Tell me about Google Home Mini

[la79al]

I am thinking that my difficult to shop for father in law might like a Google Home Mini. He spends a lot of time playing with his smart phone so I think he might find it fun. I am wondering if setup is relatively easy (he is in FL, we are in PA) and also how much he would be able to do without costing additional money.

 

[potterfanatic]

We got a google home mini the other day. It's great. You do have to get an app and that's how you get it to hook to the wifi initially for set up that takes about 10/15 minutes. But it pretty much will google things for you, tell you jokes, give you the weather, play music, answer math problems, tell you words in other languages, all of those things have no additional costs. My daughter loves it and asks it all kinds of things.

 

[momma2ethan]

They make great gifts. I don't have the google home but do have two Echo Dots. Got my son one for Christmas and while setting it up (before putting it back in the box and wrapping LOL" I decided I needed one for myself too. We have one in DS's bedroom and one in the living room. We play music, set alarms and timers, get the weather forecast, get random trivia facts, help with homework, listen to audiobooks, make announcements and much more. My mom also has 2, one in bedroom and one in living room, and enjoys having them. The thing I love most about the Echo is that it has a drop in feature, which turns it into an intercom. With this feature I can be in the living room and drop in on my son instead of getting up or yelling through the house and I can even drop in on him from the app on my phone when I am out. I could also set it up to be able to drop in on my mom's and vice versa if I wanted to. This is invaluable to me as the mom of a kid who chronically forgets to charge his cell phone. HAHA I don't believe the Google Home has this feature so that is something to consider when comparison shopping.

 

[Anthony1971]

Google also has a lot of games you can play like trivia. The only extra cost that I know of would be premium radio through Pandora etc or Google itself where you can ask it to play a particular song. It still has radio with commercials and will paly any local radio station you ask. sorry other extras could be lights, Google TV etc as it can control your house. The one standout feature with Google is you can make phone calls for free but it uses a random number and will how no number unless you program your phone number in the app. If he has an Android smartphone however he already has Google on it but the phone would now control the mini as well as his phone if he installs the app on his phone it would also take all of his contacts that are backed up in his Gmail account and he can call people by name over the mini. All works on any of the Google home the difference is sound the larger ones sound far better and can be used as a decent wireless speaker to play music over for parties or in his yard... if his WIFI is strong enough that is. Google has free phone for all over WIFI on any cell phone that is where the free call technology comes from.