Lenovo Smart Clock Essential Review: A great bedside clock
Lenovo Smart Clock Essential looks to be a very useful bedside table accessory. But should you buy one?
Lenovo Smart Clock Essential is a smart clock with Google Assistant made for your bedside table. The clock brings in a built-in speaker, alarm clock, night light and more to the table. All of this comes in at a price of Rs. 4,499. Considering the budget smart speakers market has been getting crowded lately, should you really lean towards the Lenovo Smart Clock Essential? Here’s what I learned by spending a few weeks with the clock.
Lenovo Smart Clock Essential Review
The Lenovo Smart Clock Essential takes its design cues from old bedside clocks and modernises it with various things. It gets a display up front, which is a White LED display that shows only alphanumeric content. By default, it shows the time as well as the weather for the current location. It also showcases the day of the week and alarm clock status.
The display gets fairly bright during a bright sunny day. It also features auto-brightness which brings the brightness levels down once you turn off the lights in your room. Also, the clock comes with a ring-shaped night light that is circled around the back of the device. The light can be controlled using Google Assistant voice commands or even by pressing and holding the volume down button. When turned on, it glows enough to guide you through the things lying on your bedside table. One can even adjust the brightness of the ring light.
The Smart Clock Essential gets four physical buttons on the top that can be used to control the volume, play/pause music and adjust the alarm. There is also a switch at the back of the clock, which can be used to turn off the microphones on the Google Assistant-powered smart clock.
Most of the smart speaker is covered by a grey fabric, which is reminiscent of expensive Google Home products. As for the sound, the Lenovo Smart Clock essential can be compared to something like the Amazon Echo Dot or the Google Home Mini. It offers plenty of sound for a bedroom or kitchen but would not be sufficient when kept in a hall.
Coming to the Google Assistant, it has been quite well optimised for the Smart Clock Essential. When triggered, four LED dots light up to notify that the Assistant is listening. One can ask the Assistant to play some music, read the latest news, provide weather updates and much more. In case you have other smart devices installed at your home or office, you can even control them with Google Assistant.
Setting up the device was also quite easy. Once you take the device out of the box, just plug it in using the included AC adapter and use your phone to set it up using the Google Home application.
Lenovo Smart Clock Essential: Should you buy it?
Lenovo has designed the Smart Clock Essential keeping a lot of things in mind. It not only acts as a great bedside smart clock but also looks great when kept on a work table. It serves a lot of purposes like constantly showing time, playing music, ringing the alarm and much more. At a price of Rs. 4,499, the Lenovo Smart Clock Essential does make a lot of sense.