Everything the Google Nest Hub Can Do

This is the Google Home Hub, the smallest Google Assistant smart display you can buy. Let me show you what it can do. Hey everybody, welcome to Tech with Brett, where I help tech work for you. If you own any Google Home or Google Assistant device, make sure you hit subscribe as my channel's all about helping you learn how to use these products. So since the Google Home Hub was announced, this little screen over here, I've been getting a lot of questions on what it can actually do and what are some of the benefits of having that over a regular Google Home. So today's video is gonna show you specifically all the things that you can do with the Google Home Hub to see if it's the right device for you. So starting off, the Google Home Hub has Google Assistant built into it with a screen. That's essentially what it is. So if you own a Google Home Mini or a regular Google Home or any other Google Assistant speaker, it has all of that functionality. So anything you could do over here, you can now do over here with the screen. And so we're gonna talk a lot about the benefits of having a screen today. So first off, the device itself, this is the Google Home Hub, so made by Google. On the back here, you have a mute switch. So you can mute Google Assistant. So if I do that. The mic's off. Now when I try to activate Google Assistant, it will not do that. It doesn't hear me. So then I can turn that back on. So here on the back, you have the volume button. So you have volume up and down right here on the side. I find it really easy to get to. And then up here at the top, you do have two far-filled microphones. So that allows the Google Home Hub to hear you when you activate it with the activate commands. And then here in the middle, you have a EQ ambient sensor. So that will automatically adjust the display based on the lighting. Now right now, I have it turned to just manual brightness so I can change it up and down. But auto brightness really looks awesome on this. It will adapt to the different types of lighting that you have during the day or during the night. And then you have the seven-inch touchscreen display. So when the screen is off, it will show an ambient mode. Now there are three different ambient modes. You can have it either display Google curated pictures or art or different photos from there. You can have it show different clocks. So there's actually six different clock styles. So you have a light theme, a dark theme, and then you have some more modern themes. I really like those. And then you have the option to choose your own photos from Google Photos. And I have a video all about how to create your own Google Photos to display on here, but then those can play and it just looks really nice. And it almost looks just like a picture frame. So that's what it can do when you're not using it. But to use it, all you need to do is activate it with your voice and do any Google Assistant, but on the screen you can tap. And then here it will show you what you've been listening to. It will show the weather. You can swipe over and here are some other recommendations that you have. So some music or YouTube videos. And then at the very end, it will show you some recommendations. And then here you can tap to learn more about what the Google Assistant will do on the smart display. Now, if you want to go back ever, you swipe over from the left. And then if you swipe over again, it will go to its clock mode. And this is usually what shows up at night when it gets really dim. And you can have options to turn those on and off. Some of the main things that this can't do, just to start off, is it does not have apps that you go and download. Everything that this can do is stream from the internet. Also with that, there is no web browser on here. You can ask it to pull up certain Google search images, but other than that, there's really not much you can do in way of web browsing. This is more of a quick, simple device that you would access certain information and then be able to stream media and music from. So first, let's start off by talking about the media that you can play on this. So it is a small screen, but it's very convenient to have. Just maybe in a room that you don't want to add another TV, you could still consume your media right on here. So first you have YouTube. So all you need to do is ask it to play YouTube. Play Tech with Brett from YouTube. Playing Tech with Brett on YouTube. In this video, I'm going to show you how to transfer information from your old Android or iOS device. Here it has pulled up my latest upload. I can tap on the screen and then I can swipe up and I can see more of my videos from my channel. I'm also able to turn on closed captioning. So here you can see that it's popped up right on the screen. Show me videos by Jimmy is promo. Here you go. I can also use the show me command and here it's pulling up Jimmy's promo videos. Here I can click on his channel and it will just play through his videos. There is no place where you can see all your subscriptions. It's pretty much search by voice to be able to see and find your favorite YouTube videos. Then if you are a YouTube TV subscriber, you can also ask it to play all the things that YouTube TV offers. So any of your recorded subscriptions or any of the things that it can watch and you can stream YouTube TV right on here. Now it also is a cast device. So anything that you have on your phone that can cast pretty much will be able to cast to here. So we use Plex a lot at our house for my own movies and I can click the cast button and it will cast it to the Google Home Hub. I can also use an app like PBS Kids. I could cast that over here since that app is not supported by voice. So there are a lot of different media options. You can also just ask it to play you some news and it will pull up the latest news report in a video form so that you can watch it on here instead of just having to listen to it like the other Google Home devices. Play Homecoming from Play Movies. All right, playing Spider-Man, Homecoming on Google Play Movies and TV. That's what I'm waiting for. Play The Office from Netflix. Sorry, Netflix can't be played on smart displays. One of my favorite things it can do is being able to quickly adjust your smart home. So here you can swipe down from the top and here you can adjust your smart home and since we're in the office, right now I can quickly turn on and off the office just by pressing that button. Turns off all the lights in the office and then I tap it again and it will turn all of those lights right back on. So here I can go in and change the lights in a specific room. In that room I have brightness control. So this depends on what lights you have, on what can work. So there I can quickly turn it on and off. Here you can see that when I adjust the brightness, it's adjusting the brightness on this lamp that I have. Then here I can turn it all the way down to 1% or completely turn it off. And then here we can go into the color control. So here I can choose a specific color and these are also the names of each of the colors that you can use. So as soon as you tap on the different color, it will automatically adjust that on all the color supported lights that you have in that room. Now even if you just add one home hub to your house, it still allows you to control the lights of all the rooms in your home. In the home view dropdown you can also cast media, broadcast a message, change your thermostat, view your smart cameras, and change your TV supported devices. One of the really cool features that is new with the home hub is the ability to link to your Nest Hello smart doorbell and the home hub. So let's say somebody comes up and rings the doorbell, it will now notify you right on the home hub just by popping up right on the screen and you can see who is there. Someone you know is at the front door. Once the doorbell notification pops up, I can send a response right here or... Tell them to go away. Sure, I'll let them know. Hi there, no one can answer the door right now. We'll be notified you stopped by. Not fair, I guess we'll go somewhere else. Now some of the other things that this is very useful for is let's say you have this in the kitchen and you want to do some cooking. You can actually pop up a recipe, it will show the recipe on here, it will show all the ingredients and take you step by step through that process. It's very convenient to use and then you don't have to pick up anything or get your recipe book all dirty. It's available right there all by voice. Now with that, you can also set timers. So you can have multiple timers set up at the same time on the Google Home Hub. So when all the timers pop up on screen, you can see when a certain item is done without having to activate the Google Home every time you want to see how much is left on the timer. So this is definitely a very convenient device to have in the kitchen. Now another great place to put this device would be in the bedroom. Because it's so small, you could put it right on your nightstand and it still looks great, you have the beautiful pictures. And then if you wanted to set media alarms, you can do that. So you can ask it to play a certain sort of music in the morning and it would wake you up by that. You can also just set a regular alarm Monday through Friday. It can do all of that right on the Google Home Hub. Playing relaxation sounds. Now, one of the big questions I have had a lot is will this work in a multi-room audio group? So let's say you want to listen to some music, but you want it throughout the whole home instead of just in the kitchen on the Google Home Hub. Well, all of these Google Home devices, so Google Home Mini, the regular Google Home and the Max, they all support multi-room audio. So I just had to go into the Google Home app and then I created an audio group. You now just select add and then create audio group, select the speakers you want. So I added all these into the office group. So now all I need to do is ask the Google Home to play a song on office group and it will play on all of these at the same time. Play my office party playlist on office group. And then it will begin playing those on all of the different speakers. Sure, playing your Google Play music playlist called office party on office group. So now if I want to control the entire office from the Google Home Hub, I can just tap and pause and it'll pause all of them at the same time. Now, if you have multiple Google Home Hubs, you can pause and play them on screen as well from any of those. If I want to play again, there we go. And then if I wanted to change the music on any of them, I can just go to that device. And they all are in sync, which sounds really good. And then I can just stop them all right there on the Google Home Hub. So this also has access to all of your other music. So I can play Google Play music, Spotify, YouTube music, depending on if you are a subscriber and a few other options like Pandora. So depending on what country you're in, that may vary, but really awesome to be able to listen to music. Now, the sound quality on this is kind of the mix between a Mini and a Google Home. So it sounds really good. I found it was really loud sound. And then here you just have the speakers there and you hear the audio coming from the front there. With the new smart display devices, you can now make a audio or video call via Google Duo. So here I'm receiving a call from my dad, pops up on screen, and then I can answer it right here or I can decline the call. And this is how a typical Google Home Hub call will go. Hey, how's it going? Oh, fine. I can only see me. I can't see you. So this is what happens when you Duo Chat with the Google Home Hub. Oh. Okay, now turn your phone sideways. Turn my phone sideways. There we go. Now we can see you full screen. Okay. But you can't see us. I can't see you. I can still see me in the corner. What am I doing wrong if I can't see you? The Home Hub doesn't have a camera. So you can't see me. Okay, I get it. All right. Okay, thanks so much. Have a good day. Bye. So that is how the one-way video call will work with the Google Home Hub. Now let's try just doing an audio call. How's it going? Okay. Hi, can you hear me? This is a voice call from Brett Bristow. Voice call. So this is using the same Google Duo app, but it's like we're doing a voice call. So there's no video for you or for me. So you could hold this up and just talk like a normal phone call. I think the audio quality on this is way better than with the regular phone call from Google Home. It sounds good. I don't, I can't see that it would need to be any better. Thanks so much. Bye. Having the Google Home Hub with a screen, it adds a lot to what the Google Assistant can do. So if you ask for certain responses, it will pop up on screen. Maybe you're doing a calculation. You'd be able to see that calculation right there. You don't have to keep asking the Google Home to repeat itself. Now let's go through a bunch of the other things you may ask the Google Home and what the response will be on the screen. So here we can ask the weather. It will show hour by hour what the weather will be and the time of the day. And here you can quickly scroll through and see more information. Here you can tap on the calendar events on screen and it'll pop up your calendar for the day. You can see all the events in that day. And then if you would like to add new events, you would just need to ask the Google Home to do so. Add an event tomorrow at 10 a.m. called work. All right, work tomorrow at 10 a.m. Do you wanna save that? Yes. Okay, it's on your calendar. Add milk to the shopping list. Okay, I've added milk to your shopping list. Now you can see all of your shopping list on screen. You can easily check off items right here or you can actually swipe to delete items so they are no longer on the list. In the explore option here, we can find a bunch of things we can ask about our photos. So if I wanna see my Google photos, all I need to do is say, show my photos of New York City. Showing your photos. Here it pulled up the photos from the made by Google event that I went to. I can also swipe through and see other photos as well as tap on the screen. And here I can go to all the photos that I've taken in New York. And it's gonna take me all the way back to some other trips that I've had. The Home Hub can also play all kinds of audio content like audio books that you have from Google Play Books. All right, I'll start 1984 from where you left off playing on Google Play Books. His hair was very fair. His face naturally sanguine. You can also ask it to play all kinds of different podcasts. Sure, resuming Video Creators, EP number 131. Welcome to the Video Creators podcast. You even can listen to the radio. Play 97.1 radio. Streaming 97.1 ZHT from iHeart Radio. One ZHT's Planet Z with DJ Fresh Ness. You can ask it to repeat custom phrases. Subscribe to Tech with Brett and it will change your life. More than 100 animal sounds. This is an elephant. See recent scores and find out about upcoming games for your favorite teams. No, the Jazz lost 103 to 88 last Saturday against the Nuggets. The Jazz's next game is today at 7 p.m. where they will play the Raptors. Find out when upcoming holidays are. Christmas Day will be in 50 days. See the current traffic and estimated time it will take to get to your events. I've sent the directions to your phone. Check on the latest stocks. Alphabet Inc. Class A is trading at $1,055.77 per share and after hours trading up 0% from closing. Quickly translate any phrase to any language. Quickly convert measurements. Give you a good laugh. Let everyone know it's time for dinner. Find out what the fox says. Find out some good news. Find out the calories in a certain food item. Check on your current reminders. As well as create new ones. You can even order items from certain retailers. It'll pull up different items available, their ratings, where you can purchase it from, as well as you can see more details and add it right to your cart right from the screen. So the Google Home Hub really has an unlimited amount of things that it can do. It has the Google Assistant built in so it's automatically going to be updated over time. Just like the original Google Home, it has been able to receive lots of updates and improve. This Google Home will do that as well. If this is your first time here, I would love to have you subscribe below and if you wanna see how to set up the Google Home Hub and see other features that it can do, make sure you select the playlist right there. Thanks so much for watching. We'll see you on the next one.