Google Nest

GOOGLE NEST AUDIO

A worthy competitor to the Amazon Echo, this is the best Google Assistant based smart speaker

SCORE

PRICE £75 (£90 inc VAT) from store.google.com

If there was one problem with the original Google Home speaker, it was that music didn’t sound great on it. The Nest Audio was intended to fix that, with revamped audio internals designed to make this the all-round smart speaker to suit most people.

Google also revamped its smart speaker design. Decked out in a soft material, the Nest Audio’s lozenge-shaped body looks far nicer than the cylindrical Google Home, even if the new model looks a little like a fancy bath pillow in pictures.

As with the smaller speakers, there’s a physical switch on the rear that cuts off the microphones and stops the Google Assistant from listening to you. There’s a 3.5mm line input here, although Bluetooth lets you use this speaker wirelessly if you need to remotely connect anything.

Touch-sensitive controls sit on top. Tap the sides to change volume up and down, and tap the middle of the speaker to play/pause content. These controls aren’t clearly marked on the top, so tapping the