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Triggering Google Assistant works by simply saying “OK Google” or “Hey Google” to get Google Assistant to start listening for commands. The Sony LF-S50G was excellent at recognizing our voice, even across the room. The only time it struggled to hear was when music was playing loudly.
OK, lets get over the obvious… yes the Sony looks almost exactly like an Apple HomePod. And personally I don’t mind, its smaller, a little slimmer, and much lighter than the HomePod. But this Sony smart speaker is slightly bigger than the google home. The only buttons this smart speaker has is a bluetooth button, a mute button, and a dim button to lower the brightness of the clock display on the front.
Shipping and handling
We’re now well into phase two of the smart speaker movement. That is, speakers armed with voice-activated AI assistants. If you’re planning on sticking the LF-S50G in your bathroom or kitchen, the splash-proof design will ensure that it doesn’t suffer any harm when spattered with water accidentally.
For comparison, the Google Home has a a single frontward facing 2 inch diameter transducer and dual 2 inch diameter passive radiators. Even though the google home is a 360 speaker, after living with it for a few months its still pretty directional, for the best sound you want that transducer firing towards you. / © NextPit You can also control the volume by moving your finger in a circle over the speaker, clockwise to increase and counterclockwise to decrease. This gesture is more difficult to control, sometimes it is difficult to recognize and it is difficult to adjust exactly to a certain volume level. In addition to being able to control the Sony LF-S50G by voice commands from Google Assistant, it also has a number of gestures available without the need to touch the device.
Power Consumption
After a few days, though, I did find that actually placing a finger on the top of the LF-S50G before starting the circular motion that's used to control volume helped. Basically, if you treat the top like a touch ring or dial, Sony's speaker does a better job of picking up on what you're trying to do. But the company is advertising "touch-free gestures," and, for me, they just weren't reliable.
In the audio department, Sony has clearly gone all-out with its speaker technology. The LF-S50G uses a two-stage diffuser to spread sound evenly throughout a room, even with just one speaker unit. This is enhanced by the use of a “two-way facing” speaker designed to improve sound coverage. Visually, Sony’s LF-S50G is somewhat reminiscent of Apple’s own Siri-powered Home Pod smart speaker. It’s cylindrical in shape, measuring little more than 162mm in height, with a circumference of 110mm. It is surprisingly heavy though, weighing 750g despite not having a built-in battery.
Sony LF-S50G Smart Speaker – Performance
Theres still a good amount of bass but the mids are also very well defined. But the Sony isn’t perfect, it also suffers a good amount of sound distortion if you get above 85 percent volume. More often than not, I just used my voice and had Google Assistant make the adjustments for me.
The answers are also very quick, which is to be welcomed. At the end of the day, the $200 (£200, AU$299) Sony LF-S50G isn't a good value. For the same price, you can get the excellent Sonos One, or for $130 (£130/AU$200), you can get the Google Home, which is still an excellent smartspeaker for the price even though it’s a year old now. DIYers can pick up the Google Home Mini for $50 (£49, AU$79) and roll your own speaker setup with the Chromecast Audio. Even with that in mind, I’d say my Jedi mind tricks worked about 80% of the time. The remaining 20% saw me waving about to no avail and feeling silly.
It’ll not repeat me what channel the Hornets sport became on, shall we embrace, but it with out a doubt can give me a stout checklist of the day’s games. That’s a question Assistant can not solution, but Siri can. Although I did not consistently salvage the answer I needed. As with other Google Assistant speakers, you set up the LF-S50G through the Google Home app. It uses your Wi-Fi network for internet connectivity and supports both 5- and 2.4-GHz networks. You can also pair it with your phone via Bluetooth, which is useful if your streaming service of choice is Apple Music .
The smart speaker isn’t perfect, but it does a lot of things well. / © NextPit On the top back of the screen is an NFC symbol to help pair the device via Bluetooth. Near where the power cable connects we have a button to deactivate the microphones and another to pair manually via Bluetooth.
But at the time of writing, two major retailers are selling the Sony for £170, and Sony itself has it at £150. If you can find the LF-S50G at that price, I’d recommend giving it a go. Waving left and right to skip tracks is straightforward enough, but there’s definitely a knack to drawing circles in the air above the speaker to control volume – they’ve got to be small circles. The speaker is IPX3 rated, which means it is splashproof. The mesh cover is actually a removable shell, which you can rinse under a tap if you’re cooking and somehow get chicken juice all over the speaker. Our opinion of the Sony LF-S50G has not changed so much even though we now better appreciate the gamut of OK Google speakers.
This is the same issue I have with the JBL link 10 and Link 20. Also, I feel Sony should have included an ambient light sensor so the LED display on the front will automatically adjust itself. I also think Sony should get more use out of the LED display in general. Right now it only displays time and volume, I would like to see it be used for timers, notifications, and maybe even display the current outside temperature. Unfortunately, the gesture controls were extremely temperamental, refusing to work half the time during our testing. For instance, you’re supposed to make a circle motion to change volume but the gesture rarely worked.
Will usually ship within 3 business days of receiving cleared payment. Google has proven that it cannot be trusted to ensure that third party products that use its OS will be updated. He has an unhealthy obsession with headphones and can identify cars simply by listening to their exhaust notes. Google wowed us when it launched its first voice assistant speaker, the Google Home. This affordably priced speaker was the first to have Google Assistant baked in and, in year since its launch, has become more intelligent than ever.
