There’s a new Google Nest Hub smart speaker in town, and it comes with a boatload of upgraded abilities.

Such as? It’s louder, with a new design and faster processor. It can also track your sleep, but more on that later.

It looks nigh on identical to the previous Nest Hub, but now comes in a new light blue option to go with the light pink, light grey, and dark grey finishes. The bezel now sits flush to the screen, too.

A larger, 43.5mm diameter speaker claims to provide up to 50 percent more bass, while a third mic and on-device machine learning chip supposedly make it more responsive to voice commands.

It still bears a 7-inch, 1024 x 600 pixel touchscreen LCD with automatic ambient brightness and colour adjustment. But there’s no built-in camera, so for video calls, you’ll need the bigger, pricier, Nest Hub Max.

Now, onto its smarts. The headline feature in this regard is sleep tracking, which comes courtesy of Google’s Soli sensor technology. This measures your movement during the night to see how restless you were, even down to your breathing patterns. While it might not be as accurate or detailed as a wearable device, many people will prefer not having to wear a sensor.

You don’t have to tell it when you’re going to bed, either. Just head to Bedfordshire, and it does the rest. You can even configure it to avoid your bed partner, so it doesn’t confuse their movements with your own.

The Soli tech was previously seen in the Pixel 4 from 2019 and Google’s Nest Thermostat.

The new Nest Hub will go on sale on 30th March, and cost £89 ($99, AU$149).

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