The best Google Home speakers can cater to your specific needs. Google and other smart home manufacturers offer a large selection of audio devices for all sorts of different scenarios, but it doesn’t mean every one is worth buying.
Each is powered by Google Assistant, a virtual butler that comes pre-installed in the Google Nest Mini and Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) display, as well as the $99 Google Nest Audio. With one of these Google-brand devices, you can take advantage of the best Google Assistant commands. But there are excellent third-party speakers that support Google Assistant, too.
Like all the best smart speakers, these will listen to your voice and perform a wide number of tasks, such as streaming music from Spotify, Pandora and others; controlling smart home devices such as thermostats and lights; acting as a home communication hub; looking up the weather; and ordering you food. You can even use Google Assistant to control your smart TV, or act as interpreter between two different languages.
See all of the best Google Home speakers below.
What are the best Google Home speakers?
The best Google Home speakers below have pros and cons you’ll want to review before making a buying decision. But based on hours of testing, our top choice is the new Google Nest Audio, which Google recently released as a sequel to the Google Home.
Compared to the original Google Home, the $99 Nest Audio welcomes stronger performance, faster Assistant responses and softer exterior. It’s a great-sounding—but not too expensive—option.
Positioned as an Echo Dot rival, the even more affordable $49 Google Nest Mini is a compact speaker that lets you take advantage of Google Assistant’s superpowers. It’s fashionable, fabric-swathed design conceals the fact that it’s actually an electronic device. Plus the Nest Mini’s built-in wall-mount means you can free up precious counter space.
For audiophiles who don’t mind spending more, the Sonos One can’t be beat. At 6.4 x 4.7 x 4.7 inches, it’s larger than the Nest Mini, and its sound shows it. You can customize your audio profile and stream music from hundreds of sources, or pair your Sonos One to your smart TV for a surround sound entertainment system.
The Google Nest Hub Max is one of the best Google Home speakers, too. As the company’s newest smart display, the Nest Hub Max is a more expensive entry-point, but gives Google Assistant a bright touchscreen display and high-quality video chat camera.
The best Google Home speakers you can buy today
At $99, the Google Nest Audio is $30 less than the original Google Home, yet an improvement over its predecessor in every way. It sports a clean-looking, cloth-covered exterior, so the Nest Audio can be disguised as home decor unlike the tear drop-shaped Google Home. You’ll also get louder sound and stronger bass from the Nest Audio. In our testing, this towering smart speaker packed a punch.
Not only that, it’s a better smart home device, too. Thanks to on-device processing, Google Assistant gives speedy responses, which comes in handy when searching for music or getting a morning rundown while you’re rushing out to work.
Read our full Google Nest Audio review.
The Google Nest Mini is one of the best Google Home speakers you can get, even though it costs less than $50. Without raising the price or altering the homey, fabric-swathed appearance of the original Google Home Mini, Google made massive interior upgrades that make the Nest Mini miles better than its predecessor. An extra microphone, twice as strong bass and in-house learning chip give it unbeatable value.
Invisible touch controls on the top of the Mini lets you change volume, while a physical switch can be used to deactivate its microphone for those times you don’t want Google listening in. Plus, the hook on the back lets you hang it on the wall if you need to save some counter space. The Nest Mini also comes in a variety of colors: a modern-looking light-grey, Chalk, Charcoal gray, Coral orange and Sky blue.
Read our full Google Nest Mini review.
Not only does the Sonos One rank among the best Google Home speakers, it’s also one of the best smart speakers overall. We’ve yet to review a better-sounding speaker of its size, although you would swear its tunes come from a much larger device. Using Sonos’s stereo sound feature, you can pair two of the Ones together or link them with other Sonos speakers for whole-home audio.
Aside from killer quality, another advantage of the Sonos One is that you can stream from hundreds of audio streaming services, from well-known apps like Spotify to more obscure channels and radio stations from all around the globe. While you don’t get all of the abilities of Google Assistant. there’s enough there for most. Yes, you’ll pay more than you would for a Google-made speaker, but this is the one to get for audiophiles.
Read our full Sonos One review.
Why settle for an average Google Home speaker when you can get one with a gorgeous touchscreen, too? The Google Nest Hub Max is a great smart speaker — it has two 18-millimeter, 10-Watt tweeters and one 75-millimeter, 30-Watt woofer, which pump out great audio — but the star of the show is its massive 10-inch display. Whether you use touch controls or go hands-free with voice commands, you can stream videos, follow up step-by-step recipes, control your smart home devices, and even get a glimpse at how long your commute will be.
You can use the Nest Hub Max’s camera to make video calls (sadly, via Google Duo only), with a clever motion-tracking feature that will keep you in the center of the frame as you move about a room. It’s a game-changer when you’re in the kitchen prepping food, and can’t stay still in front of the display. We also appreciate the camera privacy switch, and imagine others will, too.
Read our full Google Nest Hub Max review.
The Sonos Move is the one of the best Google Home speakers and the overall best-sounding portable smart speaker on the market. You’re able to carry it around your home and nearby outdoor area while still having access to Sonos’ complete streaming collection. It also offers Auto TruePlay, an intuitive technology that uses the speaker’s internal microphones to make it sound the best for its environment, whether it’s a large backyard or small front porch.
The Move is also weather-resistant and can take a beating — we dropped ours on concrete without any damage. That said, it’s pretty hefty, weighing in at 6 pounds.. Also, if you leave the range of your Wi-Fi network, you lose all of the Move’s smart features, and have to rely on a Bluetooth connection to your phone. At $400, it’s an expensive device. But, if you want the best audio in an outdoor setting, this is the smart speaker to get.
Read our full Sonos Move review.
If you’re looking for a portable, yet affordable smart speaker, the JBL Link 20 is it. Its battery lasts for up to 10 hours, so it should be able to power your party all through the day. And this mesh-covered speaker can also withstand being submerged in water for up to 30 minutes. So, if you leave it out in a rainstorm overnight, it should still work fine.
In our review, we found the JBL Link 20 sounds great, with well-balanced treble, bass and midtones. It’s also loud enough, up to 90 decibels, to fill an outdoor patio or other open space. Though the Link 20 is one of the best Google Home speaker, it doesn’t support hands-free calls, so you’ll want to stick to a Google brand speaker if that feature is important to you.
Read our full JBL Link 20 review.
The $99 Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) is a speaker for music, screen for your Google Assistant needs and a communication center. And it tracks your sleep, too. When positioned on your nightstand, the upgraded Google Nest Hub uses the Soli radar sensing chip to see how well (or not) you’re sleeping at night. It’s a little creepy, but the contactless tracking abilities will let you forget it’s there.
Soli’s superpowers also enable air gestures, letting you pause and play YouTube videos or snooze an alarm. These gestures don’t work all the time, but are useful when they do. As for sound, Google did boost the bass by 50% this time around, which is an improvement over the total absence of bass in the first-generation model.
Read our full Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) review.
The Lenovo Smart Clock is our favorite Google Assistant-powered alarm clock and one of the best Google Home speakers you can buy. With an adorable, four-inch display, it’s the perfect smart home device to keep on your bedside table. You can choose from a number of different clock faces in various colors and styles, depending on your room’s aesthetic. The grey fabric casing provides a neutral and modern look, too.
At night, the Lenovo Smart Clock’s display dims and plays relaxing ambient noises, if you wish. There’s even decent audio — certainly better than you might expect from an alarm clock. Its bassline is even strong enough to shake your mattress, which could come in handy if you have a hard time getting out of your bed in the morning.
Read our full Lenovo Smart Clock review.
The Lenovo Smart Display was the first Google Assistant-powered smart display worth buying. It’s a well-rounded device that’s available in several sizes, depending on what fits your space best. Lenovo’s smart display still has a sharper screen and more stylish design than most of its competitors, plus it benefits from Google’s user-friendly interface.
One of our favorite things about the Lenovo Smart Display is Ambient Mode, which shows the time and weather in the lower left corner when the display isn’t in use. It can also change the background image from a preset album you’ve assigned in Google Photos. If you’re committed to Google’s ecosystem of products— as many Android smartphone users are — it’s one less step to access your photos.
The original Lenovo Smart Display is available in 8- and 10-inch sizes, and the company recently released the smaller Lenovo Smart Display 7.
Read our full Lenovo Smart Display review.
The Bose Portable Home Speaker is one of the best Google Home speakers because it boasts Bose-caliber sound, plus Google Assistant integration and impressive portability. In our review, we found the Bose Portable Home Speaker is a quality option if you’re a fan of the Bose brand and wish your voice assistant followed you around.
Although the Sonos Move is the favored portable smart speaker, Bose’s version provides fuller listening with its 360-degree grille setup. Plus its cute, fabric-swathed handle and lightweight design make it easier to schlep around your house than the towering Move. Both the matte black and white-silver finishes lend the pail-shaped Bose Portable Home Speaker a modern look, while its long battery life lets you carry it around with you all day long.
Read our full Bose Portable Home Speaker review.
How to choose the best Google Home speaker for you
The key decision you’ll have to make while shopping for one of the best Google Home speakers is whether you’re looking for a standard, wired speaker, a portable speaker or a speaker with a display. If this is your first smart home purchase, you’ll want to opt for the Nest Mini, Google Nest Audio or Sonos One. Ranging from $50-$200, all are simple to set up and lay a foundation for getting your other gadgets connected.
If you have a large family or spend a lot of time in the kitchen or other shared space, a smart speaker with a display is a better choice. You can check in on your security cameras and video doorbells, get recipe advice and make calls. Video calls can only be made with the Nest Hub Max or Lenovo Smart Display, though.
And if you’re always on the move and want to carry your soundtrack around with you, consider opting for one of the portable Google Home speaker options, like the Sonos Move or JBL Link 20.
How we test the best Google Home speakers
When testing any of the best Google Home speakers, the first thing we look at is audio quality. After all, if a speaker doesn’t sound good, then what use is it? We consider the price and purpose of the smart speaker here, too. If it’s a small, budget device, we wouldn’t expect it to sound as good as something that costs five times as much. That said, if a speaker costs a couple hundred dollars, it better sound awesome.
Because it’s a smart speaker, we also take into account what you can do with the voice assistant embedded inside. While smart speakers made by Google have all of the abilities of Google Assistant, some third-party manufacturers exclude certain features, such as the ability to make voice calls. So, if a speaker made by Google sounds the same as one made by another company, but that latter speaker doesn’t have all of Google Assistant, then Google’s device will get a higher rating
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