![]() ![]() The Lenovo Smart Clock is the most affordable of the bunch at $80. They show you your calendar, tell you the weather, play snippets of news, and, oh yes, blare loud noises into your brain if that’s what gets you going in the morning. But they lend themselves particularly well to the space that exists between slumber and stumbling into the shower each morning. The companies say these little devices with screens could go anywhere on a kitchen counter, in your home office. All of these products are small enough to live on a bedside table, just inches from where you lay your head at night. ![]() Lenovo’s Smart Clock is one of a few examples of this, along with Google’s Home Hub, Amazon’s new Echo Show 5, and the two-year-old Echo Spot. They want us to have as many touchpoints in our lives as possible, an infinite number of ways in which we might interact with their products and services. Follow Yahoo Finance on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and tech companies, it’s not enough that many of us now fall asleep with our smartphones next to us, then reach to grab our phones yet again immediately after opening our eyes. The one bright spot in Apple’s dramatic letter to investorsĪpple’s Chinese competitors figured out how to make Apple products better than AppleĮmail Daniel Howley at follow him on Twitter at. Google Assistant is getting new features to take on Amazon’s Alexa We’ll see how it stacks up when I get my hands on the Smart Clock later this year. ![]() Lenovo doesn’t have a firm release date for the Smart Clock outside of saying it will hit the market this spring. With Google Assistant routines, you can also set up several smart home tasks to respond to key phrases like “Okay, Google, goodnight,” or “Okay, Google, good morning.” During my demonstrations, representatives from Google and Lenovo showed how you can set a routine to turn off your lights, lock your smart locks, and begin playing preset music. Since the Smart Clock uses Google Assistant, you’ll be able to control all of your Assistant-compatible smart home devices, so you can do things like check in on your connected cameras and lock your doors at night. You can use the touchscreen or your voice to call up any of the screens, and set alarms. There’s the digital clock face, a weather tab, a tab for checking your commute and schedule and one for setting an alarm. The Smart Clock’s interface is a low-key affair. And since Google and Lenovo know you’ll still need to charge your handset, they added the USB port to compensate for losing a wall outlet. It’s meant for you to be able to charge your smartphone while the Clock is plugged in, since that will presumably take up one of the power outlets next to your bed. That USB port is a smart addition to the clock. Around back, there’s a power adapter physical mute button if you don’t want Assistant listening to you at night, and USB port. Up top there are two physical volume buttons, as well as a touch-sensitive area that you can tap, or more realistically smash, to silence your alarm. Lenovo covered the Smart Clock with a cloth shell that’s thematically similar to the cloth base found on Google’s own Google Home smart speaker. Unlike Amazon’s Echo Spot, which has a circular design reminiscent of a classic alarm clock, the Smart Clock features a rectangular display up front, with a body that slowly tapers off toward its rear. So don't expect to watch movies from this little device. The Lenovo Smart Clock is meant to provide you with the right amount of information for your nightstand. And, of course, you can set multiple alarms each morning 1-minute apart like I do, so you can constantly snooze one after the other until you’re late for work. The idea is to make waking up a little less awful each morning. To help improve this experience, the companies have set the Smart Clock to slowly begin increasing its screen’s brightness 30 minutes before your alarm sounds.Īnd when that dreadful noise finally begins, it won’t hit at peak volume all at once, but instead will slowly increase in volume. When building out the Smart Clock, Lenovo and Google said they took into account the fact that people generally don’t like being woken up by the incredibly annoying and jarring sound of their alarm clocks. Chiefly, that you probably don’t want to watch video on a 4-inch display and, because chances are you don’t want a camera pointed at you while you’re sleeping every night. Lenovo and Google, however, say there are reasons for that. You won’t be able to stream video to it, and you won’t be able to video chat with it since there’s no camera. The Smart Clock isn’t supposed to be as complex as Lenovo’s Smart Display with Google Assistant. At that price, the Smart Clock is shaping up to be exactly the kind of smart device that you’d want next to your bed thanks to its voice controls and the way it slowly raises the volume of your alarm each morning. ![]()
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