Sometimes you see a product that gets announced or released and it leaves you scratching your head over whether or not it should actually exist. I'll admit that was my original reaction to Lenovo's original Smart Clock, which mixed a Google Assistant speaker into a bedside clock.
It earned a lot of weird points, but actually managed to back things up as a genuinely useful gadget.
Needless to say, that was again the reaction to the Lenovo Smart Clock Essential. It took the original smart clock but pulled back some of the extra bells and whistles to make a more straightforward device. Of course, that first Smart Clock wasn't all that feature loaded, so at a glance this seems like a weird choice.
But again, Lenovo has pulled this off before, so why not see if the successor/sidegrade can make a worthwhile argument?
Simple design (again)
Lenovo did a pretty good job with the design of the original Smart Clock, and they've more or less stuck with that on the Smart Clock Essential. You're still getting that Google-esque gray fabric, which looks good in just about any situation.
It's hard to tell a difference between the two at a glance. The Essential is just a bit shorter and wider, and the fabric seems a few shades darker, but they're incredibly similarly designed.
The biggest difference is on the front of the clock. While the original Smart Clock packed in a full color touchscreen display, the Smart Clock Essential only houses a simple LED screen. No touch screen, no colors, and reduced functionality. It looks like an alarm clock you'd find on the shelves at Walmart, and perhaps that's the point.
There's are a couple function buttons on the top and a volume up and down button, and a nightlight on the back, which is a pretty handy feature. You toggle this by long-pressing the volume down button. The back houses the power connector, a microphone kill switch, and a USB port.
You'll notice a couple icons on the screen, telling you what day it is, if you have an alarm set, or a glance at the weather. Nothing incredibly detailed, but you can easily see if it's going to rain today when you wake up or if your alarm is set.
Smart functions
Of course, this is still a smart clock, so who cares if there's anything on screen? Just ask Google how the weather is supposed to be today.
The Smart Clock Essential still retains all of the voice functions that the regular Smart Clock has, and that's pretty much the only way I used it. Setting an alarm on the clock itself was kind of a headache of long pressing buttons and single clicks to navigate through different parts of the alarm (hour, minute, day, whatever) when it was way, way easier to just say “Hey Google, set an alarm for 8AM.” I couldn't figure out how to turn off alarms from the buttons, but “Hey Google, turn off my alarms” worked perfectly.
Additionally, you can cast music to the Smart Clock Essential from your phone or other devices. Since it's a full-fledged speaker, that means you can sling your YouTube Music or Spotify playlists to this thing effortlessly, and while that's nothing out of the ordinary for these gadgets, it does round it out much more than you'd think after a first look.
Like the original Smart Clock, this all ends up being pretty handy as a clock by your bed. You don't have to worry about charging your phone alarms, and there's a USB port on the back so you can replace your bedside charger with this clock. It's very functional, but this time's there's not a potentially bright screen to wake you up when you roll over at 2am.
It does look some of the cool routine functions that the regular Smart Clock had, though, since it doesn't have a touch screen or effective ways to interact with the screen, but voice commands should hopefully handle any of that stuff, anyway.
The speakers on the Essential do seem like they've been downgraded a bit, which is to be expected for a cheaper device. They're fine for some quiet tunes at night, which is probably what you're using this for anyway, but it won't hold up well next to one of the newer Nest Minis.
Worth it?
Here's where this gets tough. Is the Lenovo Smart Clock Essential worth buying?
Let's break this down into two parts. If you're looking for a smart speaker for your bedroom because you want to be able to combine your phone charger, clock, and Google Home, this thing's pretty cool, especially for $50. It loses some of the extra features that the regular clock had, but many of those features felt like padding out a spec sheet in retrospect. Yes, swiping over to check the weather on your clock is… neat? But you have your phone and Google Assistant. There are other easier ways to see that information that maybe a clock doesn't need to bother with it.
But here's the kicker; that regular Smart Clock has seen discounts as low as $40 just a few months ago, and Black Friday is right around the corner. For $10 less than the Essential, you can get the regular model that does more, even if you're not using those features. It's better to have them than not, right? Of course, this release probably means that the regular Smart Clock won't be seeing those kinds of discounts anymore or it'll be discontinued, but that's conjecture at this point.
With Black Friday right around the corner, it's probably worth waiting to see if you can snag the regular model on a deal, or if Lenovo gets crazy and marks the Essential down to $30 or so. At that price I'd grab one of these for every bedroom in your house, and maybe some extra rooms, too.
The Lenovo Smart Clock Essential officially goes on sale September 15th.
// Lenovo
i just got the Smart Clock Essential and it has one strange quirk. Instead of showing “3:00pm” for instance, it displays it with the leading zero, as “03:00pm”. Every other digital clock dispenses with the leading zero, to the Smart Clock Essential sticks out by being different and DUMB. Hopefully they can issue a software update that dispenses with the leading zero, or gives the user the option to turn it off.