The dust has barely settled on the latest "Made by Google" keynote, and while everyone is busy talking about the new Pixel phones and the Pixel Watch, some with sharper eyes noticed something... odd. Front and center on a side table during the segment that featured F1 star Lando Norris, appeared a small, round speaker that looked suspiciously familiar.
It was so familiar, in fact, that it caused a collective double-take. It looked almost exactly like an Apple HomePod Mini, except it couldn't be.
F1 star Lando Norris sits beside a suspiciously looking smart speaker. | Image credit — The Verge
Now, let's be perfectly clear: this was a Google event. There is absolutely no chance that the company would use a competitor's flagship smart speaker as set dressing. That just doesn't happen. So, what was it? The device we saw was a small, spherical speaker that seems to share the same fabric-covered aesthetic as the rest of Google’s Nest lineup. Its diminutive size, however, immediately brings Apple's popular compact speaker to mind, which has left us with a lot of questions.
Would you be interested in a Nest mini device from Google that has good audio?
34 Votes
Yes
88.24%
No
11.76%
The Apple HomePod Mini has carved out a successful niche for itself by offering surprisingly robust sound and deep Siri integration in a very small footprint. It acts as a smart home hub for HomeKit and fits seamlessly into Apple's ecosystem. Google’s own Nest Mini is a great, affordable entry point for the Google Assistant, but it has never been praised for its audio prowess. It’s a utility device first and a speaker second. If this mystery device is what we think it is, Google could be preparing to launch a direct competitor to the HomePod Mini—a compact speaker that doesn't compromise on sound.
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I'm of the opinion that this is almost certainly not an accident. Companies know that eagle-eyed fans will scrutinize every frame of their presentations, and this feels like a deliberate, soft tease of a future product. A "Nest Audio Mini," if you will, would perfectly fill a gap in Google's current hardware lineup.
It would offer a high-quality audio experience for those who want something smaller than the Nest Audio and better sounding than the Nest Mini. We have no official confirmation, and this is most definitely a guess, but it might look like Google is getting ready to answer Apple's challenge in the small speaker space, and that’s a very exciting prospect.
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Johanna Romero is a Senior News Writer at PhoneArena, covering mobile technology news across Android, iOS, wearables, and the Google ecosystem she knows best. Drawing on 15 years in IT and tech support from 2007 to 2022, she brings a user-friendly eye for the practical features and lesser-known tricks readers care about. Google named her an official #TeamPixel member in 2022, and she also reviews the latest devices on her YouTube channel, JoJo the Techie.
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