Google Home Mini, we analyze the most affordable virtual assistant after its arrival in Spain

In Spain it has already begun the war of virtual assistants. Google has been the first to launch three products, the Home, the Home Mini and its WiFi port. Meanwhile Apple is still far from launching the HomePod in Spain and Amazon is already testing Alexa in Spanish. We have been testing the Google Home Mini and here we leave you our impressions, although from the outset we are going to tell you that we have a huge disappointment.

Let's take a closer look at the cheapest virtual home assistant on the market, and unsurprisingly, the price has a lot to do with its capabilities and the way it performs ... Has Google released an unfinished product? Find out with us.

As always we are going to take a tour of the hardware, the design and above all the most important in a product like this, how it performs the functions for which it was created. The reality is that although it should be a fairly simple product, we realize that virtual assistants (at least in Spanish) are far from standardizing or becoming a mass consumer product ... will this trend change as the months go by? We sincerely hope so.

Design: Small, discreet and functional

Nothing we didn't know The Google Home Mini has been launched in Spain in its two versions, black and white. It is an almost perfect sphere that fits easily in the hand and has a height of just over two centimeters. The upper part is covered in nylon while the lower half is made of polycarbonate. For the base we find an orange silicone gum that will prevent it from being a thrown weapon on top of any table or shelf, something very welcome considering how little the product weighs.

We have a physical button and a switch. The physical button is located at the bottom of the device, where the area with silicone to avoid scares. Meanwhile, on the side or bottom we have a switch that when sliding allows us to activate or deactivate the microphone. Meanwhile, in the upper part we have a series of LEDs, which despite the fact that most of the time they light up in different shades of white, we see that they show different colors like the Google logo when the device is turned on. These LEDs are the ones that will tell us if the Home Mini is listening when we speak to it. In the same way, next to the microphone switch we have a microUSB input, the first unpleasant point, a brand that could set standards with its decisions opts for the microUSB just when there is more talk of USB-C, a negative point from my point of sight.

Speaker: Very little for a product of that price

En Actualidad Gadget We have updated many speakers from many brands. We know that today the speaker is a piece of hardware that should not be skimped on due to the ease of its manufacturing and implementation. For this reason I know that the size of the Google Home Mini is more than enough to offer decent sound, And it is not like that. If you were thinking of using the Google Home Mini to listen to music, better think of another cheaper and more efficient product.

You will ask yourself… Why this critic so strong? Because the Google Home Mini is designed by and for the virtual assistant, that is, Google Assistant can be heard perfectly in many adverse situations, but when you put music on, things change, the sound is extremely flat, above 50% power the bass literally disappears, and if you launch yourself above 80% of the power, the sound begins to distort directly. It is clear that the speaker has been the great loser of the price adjustment that Google has made with the Home Mini, however, I honestly do not think it is an excuse to offer a sound equivalent to that of a wireless speaker of about € 15 from brands like SoundPeats or Aukey. 

Google's intention is clear, if you want to listen to music decently pay double for a standard Home, the Google Home Mini is designed solely for you to take advantage of its virtual assistant, if you find one. Apart from this, you should know that It only works with Spotify Premium, so you should forget about pairing Spotify if you are not a paying user.

Virtual assistant: Still as primitive as we expected

You can watch the video that leads this review to see the evidence. It is clear that Google Assistant is able to tell us which is the next game in SpainTell us the news of the day (he has a strange fixation for always offering me those of the newspaper El País) or tell me what the weather is going to be.

When you start asking for more specific things, things change. He defends himself if you ask him for the current Spotify hit list or a song, but you must be specific and leave no room for doubt. When you ask him if you have any pending events on the calendar, he leaves you straight, the first one on the forehead. So with everything beyond the topics that occur to you, however, he defends himself in luxury with Google searches, he has been able to tell us what is the stature of Mariano Rajoy, it is clear what Google's priorities are.

Therefore, Google Assistant is still far from being a virtual assistant of our day to day, and continues to remain a search engine or information provider quickly.

Google Home: Forget if you expect me to be your home assistant

We have a variety of products from koogeek like switches, bulbs, sockets, lamps ... etc. Not only that, but our home automation office also accompanies the signature honeywell, one of the most prestigious in the world, we enjoy cameras, smoke and gas sensors, motion sensors ... Well, despite being on the list of compatible brands, Google Home has only really been able to manage the Honeywell thermostat. It is totally impossible in Spain to make the rest of the products work.

These products, however, are fully compatible with HomeKit and Alexa, virtual assistants with which we have not had any problems. I mean, yes Google Home is not compatible with two of the world's best-selling smart home brandsor, what is it compatible with? Well apparently takes luxury with "Very cheap" Philips Hue lamps and little else, because we have not been able to make it work correctly with Samsung systems, yes, with the Chromecast integrated in Samsung televisions it also takes luxury.

Editor's opinion

You have already read our experience with the Google Home Mini and you will get an idea that I cannot recommend buying it as of its launch. I have high hopes that Google will release updates and join hands with various hands to promote the product which ends up turning it into something fantastic, but the Google Home Mini is not a virtual assistant, nor is it a decent speaker, nor is it a home assistant.

So… What is the Google Home Mini? From my point of view it is an unfinished product that Google has launched in its quest to reach the market before its main competitors. You can buy it from 59 euros at El Corte Inglés, Mediamarkt and Carrefour.