Google Home is a little device that plugs into the wall and responds to your voice. It can play recorded music or the radio through services like Google Play Music and TuneIn, and it can respond to questions based on the knowledge Google has amassed throughout the 21st century. If you’ve got the correct hardware at home, like a Nest Thermostat, Samsung’s Smartthings, or Philips hue, Google Home can allow you to control some of your home’s functions with your voice.

We’ve had some time to get to know the Google Home and there are a LOT of things to like about it. Its voice recognition is robust and its audio is impressive for being a little tiny speaker. At the same time, when one looks at Google Home through the lens of a smarthome, AI, product, one quickly realizes that the device is not quite where the demonstrations were during the 2016 Google IO developers conference, nor is it a device that delivers on the promise of its advertisements.