The original Google “Home” Mini that was launched in 2017 has now been taken off of the Google Store, as first discovered by 9to5Google. To clarify, the “Nest” Mini is still available as it’s the newest iteration of the miniature smart speaker, touting a modern pin power adapter, a wall-mount, and a better speaker (2x bass), and a third far-field microphone, but the O.G. device that started it all in this space is no longer being sold to the public.
If you take a look at the Google Store image below, you’ll see that it states “No longer available” on the button that used to read “Add to cart”. If it was previously added to your cart, then you’ll see a greyed-out “Out of Stock” button instead, indicating that you can no longer finalize your order and that it will not be fulfilled.
I personally won’t miss the device, although I do honor it for its legacy. I still own one even though I’ve upgraded to the new Nest Mini across my home, and the device I have sitting in the closet for old time’s sake had several issues that I’m sure you’ll all remember. First, Google’s mesh material caused an issue where the top of the device would automatically and randomly activate Assistant, so the company went so far as to disable the functionality altogether, instead opting for a long press feature on the left and right side where the volume is located. I could still never get used to that and it was a pretty strange oversight.
Another thing is less of an issue and more of an annoyance. The original Mini came out with a micro-USB port in a time when Type-C connectors were just becoming popular on the marketplace, and while they could have included it in that release as an improvement over the original full-sized Google Home, they didn’t. Yes, it came with the power adapter in the box, but it was still quite annoying to plug in and find alternate adapters if you were traveling or lost it. Now that my home is full of type-C across the board, this has become even more difficult.
Over the years, Google has been known to basically shoot Google Home Mini from a T-shirt cannon to give them out for free on pretty much any occasion they could think up as a promotional goodie for other efforts, so you likely have a few of them in your own house, I’m sure. It’s still a neat little device to have, but I have definitely moved on, and I’m glad to see the Google Store clean house a bit.
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