Second generation Nest Hub launches with sleep tracking capabilities - Android

Google on Tuesday announced that its second generation of Nest Hub smart displays is now available for pre-order. Priced just $99, it closely resembles its predecessor in a number of ways, but leans heavily into sleep tracking, too.

According to Google’s findings, about one in every five Nest Hub has made its way into the bedroom. And why not? They’re a great speaker to have around and the display is perfect for bedside controls of smart home devices.

Understanding that the Nest Hub could be even more valuable in bedroom, the development team set out to add new features for the health and wellness space. Ultimately it arrived at the second generation device with sleep tracking and insight.

The new Nest Hub comes in a variety of colors, including Chalk, Charcoal, Sand, and (new) Mist. Keeping its familiar overall design, it looks right at home in any environment and has the same visual language as its recent Nest Thermostat.

The new unit comes with a handful of new features and sensors, including 50% more bass and, more interestingly, a Soli radar. In essence, it can identify a wide range of motion such as gestures for controlling playback of audio or video.

Diving deeper, the Nest Hub can help keep an eye on your sleeping, determining how long you slept, its respective quality, any snoring or coughing, and more.

According to the Nest team, setting this up is more or less a 90 second process that you’ll only have to do one time. For all practical purposes you lie down on the bed and let it get a baseline reading of you. From there it is able to monitor micro changes in the environment and monitor your sleep without having to physically touch you.

Upon waking in the morning you can have the Nest Hub tell you how things went and offer up ways to improve your sleep. Be it in the form of a wind down routine, earlier bedtime, darker settings, or a cooler environment, these small changes can have life-altering impact. Indeed, the new device has ambient light detector and temperature sensor.

The Nest Hub display can dim in the evening so you’re not distracted by its light; it also gives you touch and voice control over lights and other connected home settings. When you wake in the morning you can use the display to gradually brighten to wake you.

Want to sleep for a few more minutes? Wave your hand and the quick gesture is detected by the Soli chip and snooze is immediately activated.

All of the Sleep Sense features work hand in hand to help create new habits and a healthier lifestyle. Moreover, they’ll tie directly to Google Fit so you can manage things on your phone or wearable. The Sleep Sense features are entirely optional and can be adjusted on the fly.

Just as Helpful in Other Rooms

As great as the second generation Nest Hub is with its health and wellness features, it’s still just has practical in all other rooms. It acts as a digital picture frame, portal to view Nest cameras, a calendar, note pad, and more. And yes, it still allows for casting and streaming of content like Netflix, YouTube TV, and Pandora.

Like other Nest products, the Nest Hub has privacy controls, including the physical microphone toggle on the back and the ability to delete any recordings from a previous period. A simple voice command also lets you enter Guest Mode so that Assistant activity is not tied to your own Google account.

Availability

The second-generation Nest Hub can be preordered online in the US, Canada, U.K., Germany, France and Australia at the Google Store and other retailers starting today for $99.