


  • Google recently released its biggest, most powerful smart speaker yet, the Google Home Max.
  • As a speaker, the Max is loud, clear, balanced, and can play songs from a couple of different services, though it defaults to Google Music.
  • The Max is also very smart. It nails the "smart" part of the smart speaker equation.

Of all the tech I've been sent to test, Google's biggest smart speaker may have the most honest name: Max. In volume, intelligence, and even aesthetics, the search giant is making a large statement. Over the course of two-and-a-half weeks, I put this speaker through its paces, and if you're deeply invested in Google's ecosystem, it's a game-changer.

The first thing I noticed about the Max was its size. This is easily the largest speaker I've ever tested. It's imposing, so much so that I had to clear a space on my desk for it. But that lack of subtlety is part of the Max's charm. Google clearly spent a lot of time designing it; the curved shape and linen speaker grill make the Max look friendly.

In regards to the speaker's audio quality, I have few qualms. Whether I was playing acoustic, harmony-driven songs or playing current pop hits before a night out, everything sounded pretty balanced. The Max is a mono speaker, so you won't get any stereo separation when it's oriented vertically— unless you buy two of these speakers and link them — but that didn't really bother me much. When placed horizontally, the Max does play music in stereo.

I'd like to call out the Max's bass, in particular, which was powerful and clean, even at higher volumes. Speaking of volume, this speaker gets loud enough that I wasn't comfortable testing it at full strength. I live in a small apartment building, and even though the walls are thick, I started feeling like a bad neighbor after cranking the volume past 50%.

My final bit on the music front is that while the Max defaults to playing songs through Google Music, you can link it to your Spotify account and play music that way, too. Openness has been Google's strong suit, and it's nice to have options instead of being stuck to one service. You can link up an assortment of music and video services to work with the Max through the Google Home app, which you'll need to set up the speaker.


It should come as no surprise that the Max nails the "smart" part of the smart speaker equation.

Backed by Google, this speaker can tell you information that's tailored specifically to you. That's because the Max won't work until you link it to a Gmail account and grant it access to all of the information Google already has about you.

In exchange for knowing where you work, Google can tell you about how your commute will go. Since Google knows where you live, you'll get weather information about your area. If you've dumped all of your important meetings and events into Google Calendar, the Max can tell you what's next on your agenda.

I'm going to be honest, I try to limit the information companies know about me whenever possible, so I linked the Max to a Google account I don't use regularly. Yes, this limited the usefulness of the Max somewhat, but I was still very impressed at how much general knowledge it could give me when asked.

For instance, I asked whether I'd need an umbrella and the Max gave me a quick answer: "No, rain is not expected this week in New York City." When I asked it to play the most popular song right now it said: "Sure. Here's a Google Play Music station called Today's Biggest Hits." If I liked a song it played, the Max could tell me the title and the artist; if I asked to raise or lower the volume, it could do that, too.

The Max can also serve you information from Wikipedia, which is useful when asking about a specific person or thing. I was always given enough information to satisfy my request, without getting too much, which would have been annoying.


After putting its music-playing and question-answering skills to the test, I wanted to try a Google-specific feature with the Max: Chromecasting.

If you have a Google Home-enabled smart home hub and a device with a Chromecast built into it, you can wirelessly send music and videos from the former to the latter. In my case, I asked the Max to play music from Spotify and a couple of shows from Netflix to the Chromecast hooked up to my TV.

It took a couple of tries to get the right phrasing down (I threw in the word Chromecast unnecessarily), but after getting that down, I was able to make it work consistently. Asking the Max to play a show on my TV, and watch it actually happen within a few seconds was a real "I'm living in the future" moment.

The same was true when I asked it to play videos from YouTube; first I asked to see something popular, which it showed me, then I asked to watch the latest video from a specific channel, and that worked, too.

If you're hooked into the Google ecosystem, and want a speaker that can shake the walls, the Max is a no-brainer. It's an expensive investment, and you'll need to give Google access to a lot of information to get the most out of it, but, for me at least, the pros outweighed that potential con.

Buy the Google Home Max at Walmart for $399

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