Google Assistant smart display looks a great bedside option
The new Lenovo Smart Clock 2, a sequel to the 2019 original, has been unveiled; adding a wireless charging pad to the bedside smart display equation.
Costing $10 more than the original Smart Clock – but still with a very reasonable $89.99 price-tag – the Google Assistant packing Lenovo Smart Clock 2 looks pretty similar its older sibling but with a fabric ‘chin’ area underneath the 4-inch LCD IPS display.
Available in a trio of color options – Abyss Blue, Heather Grey and Shadow Black – the main talking point is the optional dock for the Clock 2, which has pins on the left side to slot the smart display speaker onto and a space for Qi wireless charging on the right.
Already a great bedside option, the addition of a wireless charging dock gives you a pretty comprehensive overnight solution.
The dock is also capable of acting as an ambient night light as it has an invisible LED trim around its base.
The Lenovo Smart Clock 2 does away with the USB-A charging point that the original boasted, but you do get access to one on the back of the charging dock base.
With the Google Assistant on board, you can use the new Lenovo clock as you would any other Google Home smart speaker – controlling your smart home devices, triggering automations, setting reminders, checking your calendar and so on.
The obvious bonus of having a voice assistant on your bedside is that it makes it super simple to set alarms for your morning call. You could choose to be woken up with news, music or the radio and you can even pair your alarm with playlists, smart lights or even brew the morning coffee.
You wouldn’t want to use the 3W 1.5-inch speaker for anything beyond casual audio playback but we did find that the same size speaker in the original was pretty punchy for its size.
At $90, it’s very much a budget smart speaker but it’s not the cheapest model on offer from Lenovo. Back in August 2020, Lenovo launched a stripped back bedside based smart speaker – the Lenovo Smart Clock Essential, which is only $49.
It’s not a Google Smart Display like this new entry, but is instead a basic Google Assistant smart speaker with an LED display on the front, giving you the time, the date and the weather and temperature.
If you do fancy paying the extra $50 for the new Smart Clock 2 though, you’ll have to wait until September, when it will go on sale.
