Smart Home September – My Journey Into Home Automation (Part 1 of 4)
It started by accident with an expired credit card…
“Sleepytime for Alton” by Amanda Laine
That’s a really weird place to begin, but it’s the truth. You see, I’d just gotten notified that Spotify needed an updated card because my old card had expired. Or maybe it had been cancelled by the bank because of a data breach. Whatever the reason was, if I wanted to keep jamming out to my tunes, they needed an updated card. So I went onto the website to add a new card, and there it was. “Your Google Home Mini is available.”
Uh, what?
So Spotify was running a promo where if you signed up, you got a Google Home Mini for free. I just happened to find out because my card expired.
Honestly, while they’re cool, I’d not really said to myself “now that’s something I really need,” because it really wasn’t. I have plenty of other things to spend money on. New tools. Camera equipment. Drones. (Okay, maybe not drones yet, but I’ve been eyeing them.) Regardless, another speaker when I already owned a Bose Bluetooth in the house and a Ryobi Bluetooth in the shop, it kind of seemed excessive. And what the heck could you do with these that makes them so special?
Well… As Portland advertising icon Tom Peterson used to say, “free is a very good price!” (If you’re not a born and raised Portlander, the reference requires some explanation–Tom Peterson and his wife Gloria owned a furniture business in Portland for YEARS. I remember his commercials to this day and they’ve been out of business for a decade. Their sales were legendary, and always included freebies. Everything from pillow cases to hot dogs to… Get this… Haircuts. It’s way more amazing than you’re imagining.)
In any case, I never turn down free anything, so I dropped an order for my free charcoal Google Home Mini, figuring it can’t hurt to have an extra speaker around the house.
Getting started
The Google Home Mini showed up on my door step not too much later, at which point I broke open the box to see what I had. It’s mildly aesthetically pleasing–there aren’t any buttons visible on top of it, unlike its main competitor the Echo Dot, and it doesn’t look as much like a standard hockey puck, with a more rounded top. The only visible controls on the outside is the microphone on/off switch that allows you to make the Home Mini stop listening for you to ask it to do something. It’s a nice feature if you’re concerned about Google eavesdropping on your intimate moments or whatnot, but I didn’t bother putting them in places I’d be concerned about that–I have one in my workshop (more on that later) and one in our front room, on top of my wife’s piano. And realistically, if you’re concerned about Google eavesdropping on you, it’s likely your iPhone/Android/etc. smart phone is doing the same thing, so unless you’re still rolling with a vintage Nokia 3310, as much as I hate to invoke the Borg, “resistance is futile.” You can minimize certain potential exposures with proper planning (I won’t put one in our bedrooms, for instance).
It’s powered by a micro USB cable (as most Google devices nowadays are) and requires you to set up via the Google Home app on your phone. The setup process is fairly straightforward, and the app walks you through it, getting the device connected to the internet, and linking up your favorite services like Spotify or Pandora.
So what can it do?
Well, out of the box, without any other smart home devices–quite a bit more than I expected. I basically assumed it was a glorified speaker, something I could tell to play certain music when I wanted it or just cast music from my phone too. You can ask it the weather today, and it will smartly rattle off the forecast for you. You can set up news sources and just ask what’s going on in the new today. For the moments where you want to be really silly, you can ask it to do a mad lib, and it will ask you for the items it needs, then read you back a hilarious story using your word selections. Are any of these really a necessity? Honestly, no. But I got used to them really quickly, and before long I decided I wanted to snag a second one for the shop. But… that’s a story for later.
What options are out there?
Now, not everyone is a Google person, so you may not want a Google Home Mini, but you might be considering something similar. What exactly is there?
Well, the main competitor for the Google Home Mini is, as noted above, Amazon’s Echo Dot. They’re roughly the same size and do quite a few of the same things, such as stream music and tell you what’s up in the world. I’ve not used the Echo Dot myself, but I’ve heard from those who have that it’s better suited for buying stuff, whereas Google is better with general searching for information. Both can also serve as a control hub for smart home devices as well.
Also, Apple has its own speaker, the HomePod, that uses Siri instead of Google Assistant or Alexa, however it’s not anyhwere close to the same price point at $299 a pop, and while it can stream other music services, it’s really only truly integrated with Apple Music.
Conclusion
In addition to being a decent speaker, my Google Home Mini wound up being the gateway device that started me integrating more smart home technology in my home. Come back next week for the introduction of my first smart home devices.
Question – Do you have a smart speaker like a Google Home Mini or Echo Dot? Are you team Amazon or team Google? Let me know in the comments!
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