The Google Home Speaker, Google’s first smart speaker in several years and its Gemini-powered model that launched in June, is down to around $79 ($20 off) in all four colors at Best Buy, Walmart, and Target, the best price seen for the speaker. In her review, Jennifer Pattison Tuohy noted the speaker offers a balance of sound quality, size, and design; it is smaller than the prior-gen Nest Audio but produces loud, clear audio with 360-degree sound. David Pierce found it sounded cleaner, louder, and sharper than Amazon’s similarly priced Echo Dot Max, though Tuohy preferred the latter’s fuller sound and stronger bass, and the older Nest Audio still sounds better overall. The speaker supports Matter and includes a Thread border router, and it is the first Google smart speaker that can double as an audio output for the Google TV Streamer 4K. Its Gemini support is better at understanding natural language and complex requests than the old Google Assistant, handling multiple smart home commands at once and conversational requests, though it can be slow and unreliable at times. Some features require a $10-a-month Google Home Premium subscription, including Gemini Live.