Google Home Speaker uses 99% less adhesive than Nest Audio [Gallery]

Google’s environmental reports for the Home Speaker include a look at how the new Gemini device is made and images of the internals.

The Google Home Speaker has a “tensioned 3D-knit enclosure fabric wrapped over a plastic housing without any adhesive,” according to the company’s Recycled Materials Guide from March. As such, you can partially stretch the recycled polyester and spandex yarn when picking up the device.

The Nest Mini saw fabric “bonded to the speaker enclosure with significant adhesive.” Compared to the Nest Audio, this Home Speaker uses “approximately 63% less material and 99% less adhesive” (Product Environmental Report).

This new approach allows for “manufacturing rework”: “If a defect is found during assembly in either the 3D fabric or the plastic housing, the other part can still be used, reducing both material yield waste and cost.”

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Overall, the Google Home Speaker is made of “at least 37% recycled materials” (based on product weight). This includes metal, rare earth materials, and plastic, while the packaging uses bamboo, molded fiber, and recycled newsprint.

Google’s report shows the fabric stretched over the plastic body underneath. We see three cutouts that are presumably for the far-field microphones. There’s also a look at the 58 mm full-range driver.

Another image shows the mainboard with the quad-core A55 (2.0 GHz), NPU, 1 GB of LPDDR4 RAM, and 4 GB of eMMC storage.

The included 30W USB-C adapter — a miniaturized version of Google’s 45W version — meets DOE Level VI, which is the “highest available efficiency rating for power adapters as defined in the International Efficiency Marking Protocol for External Power Supplies Version 3.0.”

On the repairability front, it would have been nice if the USB-C cable was not permanently attached to the Home Speaker.