The Google Home Speaker finally has a release date and, with it, Google has also ended its long-running and mega-hit Nest Mini speaker. It leaves the lineup in a weird place, as Google has a product that doesn’t replace anything it had before, and might not be everyone’s cup of tea either.
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The Nest Mini and Google Home Mini before it are some of the most popular smart speakers ever. That’s thanks in part to Google and everyone else handing them out like candy, and also thanks to their low cost of purchase. A mere $35 bought not only a capable smart home voice assistant, but especially in the case of Nest Mini, a pretty decent little speaker for just listening to music in whatever room you want.
And now it’s dead.
Google discontinued the several-year-old product in the midst of the launch of Google Home Speaker this week. It’s a decision that makes sense at a glance, until you consider that there’s no real replacement here. Google Home Speaker looks great, but the $99 product is not only more than twice the cost of Nest Mini, but it simply doesn’t fit into the same use cases. The new speaker doesn’t have an easy mounting method like the Mini’s built-in screw mount, nor does the new form factor even make sense in a lot of places you might throw a Nest Mini into.
The Nest Mini will likely still exist at third-party retailers and on the used market for years to come, but Google is entering effectively uncharted territory here. For nearly a decade now, Google has had a cheap smart speaker on offer, and now it doesn’t.
Google Home Speaker doesn’t really fit into the mold of the Nest Audio either, for that matter. While I’m optimistic about its sound quality, our readers and simple physics disagree – it’s very unlikely Home Speaker will sound as good as Nest Audio.
It really leaves Google’s smart home lineup in a weird place. Where the Nest Cam reboot of 2021 was effectively comprised of products that were replacements or at least replacement-ish for existing products, the smart speaker & display space is effectively trying to find a whole new audience – not the worst play given how abundant these products are, but also pretty annoying for anyone who just wants an upgrade or fits into that previously established mold.
Yet, I can’t help but feel like this is just the first step.
Google Home Speaker is the only new product for the “Gemini era” of the smart home so far, but it very much feels like a launchpad more than anything else. Like the original Google Home from 2016, this feels like a product that could quickly result in Google bringing back a new “Mini” in the future, or a new audio-focused speaker beyond that – I’d love a proper Google Home Max sequel. We also know that smart displays are on Google’s radar, and the recent appearance of a “Google Home Display” in the works really has me feeling optimistic about what’s next.
After several years of Google dragging its feet on this portion of the smart home, I’m glad to see things are moving again, and even more so glad that Google isn’t rushing to usher in a full reboot. Like the company’s approach to Gemini for Home and this first new piece of hardware, “delays” aren’t a bad thing, they’re what customers have asked for – doing it the right way.
What do you think?
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