Review: Nest Audio
Price: £89 (inc VAT) from fave.co/3dtau6o
The replacement for Google’s original, now discontinued, smart speaker is here, and after listening to it for a few days, I’m not missing the old Google Home one bit. The rectangular Nest Audio delivers truly impressive sound considering its £89 price tag, and its sturdy, fabric-covered design looks handsome in person. With Google Assistant on board, the Nest Audio can also respond to voice commands and take charge of smart home devices. Waiting in the wings, however, is Amazon’s refreshed Echo speaker, which also costs £89 and packs in stereo (rather than mono) sound, plus a Zigbee smart home hub.
DESIGN
From the moment pre-announcement photos of the speaker appeared online, the Nest Audio’s industrial design provoked furrowed brows and even some derision; indeed, I wrote that it looks like a “potato sack” or “a pillow standing on end.” Well, shame on me. Seeing it in person, the Nest Audio looks smaller than I imagined, and certainly more stylish and elegant than a crumpled pillow.
Placing it next to a red vase on a shelf near my dining room table, I thought it looked pretty sharp. The Nest Audio’s design makes even more sense when you see how its two front-firing drivers (a tweeter and a mid-woofer, which we’ll discuss in more detail momentarily) are vertically stacked, just like a conventional speaker.
Measuring 175x124x78mm, the Nest Audio is more than an inch taller than the Google Home speaker it’s
