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Google Home Essentials

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Looking to add to your Google-controlled smart home? Stop right here, you’ve hit the gold mine. In 9to5Google’s Google Home Essentials series you’ll find the latest in gear compatible with Google Assistant from speakers to vacuums and so much more.

What is a Google Home Essential?

Google Assistant supports a wide variety of products from lights to cameras and more. In this series, we take a hands-on look at products that support the Assistant and see how they’re useful to a consumer, how they work and how they’re installed, and most importantly how reliable the product is with Google Assistant and how it plays with the Google Home app.

A “Google Home Essential” can be any product that integrates with Assistant. For example, we’ve covered numerous security cameras from TP-Link, Wyze, and Arlo as well as products that might not immediately come to mind, like a garage door opener or a ceiling fan. If we’ve covered it here, consider it a stamp of approval that the product works well with Assistant.

Interested in having your product featured on Google Home Essentials? Get in touch!

Google Home Essentials: TP-Link’s Kasa cameras solve problems that Nest ignores

I love keeping a close eye on my home throughout the day with a series of security cameras around my property, with Google’s Nest at the core. The simple fact is, though, that Google’s system just doesn’t fit into every niche and ignores problems such as cost and local storage. That’s where TP-Link Kasa has come in, offering excellent and flexible hardware with an affordable cost and some of the best Google Assistant integration currently available.

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Google Home Essentials: Nexx adds Assistant to your garage door, no subscription needed

google assistant garage door opener

In the process of building out my smart home, one of the things I knew I wanted to do was have my garage door open up using Google Assistant. Unfortunately, one of the best options I saw also came with the potential of a subscription fee. Luckily, other options exist, and I’ve been tremendously satisfied over the past several months with a system from Nexx.

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Google Home Essentials: Assistant makes Hunter’s Cavera ceiling fan a smart addition to any home

Over the past several years, some smart home products have become ubiquitous. Smart light bulbs, robot vacuums, etc. As those products have gotten more popular, others have also become much more affordable. For the past few months, I’ve been using a ceiling fan called the Hunter Cavera II, a smart home product that integrates with Google Assistant for just a fraction of the cost I expected it to be.

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Google Home Essentials: Eufy RoboVac 30C — Ultimate automated cleaning [Video]

The wealth of smart home hardware and extras continues to grow at a rapid pace, and one of the first forays into smart home tech was no doubt the introduction of automated vacuums. The Roomba is arguably the iconic robotic vacuum cleaner, more-or-less creating the automated home cleaning market. Although selling well and effectively inventing the market, the Roomba didn’t really do all too well when compared to good old fashioned elbow grease.

At this point in 2019 though, there is a new industry leader — Eufy — that has taken that baton and ran with it thanks to their popular but affordable RoboVac line. And it works with Assistant.


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Google Home Essentials: Kiwi Design Battery Base for Home Mini [Video]

Google Home Essentials: Kiwi Design Battery Base for Home Mini

The Google Assistant is arguably the most powerful and the outright best digital assistant on the market — of course, we would say that! As part of our Google Home Essentials series, our express aim is to help you find an array of must-have kit for your Google-powered smart home.
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Google Home Essentials: The LIFX Mini smart bulb [Video]

Smart home tech began for me with Wi-Fi controlled lighting, and there are a few companies that really shifted my own expectations of what I could do within my home with just a little bit of IoT tech. When the Google Home Mini entered my home over 18 months ago, I didn’t ever anticipate that I’d be spending upwards of $45 on a smart bulb but here we are with a thorough LIFX Mini review and it makes it a key addition to our Google Home Essentials series.


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