Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) Review - 6 Months Later

The nest hub .

Second generation is the newest version of the nest hub .

Google released that updates the original with better sound , new hands free gestures .

And the main new feature of this device , sleep tracking .

I've had my second gen nest hub for over six months now .

So I'm gonna walk you through everything new with this device .

The core features any downsides and then ultimately , who I recommend this device for now by far , the largest addition to the second gen nest hub is the soly radar chip that has been embedded into the top of the device where you see that little gray circle .

The solely radar chip on the nest tub has a few purposes .

It's used for sleep tracking , quick gestures and proximity detection .

Sleep tracking works by using the radar inside the nest tub to detect movements and breathing while you're asleep .

The nest hub will also use its mics to detect sound like snoring and coughing .

And the display can even use its ambient light E Q sensor to measure the amount of light in your room .

And it's included temperature sensor to see how warm or cool it is while you're asleep based on all of this data , Google will give you a sleep summary that you can see when you wake up .

It'll show you how long you were asleep for .

If you got to bed on time or late , the points where you woke up during the night and how much you snored and or coughed .

The sleep summary U I shows three circles with each one representing a different metric , the quality of your sleep duration and how well you adhere to your sleep schedule .

The goal is to try to get these three circles to overlap as much as possible .

When you do , they'll turn purple and that means that you slept well .

When they don't overlap as much , they'll turn an orangish color and you don't want that .

That means you did not sleep very well .

And this can happen for several reasons .

For example , if you go to bed late and you sleep in late , you will be dinged for both of those scenarios by Google , even if you got the recommended 7 to 8 hours of sleep .

Now , if you want to see more data from your nest hub , sleep tracking , like seeing how you slept over multiple days , this data can be accessed from the Google Fit app available on Android and I OS .

So far , my impressions of sleep tracking have been pretty favorable .

I like that you don't have to wear anything on your wrist .

There are no cameras involved , so no cameras are pointing at you asleep from your nightstand , which I find kind of creepy .

And the data that I get from the nest hub for sleep tracking is comparable to the sleep tracking data I get from my Apple watch .

Now , there are two potential downsides with sleep tracking on the nest hub that might impact you .

One is it cannot track two people's sleep simultaneously .

So for example , if you and your partner both want to track your sleep with a nest hub , you'll need to buy two devices .

The second potential downside is that Google is planning to charge for sleep tracking insights starting in early 2020 two .

If you're like me and you already use a fitness tracker , it's going to be a hard sell to pay Google for something down the road that your sleep tracker today can already do and do for free .

But who knows we'll see what the company comes out with in 2022 .

So that sleep tracking .

Next , let's talk about another sleep related feature .

And this is one I use a lot on my nest hub and that is the alarm settings which you get to by swiping up from the bottom of the display and selecting the alarm clock icon .

The alarm clock functionality of the nest hub is quite good in my experience and you can easily create multiple alarms and can see them all in one place on the screen to change settings for your alarms .

You can click the gear icon on the alarms page and set the alarm volume .

Whether or not you want to enable a sunrise alarm , which will gradually brighten the nest hubs display with warm colors like a sunrise and gradually increase the alarm volume as well .

Also , there are quite a few different alarms to choose from which I appreciate .

You can also sync your smart lights to your sunrise alarm if you want to .

So the lights will gradually dim along with the nest hubs display and even start Google assistant routines .

I started off having my smart lights connect to the sunrise alarm , but quickly found out that you can't actually change the color temperature or if you have a specific scene like in Phillips U , you cannot set that scene with the sunrise alarm feature on a nest hub .

So if you're like me and you like your lights dimming up with a sunrise color in the morning , you just , you simply can't do that with the sunrise alarm feature .

They'll default to a warm white color .

Lastly in settings you can enable or disable motions sense for snoozing your alarm by waving your hand in front of the display .

Now , one concern you may have about using a nest hub as an alarm clock is what happens when the wifi goes out when I have tested this .

As long as you've already set the alarm before the wifi goes out , the alarm will actually still ring so long as the power doesn't also go out .

The nest hub can also help you go to sleep as well by displaying a new evening part of the U I that'll show you shortcuts to things like sleep sounds which help you drift off to sleep with certain ambient sounds like the sounds of an ocean or a rainforest .

You can also set the display to turn all the way off when it detects darkness .

If you're like me and you wake up in the middle of the night and you don't want to see what time it is .

There are actually a lot of settings for the nest hub that you can set and forget from the Google Home app , like limiting the speaker's volume during the night with night mode or adjusting the trigger word sensitivity when you want to use the Google Assistant .

All right .

Now let's go back to that solely radar chip for a second .

This technology on the nest hub is also used for proximity detection , which will make certain parts of the U I larger like a timer when it senses you've walked away from the display .

So it's easier to see across the room .

Also , you can play or pause music by using motions sense by just waving your hand forward towards the display .

So those are some of the new sleep tracking and motions sense features of this device .

Now , let's talk about a few other new things with the second generation nest hub .

While the design has remained largely the same as the original Google did remove the frame border for the second gen desktop and the bottom of the chalk version of the nest hub that I have is no longer orange but white .

They also updated the enclosure .

So it's now made from 54% of recycled materials .

Google also improved the speaker giving it a 1.7 inch or 43.5 millimeter driver and it does sound improved .

However , keep in mind that nest minis and nest hubs are the worst sounding speakers in Google's lineup .

That's not to say they sound terrible or anything , they sound adequate for what they are given the space constraints .

Google is working with , with these speakers , but you're not buying them primarily for their audio quality .

That's what a device like the nest audio is for with the nest hub .

You're really primarily buying it for that display .

Not necessarily the speaker in the back .

Now , Google also kept the same great screen that they had on the original nest hub with both an ambient E Q and light color temperature sensor .

So the display looks good no matter what the ambient light conditions are around it .

And they added an extra microphone to the devices well , which helps it better pick up my voice .

The setup experience with the new nest hub has also been improved as well with the new QR code during set up to connect the device to the Google home app and with added steps explaining the new sleep and motions sense features .

So that's everything brand new to the second gen nest hub .

Now it does retain some of the core features from the previous generation of device .

And the top one that comes to mind is photo frame .

The second generation nest hub can integrate with Google Photos , one of the best online photo storage services available for both Android and I OS .

And it allows you to easily update and manage the photos displayed on the frame .

It's one of my favorite features of the nest hub , especially that memories feature where the photo display will show me old photos taken one to even 10 years back .

It's a feature that makes me happy , sometimes sad when seeing a loved one or a pet that's recently passed away , but it's a feature that always gets some sort of emotion out of me , mostly a positive emotion which is rare to find in a tech product .

And it's weird that it's a positive emotion .

It's basically like the opposite of social media .

You can also use the nest hub as a dynamic weather clock which I absolutely love .

Another thing I use my nest hub for a lot is controlling my smart home .

You can swipe down from the top of the screen to enter the home control settings for your Google home .

And I love the card system display that Google has put here , which makes it easy to see everything going on in my smart home .

And in the room , my nest hub is in which for my case is in my bedroom , I can see what level my bedroom lights are set to my blind tilt settings .

The status of my room are running and then I can also see the status of other devices around my home , like my door lock status and a shortcut to see the feed from my nest doorbell , which will also be reviewing on the channel .

So make sure to subscribe to see more Google product reviews like that .

One .

Another major use for the nest hub is music playback and controls .

You can stream music from your favorite streaming service like Spotify , Apple music , at least here in the US , Dieser Pandora and of course youtube music , the nest hub display makes it easy to play and pause music and skip to the next track .

You can also cast media from your devices to your nest hub as well as long as the device or app that you're using supports casting like youtube or youtube music .

And yes , you can play content from video streaming services as well on this display like from Disney plus , Netflix , Hulu , Paramount plus and more .

And you can also play games on the display as well and can browse through different games available by tapping the screen to bring up the card menu back to music for a second .

You can also group your nest hub with other Google speakers through the Google Home app to create speaker groups or say if you have a speaker right next to your net top , that has better sound quality like my Google Home Max in the settings for the nest hub , you can set the display to actually default to playing music and media on the Google Home Max speaker or another speaker group , which is a feature that I absolutely love .

Now , another way to control your music and your smart home and do a bunch of other things on the nest hub is using the Google assistant .

The Google assistant is the native assistant on the nest hub and it uses the nest hubs three far field microphones to answer your requests .

The Google Assistant on the nest hub also features voice match where the Google assistant will learn your particular voice .

So it knows who's talking to it .

And the Google assistant on this device is also great with music controls .

You can ask it to play a specific song artist album from your linked music streaming service .

Hey , play the album equals by Ed Sheeran .

OK , Ed Sheeran from Apple music playing on Josh's bedroom speakers .

You can also ask it to do things like control an individual smart home device like running my Roomba or a group of smart home devices like controlling all of the lights in my bedroom .

If you decide to put one in your kitchen , you can ask it for recipes and have recipes there on the screen as you cook along and you can even save your favorite recipes to your cookbook .

The one downside with this feature is not all recipes from all sites are going to work with it and there's currently no way for you to load your own recipes to the service .

Now , another kitchen related feature with the nest hub is lists .

You can tell the Google Assistant to create a list or use the default shopping list .

When you tell it to add something to your shopping list .

I use this feature a lot like when I open my fridge and I realize I'm running out of milk .

I can just say add lactose free milk to my shopping list .

The nest hub gives you the added benefit of being able to actually see your list on the display so you can see what you've already added to your list and you can always sync your Google Assistant lists with services like any list , any dot do bring shopping lists and of course Google keep .

If you decide not to sync your list with these services , you can access your shopping lists at shopping list dot google dot com .

Making it easy to check things off your list as you're out and about .

And you can also share any list you create with the Google assistant with others in your household .

Another thing you can do with the Google assistant on the nest hub is reminders .

And I found this feature very useful .

You can create reminders that will appear as virtual sticky notes on the nest hubs display .

And best of all , you can assign them to certain people in your household .

So let's say your partner volunteered to take out the trash , but they forgot to .

You can tell the Google Assistant on the nest hub to remind them to take out the trash .

So that's everything new with the second gen nest hub .

The core features that I've really found to be useful over six months .

Now , here's who I think this device is four .

I think the second gen desk hub is a perfect device for people who want a digital photo frame that connects with one of the best online photo services available and makes it easy to keep your photos up to date .

It also acts as a major alarm clock upgrade with its sleep tracking and extensive alarm features like the sunrise alarm .

It acts as a great smart home controlled display and display interface for controlling music for one or multiple speakers and find a if you want a kitchen display that can bring up recipes and makes it easy to start and pause music and media without having to touch the display .

I think the nest hub would be a great choice there as well .

The second gen Google Nest hub retails for $99 and comes in several different colors .

I've left links on the side of this video .

If you want to purchase this device or learn more about it and if you want to learn more about building or expanding your smart home , how to better use the Google assistant or see more reviews on Google and Nest devices .

I've left links in the description below to videos we've done that cover all of those topics .

So make sure to check those out if you have any questions about the Google Nest hub or want to share your experience with this device .

Leave a comment below .

Hit that thumbs up button if you found this video helpful and subscribe to the channel to see more six months later .

Reviews like this one on Google and other tech products for six months later .

I'm Josh Teter .

Thanks for watching .