The reviewer has been compensated in the form of a Best Buy Gift Card and/or received the product/service at a reduced price or for free.
Have you ever wished that your life could be easier, more connected and that you could control the atmosphere of your home just by speaking what you want it to do? If so, then connected home products are for you. With Google Home, Nest, Google Chromecast, and Philips Hue lighting, you can tell your home to do just about anything!
With Google Home, you can simplify your everyday life using Google’s voice activated speaker, featuring a high excursion speaker and a far-field microphone. Use voice commands to enjoy your favorite music, get answers from Google, manage your everyday tasks such as your daily commute, your flight time, the weather, and setting alarms and timers. You can even use Google Home to control compatible smart devices such as a Chromecast, Philips Hue lighting, a Nest Thermostat.
We love playing trivia with Google Home. It’s a great way to entertain ourselves for a few minutes at a time and my kids love the game show feel it has. We always learn something when we play a few rounds, too. Being able to stream Pandora through Google Home is a nice feature we use every day.
With Google Chromecast you can enjoy a world of entertainment. Just plug it into your TV’s HDMI interface and connect it to your home wifi, and you can get started. You can stream your favorite apps and get access to movies, music, and more. from any compatible phone, laptop, or tablet, and you can search, play, and pause using your connected phone.
Using the Nest 3rd Generation Programmable Wi-Fi Learning Thermostat you can take control of your home’s heating and cooling with barely lifting a finger. The Nest learns your habits and adjusts by itself to regulate your home’s temperature to exactly as you like it based on your schedule. The Nest thermostat even keeps an eye on the weather manages humidity for you to help provide the perfect climate.
You can review your energy usage history and get tips to help you conserve even more. The Nest Leaf feature even informs you when you choose a temperature that’s energy efficient, so you can save on power without even trying! Nest tells you when you’re home or away based on your phone’s location and makes temperature adjustments accordingly.
A screwdriver and screws are included in your purchase, so this thermostat is easy to install. I did the installation myself! The Nest thermostat features as steel ring around it and illuminates its display for you when it detects you, even across the room. And your Nest thermostat is compatible with Google home, so you can control it with ease using simple voice commands! I love being able to ask Google to turn my heat up and down for me from across the room.
With the Philips Hue color and ambiance bulb, you can change the color of your lighting. You can use cooler colors to brighten up your day, or warmer colors to warm up at night time. You can create lighting schedules, to suit your daily lighting needs, and you can control your Philips Hue color and ambiance bulbs straight from your smartphone or a web browser. You can easily adjust the brightness of your lighting, choose from millions of color options, even using saved photos as color palettes. The options are nearly endless! Read is my favorite daytime setting in our kitchen, and I love how dim the night light setting is. Just enough to give you a little light to see by.
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I love my Google Home that I got at the Best Buy booth at Mom 2.0. The kids play trivia with it and I often ask it to play me 80’s pop music while cooking! I want to get light bulbs that I can also control with the unit as wel.