Six-Year Wait, Modest Upgrade: Google's Home Speaker Falls Short

After waiting six years for a Google-made smart speaker, the Home Speaker is compact, loud, and sports Gemini with Thread/Matter support, but it isn’t a meaningful upgrade over the Nest Audio. It also suffers from an integrated power cable, audio downgrades versus the Nest Audio, and Gemini features that can be gated behind a Premium subscription, leaving it as a solid option mainly for existing Google Home users rather than a must-have upgrade amid strong competition from Amazon and Apple.