HARDWARE REVIEW

Google Home Mini Review

by Luke Walsh, January 4th, 2018

The Google Home Mini is Google’s auxiliary device for your smart home automation and a companion for the already available Google Home. It’s an affordable, small speaker which is connected to the AI platform Google Assistant. This allows you to ask it a range of different questions from “What’s the weather like today”, “Play the Rolling Stones”, “Remind me to feed to the dog at 9 am”.

You can also connect it up to dim your lights, turn on your TV or watch your favourite shows on Netflix. The Home Mini is very similar to the larger more expensive Google Home but is a more basic version, not offering all the same connectivity its bigger brother offers. While they make decent standalone speakers they only contain a smaller 40mm driver compared to the 2 50mm driver that is in the Google Home.

This does mean there is a loss of sound quality if you want to fill a decent sized room. The device does get pretty loud but at a volume level of 10 there is distortion and the sound becomes quite flat as there’s not much bass from the secondary unit. Even with connected to Spotify or Google Music, it can let the tracks down a little.

If you have a Google Home or Chromecast Audio though, the Home Mini becomes a great companion to the sound system. As it is better with the high-frequency sounds, treble is sharp and clear with vocal being very pronounced and complements the bigger speakers inside the bigger Home device. It works great in a team where the other devices can carry it but alone, it is unable to produce a total well rounded audio experience.

In terms of connectivity, it does lose some of the options you get with the Google Home. Even though there is Bluetooth in the device, there is no A2DP connection or aux jack. This means you can’t play music from your phone directly to it and you can’t hook it up via a 3.5mm jack.

This is a shame as the competitor Amazon’s Echo Dot does come with a 3.5mm jack for the same price. It would be nice if Google patched the Home Mini to allow streaming of music to the device from your phone as it should be possible. You can though if your phone or tablet supports it, cast the audio to the Mini but not everything will support this feature making it a little limiting.

Design

The Google Home Mini takes the same sort of design aesthetic that a lot of Google’s devices are starting to adopt. It features a coloured fabric on the top of the device and a matte plastic on the bottom. It sort of looks like a Google Home flipped and then compressed until almost flat.

Although fabric, there are some captive touch points on either side of the Mini which allow you to turn the volume up or down, mute timers or alarms and will illuminate four dots to register it has heard you or to show you the current sound level. There’s also a USB micro port on the side to power the device as it does not have a battery like the Echo Dot and a switch underneath to turn the microphone on and off.

Measuring 98mm in diameter and 42mm in height it’s small enough to sit quite neatly anywhere you want in most rooms. It is not too small though that you’ll not be able to find it but could do with being a touch bit bigger. If it could fit a single 50mm driver the sound would be better and the device would not get too much larger.

The Google Home Mini is available in three different colours, we reviewed the Chalk Grey one but it is also available in Charcoal Black or Coral Red.

Performance

Being the most affordable Google Assistant device on the market being able to pick it up during a sale for as little as £34 it does well for its size.

As mentioned it does suffer from some distortion at the higher levels if you are trying to fill a bigger room but is not a bad little device for what you pay. For your bedroom or as mention a companion for the larger Home, it produces decent results.

The microphone to pick up your voice is exceptionally good, even if you talk fairly quiet the Home Mini will pick up the OK Google command and await your orders. Whether you decide to shout across the room or speak it from the table next to you, it should nearly always pick up your commands the first time. There were a couple of creepy moments though when it decided “it could not help with that right now” when nothing was said…

Setting up the device is a breeze too as you download the app onto your phone and teaches you a couple things that you can do with it straight out of the box. Some free audio services such as different radio services like BBC Radio. Once set up you can speak to it to play some music or you can cast music from your phone to the device.

Casting is pretty decent and works well with other Chrome-enabled devices, allowing it to stand above the rest in terms of vocals and high pitch sounds. This would work well with the bass-ier Google Home or another audio source. Outside of this though, you’ll get an okay result if you decide to use it as a standalone speaker. It was used in my living room on its own but I’d never put it above the volume of 7.

Should I buy the Google Home Mini?

The Home Mini much like the Echo Dot has been designed with the main unit in mind. Google has created a device that can function on its own and it works really well but to get the most out of it, really you need to get the other device.

Google Assistant though makes it worth it all on its own even if you take away the music capabilities. The small, affordable device is Google’s attempt to get them in as many homes as possible and I can see it happening. It’s an introduction into the Google device ecosystem and allows you to control your other devices if you have the kit.

Even with just the AI, checking the weather, setting up reminders or even asking it to sing you a Christmas song, there are plenty of reasons to pick up this little piece of kit. It might not be the most powerful speaker but it knows what it needs to be. Regardless of that though, it’s still hard not to recommend the device due to Google Assistant and the low price.