Sound quality: Google's Home had fair overall sound quality. Bass has little impact, is subdued and lacks deep bass. Midrange is hazy and constricted. Treble is subdued and smeared, and the upper treble is lacking. It doesn't do a good job of recovering room ambience and is congested. The speaker provides a decent volume level in a small-sized room, but is better suited for near-field listening. The sound field is monophonic.
Ease of use: We found the Google Home ease of use to be good overall. The Google Home WiFi setup is fairly easy. Download the Google Home App. The instructions are an intuitive walkthrough, which involves selecting a wireless network and entering the network password (or having the stored password in your mobile device entered for you). The instructions continue with a brief example of things to try. Included in the box is a card with a list of things to try, as well. The volume controls are prominent, though unlabeled, and are part of the touch surface. There are also graphic indicators of volume level, which fade away once shown and can be verbally commanded to a specific volume level between 1 through 11. Muting the speaker can be accomplished by a dedicated voice command, but the verbal command is not obvious and is indicated in unit verbal instructions listed as "pause". When used, it provides a clear indication when it is engaged, but it is non-persistent. But this isn't the case when using the touch control. However, neither leaves a persistent indication that the mute function is active. The unit is only WiFi, and has no Bluetooth or line-in options. However, at time of testing, the Google Home app was unable to access the stored internal music content of device where the app was installed. A third-party app, such as BubbleUPnP was needed to gain access to this content, which was able to cast local content to the speaker. The Google Home app allows the selection of the primary music service to search for content. At the time of testing, four services were available: Google Play Music (subscribers), YouTube Music (Red Subscribers), Spotify (Premium), and Pandora (Free).
