Google's got a new Nest Hub that sees you with when you're sleeping.
We'll it doesn't actually see, there's no camera, it just monitors.
[SOUND] and tracks, so yeah it's kind of creepy, but it's also kind of cool and here's how the new sleep sensing feature on the new Google Nest Hub works.
[MUSIC]
I love Google's original Nest Hub.
It's one of my favorite smart displays out there.
So I was really excited when I found out they were updating it and coming out with a second generation The next up, except that this new version looks almost exactly the same as the old one.
But the new power comes from within.
It's packing a soli radar.
Google tried out this radar feature on their pixel, four phones and now they're bringing it into the smart home.
The idea is that this radar is gonna be able to sense 3D motion without a camera just like the old nest hub.
This new one doesn't have a camera it just uses solely to be able to tell if you're tossing or turning.
And it has gesture controls as well so you'll be able to tap the air in front of the device to play or pause.
You'll be able to wave your hand to snooze in the morning.
But what soli is really trying to do on the new nest hub is sense how you're sleeping.
It's going to use solely to sense if you're tossing and turning throughout the night.
It's going to be able to track that and then in the morning, you're gonna be able to ask, Hey, how did I sleep and you'll be able to see it tracked over time to see when you were restless.
When you were soundly out, then it's going to use sensors such as light and sound sensors to maybe understand the factors that led to your deeper sleeps or the moments when you weren't out as cold.
And those sound sensors are also going to be able to tell if you coughed or were snoring Now, this raises some privacy concerns, obviously.
But Google has promised they're not gonna use any of this data to sell you ads, and for the sound stuff, in particular, Google is gonna process all of that information locally.
The motion and other information will be sent to the cloud so you can check it and track it using the Google Fit app as well as the device.
And then Google is gonna use all of that tracked info along with research from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine to give you knowledge about how you can sleep better.
The idea here is touchless sleep tracking, which is still pretty new.
For the most part and in order to track your sleep, you still need to use a wearable And most people want to charge those at night, which might be part of the reason that sleep tracking hasn't taken off.
So, if this nest hub actually works well, it could contribute to making sense of your sleep patterns in a way that would be actually helpful.
But Google has assured that the feature is entirely optional Again, there's no camera so it's not learning faces are not learning who you are.
It's just watching for motion and listening for coughing, and light and temperature and sound in order to gather a bunch of background info.
And Google has specified that is only watching the person nearest the device.
So if there's two people in the bed, it's only going to watch whoever is next to the nightstand.
One thing Google did specify is that the service is free for now, which is a little unfortunate, because that means it's going to cost something at some point soon, but free for the rest of the year.
So you can try it out and see how well it works.
And then the hope is that it'll integrate with Google Fit and whatever other fitness programs you might want to use.
And there we go.
That's the big new feature of the new Google nest.
It's going to be $99 pre orders start now.
And it will hit store shelves by the end of the month.
It's gonna be available in four colors, chalk, charcoal, sand, and it's got a new color called mist.
Woohoo!
Physically, it's much different at all.
It's still going to have that ambient EQ to adapt photos.
It's still gonna have voice assistants there Google Assistant all the other bells and whistles you'd expect.
The new features are that soli radar tracking, which also brings gesture controls.
It has a built in thread hub for extra Smart Home stuff.
It'll have sunrise alarms, which I'm kind of excited about the screen will get brighter as it gets closer to the time for you to wake up.
And I love that feature.
It makes getting up in the mornings much easier.
My cat is very excited about the feature as well.
Yes.
And but she is still a little unenthused about the fact that it doesn't look super different from its predecessor.
So some of the internal changes feel necessary.
It feels like the device is catching up.
Just maybe was hoping for a little bit more [UNKNOWN], if that sleep tracking works as promised, it could be a cool new device.
But what do you think?
Is this sleep tracking feature enough to make this upgrade feel worthwhile?
Comment below and please hit that thumbs up button if you enjoyed the video, and Subscribe to Cnet's YouTube channel for more.
Thank you for watching.
[MUSIC]
