My Google Nest Hub Drives Me Crazy—but I Can’t Stop Using It

What I really wanted to write was “My Google Nest Hub drives me fucking insane, but I’m stuck in a weird relationship with it,” but my overlords have frowned on usage of profanity in headlines in the recent past. So here I am. Just me and my Google Nest Hub.

Back in January, I wrote this little bit of truth: “‘Hey Google, stop the timer.’ Silence. Deafening, violent silence as the timer continues counting down. ‘Hey Google, stop the timer.’ It keeps going until it reaches zero, and then it blares its damn head off.”

And then in July, Google even admitted it was a problem that plenty of users were experiencing. Even with all the headaches, it’s too convenient for me to walk out into the living room each morning, say, “Hey Google, good morning,” and have it turn on certain lights, read me the weather, and give me highlights from my calendar. It’s just too useful.

like a brain for my smart home

I’ve been living with this smart home hub for years, and while I didn’t buy it just to display my personal photos, it’s done the job of reminding me that, yeah, I was there and I did that, as I see old smartphone photos flick by during the day.

If all you want to do is show photos, then there are devices in this guide better suited for that. But if you’d like to make photo display only one aspect of a whole smart home setup, where you’re arming the home security system and turning on smart bulbs and TVs, the Nest Hub is ideal.

The touchscreen display is quick to respond to inputs and, because you touch the screen directly, more intuitive to use than a touch bar. It’s a simple swipe to breeze through photos. It’s so easy to pick up, visitors just instinctively know how to work it.

Just remember that it’s set up for landscape orientation only, and its seven-inch screen is on the small side. There’s a Nest Hub Max with a 10-inch screen, but when I had one I found it a porky beast that took up a lot of real estate and screamed “tech device” even more loudly than the regular-sized one.

The Nest Hub might be driving me nuts, but once Google can hammer out the bugs, it’ll be a killer smart home hub and—just my opinion—the best one out there. In the meantime, I’ll just… keep using it, I guess.