Google's most popular smart display returns with a few new tricks. The value proposition for something like a Nest Hub is a little different in 2021 than it was at the height of the smart display hype back in 2018. Back then, Google was pushing them as do-anything replacements for the Google Home speaker — a way not only to consume audio but video, too. The Nest Hub, which debuted in October 2018 as the Home Hub , was a tiny, inexpensive, and ultimately no-nonsense screen-with-a-speaker that Google smartly positioned a little bit less as a media consumption device and more as the best possible vector for Google Assistant. You could touch the screen to navigate the rudimentary Google Cast-based operating system, but the Hub was designed to blend into a room with a context-sensitive ambiance that, in its purest form, operated as the best digital photo frame on the market. Two-and-a-bit years later, the second-generation version of the Nest Hub changes very little, improvin