You can turn it on by long-pressing the volume-down button on the top of the device or with your voice. Perhaps my favourite is the nightlight - the back of the Smart Clock Essential features a small light on the rear. A very helpful speakerĪside from the LED, the Smart Clock Essential includes a few other excellent features. If you prefer keeping your bedroom as dark as possible, I’d advise getting the regular Smart Clock instead. I had hoped that it would be less bright than the IPS panel on the regular Smart Clock, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. My biggest gripe with the LED is that it’s incredibly bright in a dark room. Is it as smart as an IPS panel? No, but it’s surprisingly capable. On top of that, the LED can also display an icon when there’s an alarm set, as well as an icon when the mic is muted. The icons include sunny, windy, rainy, foggy, cloudy, snowy, thunderstorms and a general bad weather symbol.Ībove the clock and date, the panel also features four white LEDs that illuminate and pulsate when you wake it up with the ‘Hey Google’ hotword. Not only does it show the time, but it also passively displays the day, temperate and illuminates one of eight weather icons to give you an idea of what’s going outside without even asking. Lenovo put a surprising amount of thought into this little clock, especially in the LED screen. The little LED that couldīut, that sells the LED short.
And the Smart Clock Essential pares it down to just that essential. Maybe less so on something like a Nest Hub, where the point is the larger touch display - here, all I need is a clock. So, dropping the often unnecessary IPS panel for an LED makes a lot of sense for this product. But more often than not, I’d ask the question and listen to its response while getting dressed and without even glancing at the screen. Sure, if I asked it about the weather, the Smart Clock would show a little animation of what was going on outside. Smart Clock Essential (left) and Smart Clock (right) You see, in almost all of my time with the Smart Clock, I almost never touched the display and rarely looked at anything other than the clock. However, in practice, the LED is almost a perfect replacement for the Smart Clock’s IPS panel. It may seem like a step back to drop a fully-functional, touch cable IPS display for a static LED capable of showing the time and little else. The Smart Clock Essential is, for all intents and purposes, the Smart Clock, but instead of the tiny IPS screen, it has a small LED display just like what you’d find on a traditional alarm clock. However, Lenovo seems determined to take control of people’s night tables with its new Smart Clock Essential. What makes the Smart Clock so great for me is that it’s essentially a Google Nest Mini with a tiny screen slapped onto it, making it a near-perfect bedside clock. It doesn’t sound particularly great, and the screen quality is abysmal, yet it’s been one of the most-used smart additions to my home. Lenovo’s tiny Smart Clock is perhaps one of my favourite Google Assistant-powered smart speakers to date.