Product ReviewsGoogle Home Mini Smart Assistant - Charcoal (GA00216-US)

Fantastic Assistant

This item works well with other WIFI products and associated accessories such as door locks, Z Wave lighting, wall outlets and music. Controls my zone thermostats on demand and with the updated associated mobile application you’re able to link and modify multiple home mini speakers into groups. If you want honk your TV remote is addictive this device is awesome. Excellent S a cooking assistant, providing recipes, setting timers, alarms, and updating you with current events in the news and weather. I now have four (4) of these placed in strategic locations throughout my home. Love it!Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: new | Sold by: endeardistributors

Not great, Alexa works better for me

The Google Home Mini may work quite well on its own, but when it comes to integrating with other products, setting up grouped actions, and even connecting to third party devices, it seriously lacks behind the Amazon Echo Dot in my uses.

There are a few features that are great though (like locating my phone, or connecting with other Google devices), but when you are in the same room with a Google Home Mini and a smartphone with Google Assistant active, both may try to answer the same request, or your phone's screen may turn on and remain on... and that gets very annoying.

If you only have the Google Home Mini, you may find it useful, especially to connect with other Google Home devices. However, Even if Alexa isn't quite as ""good" with voice recognition at times, I would still recommend an Amazon Echo if you have other third-party devices to control.Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: new | Sold by: jacstac_6

Great gift

Purchased for my 80 year old Mother in Law, she loves it!
Nice gentle alarm function and she can play music and check the weather and news anytime she likes. Far easier for her to use than a radio because of voice commands.
highly recommended for the elderly once you coach them to say OK or Hey instead of just "GOOGLE" each time!
Broadcast feature isn't as handy as you might think but still nice to have. Looking forward to more assistant functions in the future.
Can also be used to voice command lights with a SONOFF family product or compatible smart bulb.Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: new | Sold by: google

Knowledgeable with crisp sound quality.

Love my google mini! Only reason I rated 4 stars instead of 5 is because sometimes it doesn't recognize my voice when I try to set a reminder. Not sure why as it recognizes my voice for everything else. Seems to only be an issue with reminders. I did send google feedback, but just today. Love google's clever remarks, love the knowledge it has, love how easy it is to work and love the side taps that can change the volume even though there are no physically visible buttons. I have 4 Alexa devices in my home and I still love my google mini. They have different knowledge and it seems google knows more and has several clever comebacks for the same question asked over. Alexa always responds with the same one response answer. I still do love my Alexa's also, though. Oh also in my opinion sound quality is very crisp very good.Read full review...

Small device with big features

I mainly got this to replace my Echo because I already pay for Google Play Music and I wanted to use that instead of Prime Music. Minus one star because there's no "real" Bluetooth functionality as it can't play to Bluetooth speakers, so I had to end up getting a chromecast to play it on my TV (via my home theater setup).Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: streetrobin

Good quality hardware, but...

I really like the design and quality of this device, it's quite neutral but very responsive. I bought this to compare it to the Amazon echo, a product I use now.
Google home mini has some nice advantages compared to the Amazon echo, the voice recognition seems to be a lot better and it's better at picking up your voice in a noisy environment. It also just looks a lot nicer. However, the software, Google Home, used to manage this device is just awful. The Google Home app has almost no gui tools to work with a smart home environment, for some strange reason Google wants you to use your voice commands to set this up. This is done by asking google home mini to scan for new devices and then you can manage them through additional voice commands, but if you haven't configured your device names with the specific intention of using voice control you have a major problem. I for example have a light in your living room named LightWallLeftLRoom, you can imagine the problems getting a voice recognition system selecting this device. For Amazon echo I can set up routines using the Alexa app gui, which gives me easy visual access to administrate my smart home devices. Using routines i can connect the voice commands i want to use to the devices i want to manage, for example i have a routine called "Good night" which turns off all lights and media center devices.
I know Google is implementing something similar, but for now it's only available to the US as far as i can find.
I can also mention that Amazon support also is a lot better than Google, from Amazon i at least get a response from a human while Google just links me some random forum threads if i get any response at all.Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: new | Sold by: regainthestyle

Great, but...

Great product, works well, but does as of yet not support other languages than english and You need to set Your Cell phone to English to make use of all it's features.
Also, having difficulties setting it up for local time zone...

Greatly recommended and can't wait till it comes supportive of other languages.Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: updegoods

Great smart speaker -- works great with Hassio

I'm using this with the open-source Home Assistant software on a Raspberry Pi running the Hassio distribution. It took a few hours to set that up but it works fine now. Setting up the Google Home mini was very easy in comparison -- just download the app for your phone and connect it to your network. Very simple.

I don't have to speak very loud for the Google Home Mini to answer me, just clearly. I haven't had it very long but it's already working out very well.

There may be a buzz at the loud volume settings. It could also be vibrating against the wooden table where it rests. I don't know if you could really crank up the music with this speaker. It works well for weather reports and the news. I have it on 50% volume and I can hear it clearly -- it seems to be about a normal voice volume at that setting. I have a regular Google Home downstairs in the kitchen that has a better speaker for music, or I guess you could go for the even larger speaker if you wanted better sound.

I'm not trying to say this speaker sounds bad -- it just doesn't cover as large a range as a larger speaker. It is small but does pretty well for its size. It is also heavier than I expected.

For my needs, it's great. I can hide it on a shelf under the table by the armchair and I have it set up to turn on the light in the room by voice control. I hope to automate more things, like maybe the window blinds or more electrical outlets. I want to automate my other Raspberry Pi running Volumio. That's a Hassio issue though. Still, it can be done. I can turn on a radio station on Kodi by voice. Hassio really opens up possibilities for this speaker, but you have to be willing to put in the work. It's what I enjoy, though.

There are many smart devices that will easily work with Google Home products. They are not as complicated to set up as Hassio, so if this review is putting you off, rest assured that there are other easier ways, if you are interested.Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: new | Sold by: hhtraders18

Small with Mighty Features

I had the Home base station and found it a much better assistant than Alexa. When I found this Home Mini, the price made it a no-brainer. The speaker mic picks up my voice from another room. I am finding I use it for even more than the Home base. I set alarms and notifications for myself. Play music and radio stations. It keeps telling me about additional capabilities I wasn't aware it had. The more I learn about it, the more I like it. Read full review...

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: pre-owned | Sold by: sourleche

Awesome

The device works great makes it really easy to stream everything and even controls my nest thermostat so it’s been great and it was a good price has good volume to play music

Verified purchase:  Yes | Condition: new | Sold by: google