Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Smart Home
  3. News

The TicHome Mini lets you bring Google Assistant with you around the house

Jenny McGrath
By

The TicHome Mini is a bit like an Amazon Dot crossed with the Tap — only it has Google Assistant built in instead of Alexa. The portable puck from China-based Mobvoi runs on batteries, so you can carry it from room to room so you don’t miss a minute of your favorite podcast. Introduced at IFA 2017, the TicHome Mini is now available for pre-order; for a short time, you can get it for $80, 20 percent off its usual $99 price. We were able to try it out to see how it stacked up against other smart speakers.

Shaped more like a jar of face cream than the puckish Dot, the TicHome Mini also has a bit more girth than its Amazon competitor. The beauty of course is its rechargeable battery — and you can activate it hands-free, unlike the touch-operated Tap. Mobvoi announced its device a few weeks before Google debuted the Home Mini, but the latter needs to be plugged in all the time. On top, the TecHome Mini has a power and mute button, volume buttons, and activation button. When it’s listening, four LEDs light up.

Recommended Videos

The TicHome Mini has all the features of other Google Assistant speakers.

Related

We had a Google Home for a while now, and its biggest drawback is that all its functionality stops when you leave the room. It’s great to have it located near the kitchen while we’re grabbing breakfast, but in the mornings we’d love to have it in the bathroom and bedroom, too. We don’t necessarily want it living in those rooms, which is what makes the TicHome Mini so ingenious. The IPX6 rating makes it splash-proof, so we had no trouble leaving it by the sink when we brushed our teeth. You can apparently even take it into the shower if you need some tunes to help wake you up. Bear in mind its mini status; the sound isn’t going to rival bigger Bluetooth speakers.

The TicHome Mini has all the features of other Google Assistant speakers. It can differentiate between users’ voices to give personalized results, tell you the news and weather, answer questions, control your smart-home devices, and so on. To set it up, you actually use the Google Home app, instead of a Mobvoi-specific one. It’s clear Google — even though it didn’t make this device — treats it as its own. We’ve tried a few non-Amazon Alexa devices and been frustrated with the results: They lack the Echo, Dot, and others’ ESP feature, so you’ll have multiple devices responding if they’re too close. Notably, we had the TicHome Mini and Google Home about 10 feet from one another, and only one device would verbally respond to our questions — though both would light up and listen to the “OK, Google” prompt.

With six hours of standby battery life, the TicHome still requires regular charging. Though the $49 Google Home Mini is cheaper and smaller, the Mobvoi device is definitely worth considering if you like to roam around while listening to the morning news. Or, we suppose, you could just use your phone for that.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Jenny McGrath
Jenny McGrath
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Jenny McGrath is a senior writer at Digital Trends covering the intersection of tech and the arts and the environment. Before…
9 ways Google Assistant can help with Thanksgiving
Nest devices grouped together on a counter.

Google Assistant is available on all sorts of devices around your home. From a basic smartphone to smart speakers, smart displays like the Nest Hub Max, Google Chromecast, and lots more, the assistant is often only a “Hey Google” away from helping. That feature comes in really handy around Thanksgiving, when there’s a whole lot to do and not a lot of time to do it. Here’s how Google Assistant can help make your holiday gathering a little easier.
Look up recipes and ingredient conversions

If you have a Nest smart display or an Android phone, you can tap any recipe you find and say, “Hey Google, add to my cookbook.” Then, when you’re ready in the kitchen, you can simply ask to see your cookbook. With compatible recipes and devices, you can even say, “Hey Google, start cooking,” in a recipe, and Google will walk you through the steps (this trick is primarily for smart displays).

Read more
The Google Home app finally has the big redesign you’ve been waiting for
Google Home icon on home screen.

A new, major Google Home design overhaul is coming soon to the delight of users everywhere. Many have been unhappy with the Google Home app's UI for quite some time as its streamlined approach to providing information seemingly took some agency away from smart home device owners. The new redesign, however, aims to give users more control over their devices and settings than ever before.

While the redesign certainly retains a more straightforward, minimalist look to its UI elements, the settings themselves are as abundant as ever — giving users full control over every aspect of their smart home. The newfound control doesn't end with more granular settings, however, as the redesign is meant to be fully customizable so that users can prioritize the aspects of smart home living most applicable to them.

Read more
How to sell your parents on a smart assistant
The Echo Show 15 is the largest smart display yet.

We all know how discerning, doubtful, and lovingly thick-headed our parents can be, especially when it comes time to adapting new technologies. I'm sure many of us can still hear the arguments about switching to a flatscreen TV buzzing around in our brains ("but the Trinitron still works great!"), which can make the idea of trying to convince mom or dad to start using Alexa a bit of a daunting task.

But the fact is that a digital smart assistant, whether it be Alexa, Google Assistant, or Siri, can do a number of things, but chief amongst the myriad of capabilities, these digital companions are designed to add convenience, organization, and a number of peace-of-mind automations to the lives of all who use them.

Read more