Google Home Hub: The Jury Is Still Out

You may have heard about the fairly new Google Home Hub. Our family got one as a family Christmas gift. I think we are still on the fence on whether we like this thing or not.

We are a very technical, gadget oriented family – we’re up on all the latest cool technology. So we had high hopes for this new Google Home Hub.

Sure, it can play music from YouTube and your favorite radio stations, and the sound quality is quite good.

But did you know that the Google Home Hub can’t visit websites or do basic website searches? What’s up with that?!?! This IS a Google device after all, and it can’t even do a simple Google search for websites!

One of the main reasons this was purchased as a family gift this Christmas was so we could place it in the kitchen and watch local news while making dinner. Yah… well, unfortunately, it doesn’t play live television.

We also hoped the Google Home Hub would be able to act as a weather station, replacing the fancy weather station we’ve had for years. Yah, it can’t do that either. Yes, it CAN tell you the outdoor temperature at any given moment, but it can’t display radar images, nor can it give you any information other than the basic forecast, and the high and low temperatures in your area. Bummer.

Sure, the Google Home Hub can tell you jokes, read news from the major news sources, tell you your horoscope, and give you current stock quotes. It can also control your home thermostats (assuming you have smart home devices), control your lighting (again, assuming you have smart home devices for lighting) and it can interact with some home security systems – although not our security cameras. Bummer. It can also display your photos as a slideshow (assuming you have your photos stored in Google Photos). Even though it can do the things I just mentioned, these functions are very limited.

To say that we are disappointed in this purchase is an understatement. We had high hopes for Google to pull through and give us an exciting, helpful experience. Sadly, that is just not the case.

As it is now, we have an expensive YouTube speaker in our kitchen that responds to us when we ask it to play our favorite music. Of course, you can certainly accomplish that with your existing iPhone, iPad, or even a Windows computer.

Did we really gain anything new and exciting with the Google Home Hub? Ah… that would be an absolute NO. Sadly.

Here it sits on my desk as a clock. If I ask it what is on our calendar tomorrow, it can tell me. But I could just look at our handwritten calendar to get that information.

Now, if this were 2001, we’d likely think the Google Home Hub was the greatest invention since… the Keurig.  But the modern smartphone has jaded us, with it’s ability to provide instantaneous access to every piece of news, data, music, and social interaction from around the world.  We take for granted that any new piece of electronic wizardry should provide these same “basic” provisions.  And when a new nifty device falls short on it’s ability to deliver… well, naturally we’re going to be disappointed.

*sigh* I guess that is the curse of modern electronic devices.  Ever forward, never look back.  Oooh, that reminds me of a movie we should watch…  “Hey Google, play ‘Back to The Future’.”

Google’s response: “Sorry, Netflix can’t be played on smart displays”.

Ugh.