The Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen)’s sleep sensing abilities, improved smart home UI and refreshed design and make it the best smart display for your bedside. Compared to the original Nest Hub, the Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) is a more attractive smart display in every way.

Sleek design upgrades, Actionable sleep data, Speedy assistant responses

Sleep sensing can be fickle, Air gestures could work better

Google spoils an otherwise brilliant product with plans to charge for its best feature

Sleep tracking works well; Alarm clock functions are improved; Sounds better than the previous model;

Sleep tracking only free until 2022; Can’t distinguish between two partners’ coughs and snores; Better sound but still not brilliant bass;

The smart home’s roots go back far before Google Assistant ever became a virtual assistant in the home, but it wasn’t until the arrival of the Nest Hub in 2018 that we were given a true hub to control the smart home. Since then, we’ve seen countless smart displays released, including a big brother in the Nest Hub Max, which boasted a front-facing camera that diversified its functionality beyond just acting as a smart display. The new Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) distinguishes itself from any other smart display out there with its sleep-monitoring ability. It’s an addition you wouldn’t necessarily expect, especially in a smart display, but is it enough to make it a proper successor? There was a time when I was tracking my sleep at night, with the help of either a fitness tracker or smartwatch. I found the information they gathered useful, but the reason why I stopped boiled down to two things — they needed to be recharged (daily, in the case of most smartwatches) and having something on my...

Accurate sleep tracking; Tons of data about your sleep; $100 starting price;

Few new features over previous model;

Google spoils an otherwise brilliant product with plans to charge for its best feature

Sleep tracking works well; Alarm clock functions are improved; Sounds better than the previous model;

Sleep tracking only free until 2022; Can’t distinguish between two partners’ coughs and snores; Better sound but still not brilliant bass;

Here’s the thing about the new $99.99 Nest Hub from Google: it is slow. Compared to almost any other touchscreen device you might own or interact with, the Nest Hub is laggy, sluggish to respond, and has stuttering animations all over the place.

Sleep tracking is easy and reliable, The speaker is better sounding than before, Still an excellent Google Photos digital photo frame

It’s slow, Can’t use the Thread radio or temperature sensor for smart home routines, Did I mention it’s slow?

The new version of the smart display can now track your sleep without a camera—and it gave me fresh insight into some of my sleep habits.

Small enough for a bedside table. Constructed using some recycled plastic. No camera. Performs the usual smart display functions well. Tracks your sleep. Solid speakers and mics.

Sluggish performance. Sleep Sensing feels like it's in beta (and it's free for only a limited time). Recommends downloading Google Fit app for more sleep data.

The new Nest Hub has all of the great things that we fell in love with in the first generation, including the digital picture frame, controls for smart homes, access to cameras and doorbells, and more.

The Google Nest Hub (2nd generation) may look very similar to its predecessor, but with Soli radar technology built in, it can track your sleep, making it Google’s most innovative smart display to date. Sleep sensing works well, although you won’t get the detailed statistics a wearable sleep tracker offers, and with handy features such as the Sunrise alarm too, this is a device that will help you both wind down and wake up.

Smart display can track your sleep; Can help you wind down and wake up gently; Watch Netflix, Disney+, and cast other videos on the 7-inch screen;

No camera for video calls; Audio doesn’t have powerful bass; Sleep tracking not as accurate as a wearable

The Nest Hub 2 improves on an already good smart display but potentially paying for Sleep Sensing in the future puts a big question mark on value.

Sleek design; Good sleep tracking; Quick Gestures; Improved sound;

Laggy at times; Sleep Sensing may cost money;

The original Nest Hub was a perfectly capable smart display, but as Google's only model at the time, it felt a bit lacking compared with Amazon's much larger Alexa-powered lineup. The second-generation Nest Hub ($99.99) improves upon it predecessor with a feature you won't find on any other smart display: sleep tracking. Thanks to a built-in Google Soli motion sensing chip, the 7-inch Nest Hub can accurately track your sleeping and breathing when placed on a bedside table. While it still lacks a camera for video calls, it offers several other upgrades, including 50% more bass for improved audio, a Quick Gestures feature that lets you pause or play content simply by waving your hand, and a machine learning chip that caches your common commands for faster response times. Offering tremendous value for the price, the second-generation Nest Hub earns our Editors' Choice award for Google Assistant smart displays. Getting to Know the New Nest Hub At $99.99, the second-gen Nest Hub is deb...

With the ability to track your sleep in addition to all of the voice control capacity of the original, the second-generation Nest Hub smart display is an ideal bedside companion for Google Assistant users.

Tracks sleep and breathing; Intuitive interface; Excellent smart home controls; Google Assistant responds quickly; Compact design

Might attribute co-sleeper's coughing/snoring to you; No camera for video calls