After launching it in the US at the Pixel 4 event, Google has now launched the Nest Mini smart speaker in India at a price of Rs 4,499. The device retails on Flipkart and customers can purchase it with several bank offers. The Nest Mini is the second-generation of smart speaker offered by Google and it comes with a lot of updates in terms of materials and sound quality. Further, this is the second Nest product in India, the first being the Google Nest smart display.
According to the company, Nest Mini provides bass that’s twice as strong as the original Google Home Mini (measured from 60-100 Hz at max volume). It comes with a proprietary audio tuning software that brings out all auditory details. When listening to music on Nest Mini, LED lights on the device will light up as the user’s hand gets close to it, indicating where he/she can tap to adjust the volume. Google says that the speaker now comes with better ability to hear in noisy environments.
The Nest Mini will dynamically adjust the volume of the Assistant, news and podcasts based on any background noise that may be happening at the time. Further, users can connect Nest Mini to other Nest speakers to build a sound system for the entire home. Further, users can also create different groups in the Google Home app. It also comes with an intercom feature so that you can make dinner announcement and everyone comes to the table from their rooms.
The Nest Mini also comes with a feature called stream transfer that lets users ‘move their music, audiobooks and podcasts’ from one speaker to another with just a voice command. For example, if you are in the common room on the ground floor and now want to listen to the songs in your bedroom on first floor, say, ‘Hey Google, move the music to the bedroom speaker' and it will start playing on the speaker in the bedroom.
When it comes to the hardware, the Nest Mini comes embedded with a dedicated machine learning chip with up to one TeraOPS of processing power. Google says the fabric covering on Nest Mini is made from 100 per cent post-consumer recycled plastic bottles. It comes in two colours: Chalk and Charcoal, which was inspired by Lake Como in Italy. The devices also come with wall-mounting capabilities.
‘Like so many of you, we’re committed to helping the planet, so the fabric covering on Nest Mini is made from 100 percent post-consumer recycled plastic bottles (meaning plastic bottles that have already been used and recycled). A single half-liter plastic bottle makes enough fabric to cover more than two Nest Mini devices. The external enclosure is also made from 35 per cent post-consumer recycled plastic. Now, all Nest products launching in 2019 are built using varying amounts of recycled plastics,’ Saurabh Arya, India Business Lead, Google Home and Nest Products, said in a blog post.
