Tag Archives: smart clock

Xiaomi’s new $59 Smart Clock is a super-affordable alternative to the Amazon Echo Show

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I wouldn’t be surprised if you mistook the Mi Smart Clock for an Amazon Echo Show from afar. They both share a pretty similar front-view, with a landscape display accompanied by a thick bezel. The only difference is that the $59 smart speaker/clock doesn’t come with a camera embedded within the bezel. At that price, I wouldn’t expect it to… more so considering it costs just $30 in Xiaomi’s home country, China.

I’d hate to really harp on its price (after all we’re a design site), but the price of the Xiaomi Mi Smart Clock is really a feature, given most regular smart speakers cost nearly double… multiply it by 4 if you’re adding a display too. The price aside, the Mi Smart Clock is a nifty little smart-speaker with Google Assistant built-in. The display on the clock is a high-quality 3.97-inch touchscreen running MIUI, and can be used either to display images and photos from your camera roll, or as a clock (with a variety of themes to choose from). Aside from these two functions, the Mi Smart Clock allows you to connect it to a host of IoT devices too, letting you monitor and control a variety of other smart devices around your house (like your home security cam or smart lights) simply by summoning Google Assistant. The display acts as a dashboard for notifications too, and thanks to built-in Chromecast, you can beam music, videos, and other content from your smartphone or tablet to your Mi Smart Clock’s display (potentially allowing your kids to watch cartoons without having to give your phone to them). Of course, the Mi Smart Clock works as a regular smart-speaker too, letting you do things you’d normally do with your Echo or Google Nest speaker like play music, narrate the news, or tell you the weather.

In a market saturated with smart speakers, Xiaomi manages to strut in rather comfortably, thanks to its brand recognition and that frankly unbeatable price. Although given that tag, you’d have to wonder where the compromise lies… is it in the lack of a camera? Or in the fact that the company access to all your data?

Designer: Xiaomi

Lenovo’s Google-powered Smart Clocks hit all-time low prices for Black Friday

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You might have an easier time deciding on a Google Assistant smart display this Black Friday. Lenovo’s Smart Clock is on sale now at Best Buy for $35, an all-time low and less than half its original $80 asking price. You can get it for the same price...

The Google Nest Clock puts a sleek, informative smart-display on your wall

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If you’ve got Google‘s slew of products around your home, there’s a lot of information you can access right at your fingertips, from the time of the day to the weather, weekly forecast, indoor temperature, your appointments, new email notification, to mention a few. The Google Nest Clock concept gives you a display to view that information on the wall of your house, offering a better alternative to browsing through your phone, or asking your Google Nest Home smart-speaker and having it narrate things in audio back to you.

The Google Nest Clock concept builds on the design format of the Nest thermostat, but strips away the thermostat functions and just makes it a sleek, elegant-looking clock. With a variety of clock-faces, and the ability to lay out crucial information for you, from the weather to what the traffic looks like on the way to work, the Nest Clock provides the experience of having a smart-display you can speak commands to.

Think of the Google Nest Clock as a smartwatch, but bigger. It plugs into an outlet using a USB-C connection and hangs on the wall, with a perpetually on display giving you the time, date, weather, and a lot of other information. Just like a smart-speaker, you can talk to your clock too, telling it to change its face-style, asking it to display family photos, having it notify you if you get a new email, or of your daily appointments, or just display motivational quotes. The fact that it has a dynamic display means the Nest Clock works anywhere in any sort of home. You can choose between informative, minimalist, or decorative clock-faces, just like you can with a smart-watch, and at the same time, you can even tell your Nest Clock to control various aspects of your smart home for you, from setting the thermostat to switching on/off the lights, to potentially even asking it to display who’s at the front door!

Designer: Abdelrahman Shaapan

Lenovo’s Google-powered Smart Clock drops to $40 at Best Buy

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Best Buy dropped the price of Lenovo’s Smart Clock with Google Assistant to $40 today. This brings the price closer to that of a “regular” alarm clock, but the Smart Clock offers so much more. For $40, you get features like a sunrise alarm, an ambien...

Lenovo’s smart speaker also doubles as your bedside alarm clock

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Imagine your Google Home Mini grew a screen, and displayed the time. That’s what the Lenovo Smart Clock is, and it’s positioned as the perfect smart speaker for your bedside. With a 4-inch IPS touchscreen display alongside the smart speaker, the Smart Clock accepts voice commands, and replies back to you not just with voice, but occasionally with visual data too. Designed to be the smart speaker that wakes you up and gets you ready for the day, the Lenovo Smart Clock is like a dedicated Google-based smart speaker for your bedroom. It works with Google Assistant, delivering a unified Google Assistant experience across all your devices (you can listen to music on it too). The Smart Clock additionally works as a power bank too, allowing you to charge your devices while asleep. Lenovo even intentionally opted out of putting a camera on the Smart Clock, making it the kind of product you’d feel safe to keep in your bedroom. (It will, however, listen to everything you say or do, as does any device that uses Google Assistant)

And to make things just a little more Google-er, the Smart Clock comes with a fabric clad that’s highly reminiscent of Google’s design language for interior spaces.

Designer: Lenovo

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The correct formula for mixing Tech and Time

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The Smartwatch industry seemed like a bad idea from the get-go. It felt like overkill to have with you a phone that connects you to the world, and then a watch that connects you to your phone in your pocket. Now a Smart Clock, that’s something I could rally behind, because it makes sense. The clock’s ever present, always visible, and is more capable of connecting you to your internet-powered world while at home, because your phone could be anywhere, if not in your pocket.

The Glance Clock is the breakthrough product for clocks, the way the Nest was for thermostats. It doesn’t make your home ‘smart’, but it still is an immensely useful smart device at home. A simple innocuous clock on the outside, but a clever LED matrix screen behind the fabric facade, the Glance clock lights up when needed, being your information butler at home, and telling you more than just the time.

The Glance still comes with hands that constantly tell you the time in the classic analog format that we know and love. However, it’s advanced enough to provide a wide variety of other notifications too on command. Ranging from displaying the temperature, to your daily schedule/planner, to notifying you when your phone’s ringing or when your Uber/Lyft has arrived, the Glance aims at amazing you with a user experience that gives you a glimpse of the information you need to know… and sometimes delighting you with a friendly smiley face, humanizing the AI behind the clock.

The Glance doesn’t shy from celebrating the fact that it’s a clock first, and an AI assistant later. The Clock’s design stands out as modern, minimalist, and adaptable to any interior style. The fabric on the face of the clock masks the LED matrix behind, making it look familiar, rather than too modern. However, when the LEDs light up through the fabric, it’s always a delightful experience!

The Glance corrects the mistake the smartwatch industry made, by combining the timepiece and the Internet of Things in the more relevant setup. On your wall, not your wrist. Because you don’t need another portable computer on your person. I’d much rather rally behind the idea of a Smart Clock!

Designer: Glance Tech

BUY IT HERE: $149 $199

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