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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.
It looks like JavaScript is disabled in your browser. To get the full experience on Sony.com, please change your settings to allow JavaScript. And also, always wondered what Sonos One offered with Google Home intergration. I have my Sony speaker set up in a group with a home mini and an urbanears speaker.
Shipping and handling
It has a downward-firing 53mm subwoofer, a bass reflex duct and an upward-firing 48mm mid/treble speaker. These are separated by a diffuser to push the sound out at 360° (hence you can’t stereo pair them). The Sony LF-S50G is a step up from Google’s Home and Mini options. But how does it compare to the other Google Home offerings?
The voice element is as effective here as on the standardGoogle Home and the littleGoogle Home Mini. I experienced little delay in response, and I rarely had to repeat myself. While there’s no unique selling point, you do get a great combination of neat ideas. Not all of them are flawlessly implemented, but this is a significant upgrade over the standard Google Home. Thankfully the LF-S50G’s built-in mic seems to happily pick up a call of ‘OK Google’ from a decent distance away, so you shouldn’t have to speak up to issue commands. I just reconnected my S50G a few days ago, after many months of not using it.
Power Consumption
Sometimes I’d get no response no matter how much I adjusted the velocity and trajectory of my hand. If you’re going to offer motion control, the responsiveness needs to be 100% – or at least have some sort of physical control to back it up. You also get limited voice control over Android TVs from Sony and Philips, or any TV with a Chromecast dongle connected. You can tell the speaker to play something on Netflix or YouTube, and it will pop up on screen.
You can disable notifications at any time in your settings menu. The LF-S50G gets very loud, maxing out at about 96 decibels. That's comparable to Onkyo's G3, and enough volume to easily fill a large room. The LF-S50G provides good overall sound, with balanced treble and bass. Audio was slightly better than a $129 Google Home, but nowhere near as good as Onkyo's $199 Smart Speaker G3. The Sony LF-S50G brings Google Assistant to your home with an elegant style and includes some useful features.
Sony LF-S50G Smart Speaker – Performance
When it was first released it retailed for $199.99 but now you can find it for $149.99 at most places. During the holiday season I even saw it for as low as $100. But still, if you get it for $149.99 its just $20 more than the original google home. If you want to pick either of the speakers featured in this video I’ll have links in the description below, and if you use the links it really helps out the channel.
What's more, the LF-S50G costs the same as the Sonos One ($199), so if you can hold off, you won't have to pay extra for better sound quality. Most of the outside is a cloth-mesh speaker cover, save for the polished-chrome base. Sony realizes that you're likely to keep the LF-S50G in the kitchen, so that cover can be removed for cleaning, in case you splash tomato sauce on it while cooking. The speaker itself also has an IPX3 splash-proof rating, so you don't have to worry about the occasional water spray or spill -- just don't submerge it and you should be fine.
The Sony LF-S50G speaker is a great alternative to the traditional Google Home. It has better sound quality and is somewhat more versatile. The Bluetooth connection works quite well and opens the field to more devices that have nothing to do with our Google Account, such as friend's smartphones. Splashproof certified and your watch is perfect for the kitchen or bathroom, a great companion for singing in the shower or while you're cooking. It has a lot of volume to sound good about all the noisy activities that take place in this area of the house.
Unfortunately the Sony LF-S50G doesn’t have an aux jack. The only way to listen to music on this speaker is either through voice commands, if you cast it, or over bluetooth. And theres also an NFC touchpoint so if you have an android device pairing is a little easier. Personally one of my biggest grips with the google home, home mini, and home max is that you cant physically control your music playback, google forces you to use voice commands.
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.
The base is quite thin with reflections and has non-slip rubber underneath. You may try to resist but smart speakers will conquer your home. Sony is placing a serious bet to fill every corner of your home with music, especially places where there are usually liquids.
Using the Google Assistant AI, this speaker offers the same core functionality of the Google Home device, with a different design and some additional motion-based controls. Its starting price is about $200, which is a bit high for the sound quality it offers compared to the Sonos One. However, if it is on sale it is a good opportunity to take Google Assistant to some corner of your home. The clock isn't exactly futuristic, but really useful. You can set it to recognize other people's commands or only those coming from your own voice. In either case the recognition is very good, unless the volume of the device is so high that it cannot hear us.
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