMC, RTL 102.5, Sky News 24, Sky Sport, and TGCOM24; while for the weather data those collected directly by Google will be used.
Playing music
As for listening to music, Google Nest Mini can be connected directly to Spotify or similar services such as Youtube Music is Apple Music.
In addition to streaming music, we can listen to the radio from TuneIn, where all the Italian radios are present. YouTube Music is free for Google Home in the version with advertising, so you can immediately listen to all your favorite songs without having to sign up for a subscription; if we want to remove advertising from YouTube Music, simply activate the subscription for € 9.99 per month from the YouTube Music Premium site (with a free one-month trial).
On the reproduction of music we have made a complete study; to find out more just read the article How to listen to music on Google, Alexa, and Siri (voice commands).
Conclusions
Google Nest Mini, along with its big brothers Google Nest Hub and Google Nest Audio, is without a doubt among the best assistants usable in Italy: it works well, it is nice to keep on the furniture or to put in the living room or work studio. As with Android smartphones, the commands are activated by saying aloud Hey Google or Ok Google (obsolete but still valid form), which makes us look a bit strange in the early days and if we are not alone at home. The recognition of voice commands in Italian works well, home automation is rapidly expanding, as are few applications supported.
Personally, I would highly recommend it to those who live and work alone, while in the family or in an office with other people it can become funny to talk to the assistant and also not very practical.
To learn more about the use of the Google assistant, we recommend that you read the guide on Google Assistant: How to create new voice commands.
If, on the other hand, we have difficulty in making ourselves understood by the voice assistant, we can fix it by reading our guide Improve Google Assistant if it doesn’t understand commands.