My wife loves watching things while cooking. With only one iPad in the house, it can certainly cause some problems (and I hate the smudges left on it afterward). So here I go, on a journey to add one more screen to our home, with the intention of making content consumption during cooking easier.
I went through several options, including: 1) an older iPad, 2) the latest Amazon Fire tablet, 3) the Amazon Echo Show, and 4) the Nest Hub (2nd Gen), before finally settling on the Nest Hub. Let me explain my thought process and share my opinions on this 3-year-old device.
Why Not an iPad?
The first thought was getting another iPad, but that would definitely be overkill—and it doesn’t look pretty on the wallet. The cheapest iPad I could find on Amazon was about 200 Canadian dollars, and it was a 6-year-old model. I’m not questioning the performance of a half-decade-old iPad, but it’s not practical for how I’d be using it. The device would need to be plugged in 24/7 so I wouldn’t have to hunt for a charger just to use it for less than an hour a day. Plus, I’d need to pair it with a stand. The wiring issues and having yet another iOS device at home just didn’t appeal to me.
Why Not an Amazon Fire Tablet?
The second option was an Amazon Fire tablet. They’re so cheap you can get a 10-inch tablet for just over 100 Canadian dollars—or even less for a smaller one. The price is tempting, but the main problems were obvious. I had already passed on the iPad, and an Android tablet with a much worse ecosystem didn’t give me any confidence.
Plus, with the latest rumor that Google just canceled another Android tablet, I think I made the right decision.
Enter the Smart Displays
I then turned my attention to the smart home arena—a smart speaker with a screen, made by either Amazon or Google. Immersed in the phone and tablet world for so long, I always thought these devices were for less tech-savvy consumers. But this journey led me to believe they fulfill a specific market gap and certain scenarios.
I first glanced at the newer Amazon Echo Show products, as they’ve been updated more frequently, and the lineup looks more complete with several screen options. The 8-inch Echo Show felt perfect for my use case: the screen size isn’t too small, and it supports Prime Video, Netflix, and YouTube via a browser. However, I eventually ruled it out since my other smart home gadgets have been linked to the Google Nest ecosystem for years—and because of the sheer amount of ads Amazon likes to throw in your face every day.
Why the Nest Hub (2nd Gen)?
So here I am, having decided on the Nest Hub (2nd Gen). Despite being a 3-year-old device with limited features, I think it’s still quite useful today.
A Considerate Design
Designed for a household environment, most smart speakers go for a mesh cloth body with an angled screen in front. The Nest Hub didn’t try anything radical here. Unlike the Echo Show series, the Nest Hub (and Pixel Tablet) adopts a floating design, so the bottom edge of the screen doesn’t touch the surface directly. I’d say this is thoughtful, as it brings the screen closer to the user when placed on a table and keeps it away from messes in the kitchen, where powder and liquids tend to fly around.
(I used a ceramic cup as a stand to keep it further away from the table surface. And you can tell I really don't care about the smudges on the screen)
On the power supply side, it uses a recessed power port so it can sit closer to the wall when plugged in. The flat power plug is also great for compact spaces. I don’t have the Echo Show 8 in hand, but based on pictures and videos, it definitely seems to take up more real estate on a table.
Pretentious but Good Enough Display
Before I bought the device, I thought the resolution would be a concern since it’d mostly be used to consume media. That’s why I initially considered tablets, which come with retina-grade displays. But you know what? When you’re already busy with other things, image quality doesn’t matter much when you’re just browsing recipes or watching sitcoms.
The screen isn’t sharp or crisp, but it’s bright enough to use under direct cabinet lighting. It also doubles as a digital photo frame, which is a huge plus if you’re a Google Photos user. It’s easy and simple to “upload” your photos, and the Nest Hub shuffles them in a surprising order that makes the screen lovable. It often triggers a nice wave of nostalgia when it pops up a moment you’d forgotten about, making good use of your hundreds of gigabytes of cloud storage.
That said, you shouldn’t expect too much from the screen. As my title suggests, the whole concept of a smart display evolves from a smart speaker, and it seems Google doesn’t want you to interact with it too much outside of voice commands. The screen feels sluggish and frustrating to tap or swipe. The built-in Netflix app doesn’t even let you browse shows—it just presents one default, last-viewed show. To watch something else, you have to use your voice to pull the stream from the cloud.
On a side note, the built-in Netflix also doesn't support the cheapest Ads tier provided by Netflix, so there is also additional $10 spending per month if you are on the cheapest tire offered by Netflix. Not cool.
Nest Hub also offers a few other UI views that are dynamic and try to be useful, but I get the sense that the product team decided to downplay their importance and push voice commands instead. Even in its “Discover” tab, all the suggestions are voice-command-focused.
(Visual tiles made of voice commands)
Eventually, the screen can definitely “show” you things, but you should expect to interact with it like how you interact with your phones. In this sense, the display is quite pretentious, despite being one of the main selling points compared to the much cheaper Nest Speaker.
Bass, and Lots of It
The audio is definitely powerful, with impressive bass performance. It’s not the best for balanced audio, but it ensures you can hear it from far away—even with your stovetop fan running at full speed.
Privacy to a Certain Extent
When it comes to privacy, you can assume all smart speakers are listening to you all the time, whether you’ve enabled privacy mode or not. However, the Nest Hub doesn’t come with a camera, so that’s one less concern for me. Instead, it uses a Soli motion sensor that lets you pause and play videos with basic hand gestures. The same technology was used on the Pixel 4 phones. In the kitchen, when your hands are busy, it offers some convenience.
Should You Still Get a Nest Hub (2nd Gen) in 2024?
After using the device for a few weeks and comparing it to my original needs, I think the Nest Hub is surprisingly well thought out for its specific use case. Without being told, you might not guess it’s a 3-year-old device. That said, if the next generation hasn’t been released yet, it’s still a great buy at a discounted price.