The “Lenovo Smart Clock Essential 4″ with Google Assistant,” as it’s called, is a small smart speaker with a 4-inch screen. It has all the features you would expect from an Assistant speaker, like the ability to stream music, control smart home devices, set reminders, and more. The front display is a non-touch LED screen, giving you the current time, weather, and other data at a glance.
Lenovo has also added a few features to make it more useful as an alarm clock, compared to most smart speakers. There are physical volume, playback, and alarm buttons, and tapping the top acts as a snooze for any alarms. Lenovo also added a USB Type-A port on the back, which can be used to charge a phone or other device on your bedstand without the need to run another cord down the wall. However, unlike many typical alarm clocks, there’s no backup battery to handle power outages. It also has known problems with connecting to Wi-Fi networks that share 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands with the same network name.
This clock is on sale for $19.99, down from the original MSRP of $49.99. It has dropped to this price several times before, but it’s still an excellent choice for anyone in the market for a compact Google Assistant speaker. There is a newer model available, which is also on sale, but that version has Alexa instead of Google Assistant.
