For someone who's very busy, always on the move, and doesn't quite have time to faff about with a radio and alarm every morning, the Google assistant is your best friend. Whether it's asking my assistant for a recipe, setting a timer, asking for a specific radio station, setting alarms or even...

Help with recipes and timings when cooking

Not a lot of free music options, has trouble linking to some types of data, says 'still learning' but not where it will pick that new info up from; Had ours for 2 months and it still can't some simple news related questions

has been one of the best combinations of hardware and technology that I have happily adopted into my home and into my family's life. The device is used mostly to play back podcasts and music from Spotify and Google Play subscriptions but it has since expanded in many ways.

Talkative smart speakers are jostling for position at the heart of Australian smart homes, with the tiny Google Home Mini making it easier than ever to bring Google Assistant to life.

Access to Google Assistant; Compact; Inexpensive

Underwhelming music sound quality; No audio line-out

Google is not used to being second. And yet, that's uncomfortable the position it finds itself in within the smart speaker space.

We're clearly big fans of the Google Assistant, and any device that makes it more accessible to the masses is well worth a second look in our book. If budget was no option then the standard Google Home offers significantly better audio quality, but for most people budget will unfortunately come into...

Nothing easier.....set timer, play music, answer questions, check schedule, make calls....This sounds silly but I think the best feature is setting timers while cooking. Had 4 different timers going...while playing music..lol

There's nothing especially remarkable about Google Home Mini, except perhaps one thing: it does everything the bigger Home product does, but is much, much smaller. Home Mini isn't designed as a speaker for music, though.

Attractive design; Google Assistant delivers good responses to questions; Growing support for third-party devices

Fabric won't clean easily; No audio output; Sound quality isn't great (but then it's not designed as a speaker for music; Really

The Google Home Mini is everything that's great about Google Home at a fraction of the cost.

Google Assistant is hard to beat; Surprisingly good sound for a tiny speaker; Design you won't mind staring at

No aux connector; Awkward touch controls

If you're after a dinky smart speaker to tuck away out of sight, or perhaps some affordable secondary units to spread your smart home control to other rooms, the Home Mini is a solid choice.

Compact and subtle; Impressive mics; Smart app control