Tell me about the Google Home Mini

[ang79]

So DH and I have no interest in smart home technology and are kinda creeped out by the whole Amazon Alexa being on and having the capability to "listen" to everything you say. But, he got a Google Home Mini for free when he placed a large order at Lowe's earlier this summer during a July 4th promo. We haven't even taken it out of the box to look at it yet! But I'm wondering if I can just use it as a speaker to play music or something basic without it needing to have access to all my personal info? I'm sure the girls would love to also ask it questions and have it answer back, but really, we don't need it for that (we can always Google the question on our own or ask Siri on our phones!). DH was already to just sell it on Ebay but I wanted to see if we can use it to play our playlists from Pandora or Spotify, rather than listening on phones or computers. Or if it can do any other simple stuff without having access to personal info, credit cards, etc. Sorry for being totally backwards about technology!

[Simon]

I don't honestly know what we have, but we say "okay google" so it must be some version like yours. It was a gift and I despise it. Dh set it up so it responds best to his voice and the rest of us have to repeat ourselves every.single.time in order to be heard.
OTOH, i use it exactly as you describe (nothing special set up or logged in) and it is useful as a music speaker (I don't have any subscriptions set up), kids can ask the weather, it tells jokes and puns, answers questions. It doesn't do much else for us. 99% of the time it won't play the music we request because we aren't subscribers, but it will go on to play similar music and often even by the same artist. The kids have discovered some music/artists they really enjoy that we would never have found otherwise. I can't imagine ever paying money for it, but I tolerate it and just unplug it when I am out of patience.

ETA: It lives in the kitchen and is super useful for Ds1 when he is doing the dishes or Dh when he is cooking. It will play NPR or other podcasts (I think) so they can work with it hands free.

[liz]

DS1 bought one with his own money years ago. He uses it on his desk, mostly to play his music. He also bought himself a smart lightbulb that works with the Mini. He's happy with it. I do believe it's "on" all the time so it can respond to you immediately.

[candaceb]

So DH and I have no interest in smart home technology and are kinda creeped out by the whole Amazon Alexa being on and having the capability to "listen" to everything you say. But, he got a Google Home Mini for free when he placed a large order at Lowe's earlier this summer during a July 4th promo. We haven't even taken it out of the box to look at it yet! But I'm wondering if I can just use it as a speaker to play music or something basic without it needing to have access to all my personal info? I'm sure the girls would love to also ask it questions and have it answer back, but really, we don't need it for that (we can always Google the question on our own or ask Siri on our phones!). DH was already to just sell it on Ebay but I wanted to see if we can use it to play our playlists from Pandora or Spotify, rather than listening on phones or computers. Or if it can do any other simple stuff without having access to personal info, credit cards, etc. Sorry for being totally backwards about technology!

I don't think the speaker quality is good enough to use it for music if that's your primary reason. You need the bigger version that has a better speaker. It definitely does not need to access your personal info like credit cards. I think we gave it our zip code to help with weather. It is better at answering factual questions than either alexa or siri. We use it for timers, math, weather. And Simon, you can set it up to recognize more than one voice. It will even respond to you by name.

We have an Anker bluetooth speaker to use for music with our echo dot. (we have echo dot and google home mini side by side on the kitchen counter) Because we have Amazon Prime, there are a lot of music options available that way.