Get some smart home ideas as you shop
This spring we got to check out a mini Apple HomeKit model home in John Lewis’ Westfield London store – now it’s Google’s turn.
If you head to John Lewis’ flagship Oxford Street store in London, you can have a nosey around the 827 sq ft Google Assistant-powered Smart Home space.
Read this: Google Home Hub review
It consists of stylish living room, kitchen, bedroom and front door setups, largely stuffed with Google and Nest tech, and it’s not a London one-off this time. More Google Smart Homes are coming to John Lewis stores in Southampton, Oxford, Leeds and Edinburgh “over the coming weeks”.
Smart home tech is often the kind that comes into its own when you see it in situ and in action. Otherwise it can require a little imagination.
“Sales of smart home products double every year but the rapid development in this technology has meant that they do a lot more than many of us realise,” said Katrina Mills, smart home buyer at John Lewis. “This ‘smart home’ gives people the chance to have fun testing the products and decide if they would benefit from them.”
On show are devices like the Nest Hello smart doorbell – its feed is displayed on the smart TV with a Chromecast Ultra, Google Home Mini and Sonos soundbar in the living room area.
That’s to show off Google Assistant’s ability to show you who is at the door if you ask it. (It’s worth noting you can also do the same with a Ring Video Doorbell 2 and an Amazon Fire TV stick or box).
Google’s Pixel 3 smartphone is on hand to demo the redesigned, much more easier to navigate Google Home app and other third party devices including the LightWave smart socket, LightWave bridge and Tile mate also made the cut.
This being the Google Home, there’s also a Google Home Wi-Fi, a Nest Thermostat and Nest Protect smart smoke alarm. Nest Secure, its full smart security (alarm and sensor) system, isn’t launching in the UK until 2019.
The brilliant new Google Home Hub smart display is also there, on the kitchen counter where it belongs, so that customers can play around with setting up routines like, “Hey Google, good night” and see how you can hook up multiple devices in one command. The bedroom, meanwhile, makes do with a budget Google Home Mini in coral.
In the living room, there’s also a couple of grey Google Home Max speakers, a white Nest Cam IQ Indoor, Philips Hue smart bulbs in overhead lights and freestanding lamps and two Sonos Ones for good measure.
Google Assistant support to that speaker is now delayed to 2019 as Google and Sonos are having to build a whole new hybrid Google Assistant platform for it.
