It’s not just Pixel phones that Google introduced at its annual hardware event as the company had other products up its sleeves, too.
The second generation of Google Nest Mini (formerly Home Mini) is out, and at first blush, closely resembles its predecessor. However, a closer look reveals there are some subtle changes in store for fall 2019.
Whereas the first-gen featured an orange bottom, the underside of the speakers now match the color of the fabric. Speaking of colors, this year looks to have four options: Charcoal, Chalk, Coral, and Sky (light blue).
Staying with the bottom, if you flip the speaker over you’ll see that it now has a cutout for hanging on a wall.
Given that the Nest Mini is ultimately a speaker, it makes sense to address the sound, too. Google does just that, providing bass that’s twice as strong as the original Google Home Mini.
Additionally, users can now can pair two Nest Minis for stereo sound or use stream transfer to move your music, audiobooks, and podcasts from one speaker to another via voice.
Nest Mini improves the Google Assistant’s speed by leveraging on-device machine learning, learning your most common music and smart home commands. It responds faster over time and can automatically adjust the volume based on background noises.
Other changes in the Nest Mini come in the form of the power port which is now a 15W rounded plug instead of the microUSB connection. Bluetooth also gets a punch up to v5.0 instead of 4.1 with Wi-Fi at 802.11 b/g/n/ac.
The Google Nest Mini retails for $49 and you’ll be able to find it in all the same places you previously saw the Home Mini. Retailers include Google, Target, Best Buy, and Walmart. Look for it starting on October 22.
