Google just launched its first new smart speaker in six years, and it's a clear signal the company is getting serious about the smart home again. The $99.99 Google Home Speaker is the company's first device built for Gemini, its new AI-powered assistant for the home. But while the hardware delivers, the software is still catching up.
The Home Speaker replaces the Nest Audio at the same price point and arrives at a critical moment for smart speakers. For years these devices have struggled to justify their place on the kitchen counter beyond playing music, setting timers, and controlling a few lights. AI promised to change that, and Amazon kicked things off last fall with a revamped Alexa powered by large language models. Now it's Google's turn.
Hardware That Delivers
The Home Speaker is a slightly flattened sphere, about the size of a softball, wrapped in mesh fabric with no visible controls. It comes in a soft green jade color that blends into any room without drawing attention. A subtle light ring encircles the base to show when the assistant is listening, and you can switch it off in settings — something no other smart speaker offers, not even the HomePod Mini or Echo Dot Max.
Sound quality is good for its size. The speaker delivers 360-degree audio with clear mids and vocals. Pair two of them for stereo and they get loud enough to fill a house, though bass is thin compared to the Nest Audio it replaces, which had both a woofer and a tweeter. The Home Speaker uses a single driver in a smaller chassis, but it's a major upgrade over the older Nest Mini.
The speaker has three far-field microphones and a neural processing unit for background noise rejection. It heard commands reliably from across the room even during loud music playback, beating the HomePod Mini on responsiveness and coming close to the Echo Dot Max.
Smart Home Credentials
This is Google's first smart speaker that doubles as a Matter controller and a Thread border router. That means it can add and control any Matter-compatible device — lights, locks, thermostats, sensors — from any brand, and it connects Thread devices directly without needing a separate hub. Thread 1.3 support is baked in, and Google says it's working on Thread 1.4, which will make border routers from different manufacturers work together more smoothly.
You can also pair the Home Speaker with a Google TV Streamer as audio output. In testing, the sound synced well with no dropouts during YouTube streaming and TV shows, though World Cup commentary sounded hollow compared to a dedicated sound system. Stereo pairing with two speakers adds simulated spatial audio.
The speaker works as a central node for a modern IoT home: a voice-controlled hub that ties together lights, thermostats, locks, cameras, and sensors from any ecosystem that supports Matter or works with Google Home.
Gemini for Home: Smart but Slow
Gemini for Home is Google's big bet — an AI assistant powered by Gemini large language models that aims to be more conversational and intuitive. Instead of rigid commands like "turn off the living room lights," you can say "Hey Google, I'm cooking and I don't want to get too hot," and it knows to turn down the thermostat. Or "Hey Google, it's too dark in here," and it brightens the lights.
This kind of natural language understanding is genuinely useful. Gemini handled complex multi-step requests well in testing: turning off one room, setting the thermostat, and switching on lights in another room — all in a single sentence. It also served up helpful knowledge queries, like summarizing World Cup matches without revealing scores when asked which games were worth watching.
But there's a catch: speed. Gemini takes about 10 seconds to process complex requests. Alexa Plus completed the same commands in under three seconds. Even simple local commands like "turn on the lights" sometimes lagged just as long. That kind of delay makes voice control feel less like a convenience and more like a test of patience.
The bigger problem is reliability. Like most large language models, Gemini is sometimes confidently wrong. It played the wrong song when asked for a specific track, then played another wrong song when corrected. It insisted it had no alternative voice options when the Home Speaker actually does have them. On a Nest Hub Max, it hallucinated a list of fake voice names — Dimitrix, Impetus, Cameo, Russell Gethy — that don't exist in the product.
TV controls were the least dependable. Sometimes "turn on the TV and play YouTube TV" worked perfectly. Other times Gemini claimed content wasn't available when it was, or announced it was launching ESPN and did nothing.
Subscriptions Enter the Smart Home
One of the bigger shifts is that Google is now putting some voice assistant and smart home features behind a paywall for the first time. Access to Gemini Live — a conversational mode invoked by saying "Hey Google, let's chat" — and the ability to create automations with natural language both require a $10-a-month Google Home Premium Standard plan. The $20-a-month Advanced tier adds a Home Brief feature and AI-powered Nest camera capabilities.
This follows a broader industry trend. Amazon introduced ads on its Echo Show smart displays this year. Samsung is rolling out paid tiers for its SmartThings API starting in October, including a $4.99 monthly plan for individual developers that will affect Home Assistant users. The era of free voice assistants may be ending as companies search for revenue from their smart home platforms.
The Competition
Google's smart home ecosystem is one of several in a growing market. For more on how these technologies fit together, check out our previous coverage of Thread and Matter in the smart home.
Google enters a three-horse race with Amazon and Apple. Amazon's Echo Dot Max ($99.99) with Alexa Plus is faster, more reliable, and better at smart home control. Alexa Plus has narrowed the gap on general knowledge questions significantly. It handles conversational context more smoothly and remembers past discussions better. It also lets users set up routines by voice, something Google still doesn't offer.
Apple's HomePod Mini ($129) is quieter but cleaner on audio quality and more expensive. Apple's smart home approach is more limited — it supports Matter and HomeKit but lacks the broad device ecosystem that Google and Amazon offer.
For Google, the Home Speaker is a solid piece of hardware that gives the company a foundation to build on. The design is clean and thoughtful, the Thread and Matter support future-proofs it as the smart home standard evolves, and the sound is good for its class. But Gemini for Home needs to get faster, more reliable, and the subscription paywall will frustrate users who expect a free assistant.
Bottom Line
The Google Home Speaker is the device Google's smart home ecosystem needed — a well-designed, capable smart speaker with Matter and Thread support that can serve as the brain of a connected home. It sounds good for its size, listens reliably, and looks better than its predecessors.
But Gemini for Home isn't ready yet. It's smarter than Google Assistant ever was, and its natural language understanding is genuinely impressive. But it's too slow, too unreliable, and too much of its best features are locked behind a subscription. The hardware is ready for 2026. The software needs another year.
For now, if you're building a Google Home smart home, the Home Speaker is a worthwhile upgrade for its Thread border router and Matter controller capabilities alone. Just don't expect the AI assistant to be the reason you love it.