Nest Hub Max, the newest member of the Google Nest family, is available from September 10 in Australia
Nest Hub Max, the newest member of the Google Nest family, is available from September 10 at retailers and on the Google Store in Australia. Designed to be the hub for any home, Hub Max is your kitchen TV, home (video) phone, bulletin board, kitchen timer, photo frame, home monitoring camera and more—all in one display.
My family has been using our Nest Hub Max in the kitchen, and it’s been especially fun to see how it helps keep all of us entertained, connected and in sync. Since we’ve had some time to get to know the product, I wanted to share some of the ways we’ve been using Hub Max in our busy household:
Starting my day on the right track
My experience with Hub Max starts when I come downstairs each morning – and I kick off my day with personalised help with a feature called Face Match. For each person in your family who chooses to turn it on, the Assistant guides you through the process of creating a face model, which is encrypted and stored on the device. This means my Assistant greets me with personalised information to start my day: the weather in my suburb, how my commute is looking, and even a news briefing that I can watch while I finish up the dishes that I couldn’t resist leaving undone the previous night. In Australia, you can enjoy news briefings from ABC NEWS, Fox Sports, CommSec and more.
Keeping an eye on home from work
My husband and I both love Hub Max’s built-in Nest Cam, especially when we have to work late and want to check in via the Home app. We can easily get alerts from the Nest app when someone enters the room, and we can view the live stream from our phones to see how dinnertime is going. I can even use Talk and Listen to chat via the Nest Cam, even when I’m away from home. Or if I want to say a bit more, I can use the Google Duo app on my phone to send a video message to my husband that he’ll receive when he walks up to the Hub Max.
Peace of mind
Nest Hub Max has been designed with your privacy in mind and has multiple features to control its built-in Nest Cam. Per our privacy commitments, there’s a green light on the front of Hub Max that indicates when the camera is streaming, and nothing is streamed or recorded unless you explicitly enable it. When a verified member of our household views the stream remotely via the Nest app, the light blinks green. In addition, there are multiple controls to disable the camera and mics, including a hardware switch that lets you physically disable both (and this can’t be overridden via the Home app remotely). Of course, you can always access, review and delete your footage and queries at any time via the Nest app and My Activity.
Dinnertime is family time
From guided recipes to how-to videos, Nest Hub Max is our digital sous chef that helps us whip up family dinners. There are millions of inspiring recipes from leading publishers (in Australia, you can enjoy recipes from Woolworths, Gourmet Traveller, Genius Kitchen, Food Network and more). We eat dinner as a family in the kitchen, and we’ve realised this is also the perfect time for our sons to catch up with their grandparents every evening. Thanks to Duo on our Hub Max, it’s easy to stay connected—they just lets us know which grandma he’s in the mood to chat with, and with a quick “Hey Google, video call Mum,” either of us can invite our parents to join the fun. And with the auto framing feature, the camera automatically adjusts to keep us in view, even as we move around the kitchen to prep the evening’s meal.
After dinner is party time
The premium stereo speakers on Hub Max have made family dance parties a regular tradition in the Morgenroth household. And whenever we’re starting to get tired (or just tired of hearing “Gangnam Style” for the eighth time in a row — yes, really!), the Quick Gestures feature lets us simply just look at the device and raise a hand to pause the music.
Winding down
Finally, Hub Max is the perfect companion as we’re tidying up after putting our sons to bed. For some evening entertainment, we enjoy our favourite TV shows and YouTube content right on Nest Hub Max (and in Australia, you can stream shows with a Stan subscription). And just before I turn off the lights for the night, I always find myself reliving a favourite family memory, thanks to our shared Google Photos album that we’ve displayed using Hub Max’s photo frame feature. Whether it’s a wedding photo, our son’s first steps or our last vacation, Hub Max never fails to bring a smile to my face.
Nest Hub Max is available in chalk and charcoal for RRP $349 starting September 10 at Harvey Norman, JB Hi-Fi, The Good Guys, Officeworks and the Google Store – as well as Optus in the coming months.
