The Nexus Q: A Revolutionary Media Streaming Device

As I began to explore the capabilities of the Nexus Q, I was immediately impressed by its sleek design and user-friendly interface. The device itself is compact and well-made, with a sturdy build that suggests it can withstand regular use. But what really caught my attention was the visualizer feature, which displays vibrant colors and patterns in synchronization with the music playing on the device.

The visualizer effect is truly mesmerizing, with strobing LED lights that seem to pulse in time with the beat. But what's even more impressive is the ability to control the volume on the Nexus Q itself, using a simple button on the side of the device. This means I can dial up or down the volume without having to reach for my phone or other media player, making it incredibly convenient.

But what really sets the Nexus Q apart from other media streaming devices is its integration with YouTube and Google Play movies. With just a few taps, I can control playback, pause, and even adjust the volume, all from the comfort of my living room. And if I want to watch a movie, I can simply press a button on the device, which automatically switches to a solid color LED display, signaling that it's in "movie mode".

One of the most interesting features of the Nexus Q is its remote control functionality. Using a simple app on my phone, I can take control of the Nexus Q from across the room, pausing or playing back content with just a few taps. This feature is especially useful when watching movies or video content, as it eliminates the need for constant getting up and down to adjust the volume.

But what really matters is how well the device performs in terms of picture quality. Fortunately, the Nexus Q delivers excellent results, streaming 1080p content with minimal lag or buffering. The only minor quibble I have is that the media streaming is actually sourced from Google servers, rather than directly from my device or other media players.

Fortunately, this limitation can be mitigated by using NFC to pair a device with the Nexus Q. Simply hold the device next to the Nexus Q, and it will launch the app, making setup a breeze. This feature adds another layer of convenience to an already user-friendly device.

For those interested in delving deeper into the capabilities of the Nexus Q, there's also the Nexus Q app itself. This companion app provides access to advanced features like adjusting the LED brightness and color scheme, as well as tweaking settings like audio output and visual effects. I won't go into all the details here, but suffice it to say that the app offers a level of customization and control that's not typically found in media streaming devices.

In conclusion, the Nexus Q is an innovative and user-friendly device that's sure to delight music lovers and media enthusiasts alike. While its limited functionality may be a drawback for some, its unique features and convenience make it an interesting addition to any home entertainment setup. With continued development and expansion of its capabilities, this device has the potential to become an indispensable part of many people's daily lives.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwhat's up guys Mike here the Detroit Borg with a look at the Nexus Q the medy streaming device from Google with a Twist so let's take a look around and see if it's worth $2.99 now the Nexus Q was originally announced at Google IO and was priced at $2.99 and if you pre-ordered it you got it free because Google decided that well this wasn't ready for prime time after all so we're going to give these away to people who pre-ordered them and maybe they can help us improve it so right now it's in coming soon status on the Google Play Store so maybe by the time you watch this video it will have already been re-released but the real limitation here is that this is a media streaming device that really is only locked down to the Google Play store so you can't really do things like Netflix you don't have a physical remote you you have to use an Android device in order for the Nexus Q to be uh useful so it doesn't work like the Apple TV or the Roku player or many of the other streaming devices is pretty much locked down to a single ecosystem it also doesn't contain Google TV this is a completely different product which is a little baffling to people because it does seem to have the hardware to uh support that service so especially since this is so expensive you would think they would throw every resource Google has into it but unfortunately not now what you'll need in order to control your Nexus Q is an Android Power phone or tablet running Android 2.3 or greater and if you have an NFC equipped phone like the Galaxy Nexus or the NEX 7 you can connect or pair via NFC technology because this has NFC technology built in as well so you of course you'll need Wi-Fi and highspeed internet for streaming all that Google Play Store media so we do have speaker ports on this which is what makes this a standup product this is very different for most streaming players uh because this has a 25 watt uh built-in amplifier so you can directly connect speakers to this device or as I will do connect this directly to my home theater system using micro HDMI so that will connect video and audio you also have optical audio out if you want to stream your audio that way now another interesting Factor here is that this was designed and manufactured in the USA which is very unusual for electronic products this is also the very first Google designed and manufactured product so although Google has partnered with people like Samsung and NEX and Asus uh this is actually the first product they've engineered and designed in house so let's go ahead and slide this out and take a look at side all right so we're just going to cut these tabs here and lift up the lid and there is the Nexus Q which looks a lot like a botch ball uh very heavy it weighs about 2 lbs because of that 25 watt amplifier you can see the packaging is kind of clever as well designed to protect the spherical nature of this device you can see actually has a rubber padding here uh again interesting Packaging you also have a tab here to lift up so you should have all of our cables as well so we have some literature here Nexus Q quick start guide basically on how to set this up so we're going to explore this uh through a physical or actual demo instead of raing it and then we have our cables so we have a micro HDMI cable you can see right there micro HDMI looks like a micro USB port but it's not you also have a power cable very nice designed power cable wrapped up very neatly kind of like the Apple TV cable and you have important safety instructions read the back of this card yeah okay we got it so that's all there is to it and let's take a look at the Nexus queue so there we have our very heavy plastic sphere now the base back here is metal so you can feel that it is very rigid very solid metal very nice construction on top we have this plastic dial here which is which is what you use to increase or decrease volume have a little tab here to first unbox then remove so this allows us to move that um dial around so now we can move that freely now on the back we have our banana plug connectors for a set of bookshelf speakers so left and right and we also have our Optical toss link connector for connecting audio to an AV receiver for example you have ethernet connector but this is Wireless supports Wireless and networking as well micro HDMI for connecting this to a television and you also have a USB port micro USB port which is really there for servicing or for hacking as Google says and we have our power connector on the bottom we have this rubber foot for gripping onto the surface of a table without scratching it because we do have a metal base just above that now the Nexus Q is also really into LED light show so you have an LED indicator at the center of the dial here you also have a row of LEDs around the dial itself so they will animate and glow as the device is working now in terms of specs again this has a 25 wat amplifier for Hing those speakers we have a cortex 89 tiap processor the 4460 model uh which is very similar to the one that's also in the Galaxy Nexus phone we have 1 gig of RAM we have 16 gigs of internal flash storage and we have other things like NFC technology for pairing this with compatible phones or tablets and we have Bluetooth as well as Wireless end technology now if you're connecting this to a television this is what will be displayed a whole lot of nothing so what you have to do is will download the Nexus app so here's the Nexus app it's free in the Google Play store and it will walk you through the setup process so let's get started so it's going to find my devices so you can see the blue Nexus Q so we can tap on that and we can assign the location I'm just going to say office for now and so right now I'm actually setting up the Nexus Q so you can actually see a status indicator on the display in fact if you look at the device you can see the LEDs are pulsating now now right now it's prompting me to connect my Nexus Q to my network so I have to type in my password so now our Nexus Q is all set up complete with a little visualizer and now the app is prompting us to launch any of the Google apps here so we can play music we can play movies and TV shows or we can use YouTube so let's start with play music all right so I've selected a Cold Play song and here you go you have a visualizer along with some title information on the display now you also notice that the Nexus Q is also streaming in multicolors just like the visualizer so now I can adjust the volume on the Nexus Q itself and I can dial all the way down and I can mute it just by pressing the center toward the LED indicator and of course I can also do this directly from the app so I can inre volume on the phone to increase volume on the Nexus Q and I can control the pause play functionality so right now you can see that strobing led effect multicolor LED effect but when you touch it to operate it you can see it turns that solid blue color and it goes back once you're done of course this also works with YouTube so here we're playing one of my latest videos right now we're not connected to the Nexus Q but if I want to push this to the the Nexus Q all I have to do is press this little icon up here so you can see I now have a remote control for my Nexus Q I click play Hey guys go and basically this becomes my remote control so I can scrub it pause it play it and control my volume now this also works with Google Play movies so if we play a movie here this is that Transformer movie that came with the Nexus 7 so you can see we lose that strobing LED effect because when you're watching the movie you probably don't want your entertainment center glowing now you can also control the Nexus Q from the notification bar so up here you can see the app you tap on that brings us right back to where we were and we can pause it or play it generally picture quality is very good it's very solid there is there tends to be a little lag when you start playing video but it goes away pretty quickly as it catches up video is 1080p so it does support 1080p output now it's important to remember that unlike AirPlay the media streaming from the Nexus Q is actually streaming from Google server so it's not streaming audio or media from the device you're using it's streaming from the internet now alternatively you can also use NFC to set up and pair a device so all you have to do is hold it next to the Nexus Q it will launch the Nexus Q app and you're good to go now taking a closer look at the Nexus Q app itself we can see some other options here so right now you see the Nexus Q devices I have on my network so right now I just have the one obviously which is labeled office so if I tap on that I have some additional controls here so I can control the brightness of the LEDs on the device so you can see if I slide it back and forth you can see they get dimmer and brighter you can also change the visualization so right now the spectrum is the default one but I can go to warm which gives you a brighter warmer color and also changes the liting effect on the Nexus Q so you have lots of options here I'm not going to go through all of them you can the cooler effect you have the smoke effect which gives a very low light more of a white light and you can turn it off or you can do track info so it will display track info at all times if you go to advance you can also change some of the settings here so you can turn HTMI on you can turn analog on you can control your Optical settings here so you can do auto calibration manual calibration fixed volume output uh you can also do a factory data reset of the device itself and you have some debugging info now if you go up to settings you have some other options here you can change the name of the network which the Nexus Q is running right now you can also toggle whether you want this to be open to guests or not so you can allow other users to log into your Nexus Q to stream music and video or you can invite a guest via email so in conclusion the Nexus Q is a very interesting design it's well made and the software works pretty well but unfortunately it is locked down to the Google ecosystem so unlike AirPlay uh you cannot stream directly from from your device so you can't stream from apps like Netflix you have to stream from Google services uh from the internet so that kind of limits its functionality so maybe if they make a big shift in how this operates and move it toward that direct streaming process maybe this will become more useful and perhaps Google is working on that but right now if you can operate entirely within the Google ecosystem this is actually a pretty interesting product but otherwise there are many other media streaming services or media players out there that will do give you a lot more flexibility and a lot more options so that's going to do for me guys in this video thanks for watching and I'll see you again in the next onewhat's up guys Mike here the Detroit Borg with a look at the Nexus Q the medy streaming device from Google with a Twist so let's take a look around and see if it's worth $2.99 now the Nexus Q was originally announced at Google IO and was priced at $2.99 and if you pre-ordered it you got it free because Google decided that well this wasn't ready for prime time after all so we're going to give these away to people who pre-ordered them and maybe they can help us improve it so right now it's in coming soon status on the Google Play Store so maybe by the time you watch this video it will have already been re-released but the real limitation here is that this is a media streaming device that really is only locked down to the Google Play store so you can't really do things like Netflix you don't have a physical remote you you have to use an Android device in order for the Nexus Q to be uh useful so it doesn't work like the Apple TV or the Roku player or many of the other streaming devices is pretty much locked down to a single ecosystem it also doesn't contain Google TV this is a completely different product which is a little baffling to people because it does seem to have the hardware to uh support that service so especially since this is so expensive you would think they would throw every resource Google has into it but unfortunately not now what you'll need in order to control your Nexus Q is an Android Power phone or tablet running Android 2.3 or greater and if you have an NFC equipped phone like the Galaxy Nexus or the NEX 7 you can connect or pair via NFC technology because this has NFC technology built in as well so you of course you'll need Wi-Fi and highspeed internet for streaming all that Google Play Store media so we do have speaker ports on this which is what makes this a standup product this is very different for most streaming players uh because this has a 25 watt uh built-in amplifier so you can directly connect speakers to this device or as I will do connect this directly to my home theater system using micro HDMI so that will connect video and audio you also have optical audio out if you want to stream your audio that way now another interesting Factor here is that this was designed and manufactured in the USA which is very unusual for electronic products this is also the very first Google designed and manufactured product so although Google has partnered with people like Samsung and NEX and Asus uh this is actually the first product they've engineered and designed in house so let's go ahead and slide this out and take a look at side all right so we're just going to cut these tabs here and lift up the lid and there is the Nexus Q which looks a lot like a botch ball uh very heavy it weighs about 2 lbs because of that 25 watt amplifier you can see the packaging is kind of clever as well designed to protect the spherical nature of this device you can see actually has a rubber padding here uh again interesting Packaging you also have a tab here to lift up so you should have all of our cables as well so we have some literature here Nexus Q quick start guide basically on how to set this up so we're going to explore this uh through a physical or actual demo instead of raing it and then we have our cables so we have a micro HDMI cable you can see right there micro HDMI looks like a micro USB port but it's not you also have a power cable very nice designed power cable wrapped up very neatly kind of like the Apple TV cable and you have important safety instructions read the back of this card yeah okay we got it so that's all there is to it and let's take a look at the Nexus queue so there we have our very heavy plastic sphere now the base back here is metal so you can feel that it is very rigid very solid metal very nice construction on top we have this plastic dial here which is which is what you use to increase or decrease volume have a little tab here to first unbox then remove so this allows us to move that um dial around so now we can move that freely now on the back we have our banana plug connectors for a set of bookshelf speakers so left and right and we also have our Optical toss link connector for connecting audio to an AV receiver for example you have ethernet connector but this is Wireless supports Wireless and networking as well micro HDMI for connecting this to a television and you also have a USB port micro USB port which is really there for servicing or for hacking as Google says and we have our power connector on the bottom we have this rubber foot for gripping onto the surface of a table without scratching it because we do have a metal base just above that now the Nexus Q is also really into LED light show so you have an LED indicator at the center of the dial here you also have a row of LEDs around the dial itself so they will animate and glow as the device is working now in terms of specs again this has a 25 wat amplifier for Hing those speakers we have a cortex 89 tiap processor the 4460 model uh which is very similar to the one that's also in the Galaxy Nexus phone we have 1 gig of RAM we have 16 gigs of internal flash storage and we have other things like NFC technology for pairing this with compatible phones or tablets and we have Bluetooth as well as Wireless end technology now if you're connecting this to a television this is what will be displayed a whole lot of nothing so what you have to do is will download the Nexus app so here's the Nexus app it's free in the Google Play store and it will walk you through the setup process so let's get started so it's going to find my devices so you can see the blue Nexus Q so we can tap on that and we can assign the location I'm just going to say office for now and so right now I'm actually setting up the Nexus Q so you can actually see a status indicator on the display in fact if you look at the device you can see the LEDs are pulsating now now right now it's prompting me to connect my Nexus Q to my network so I have to type in my password so now our Nexus Q is all set up complete with a little visualizer and now the app is prompting us to launch any of the Google apps here so we can play music we can play movies and TV shows or we can use YouTube so let's start with play music all right so I've selected a Cold Play song and here you go you have a visualizer along with some title information on the display now you also notice that the Nexus Q is also streaming in multicolors just like the visualizer so now I can adjust the volume on the Nexus Q itself and I can dial all the way down and I can mute it just by pressing the center toward the LED indicator and of course I can also do this directly from the app so I can inre volume on the phone to increase volume on the Nexus Q and I can control the pause play functionality so right now you can see that strobing led effect multicolor LED effect but when you touch it to operate it you can see it turns that solid blue color and it goes back once you're done of course this also works with YouTube so here we're playing one of my latest videos right now we're not connected to the Nexus Q but if I want to push this to the the Nexus Q all I have to do is press this little icon up here so you can see I now have a remote control for my Nexus Q I click play Hey guys go and basically this becomes my remote control so I can scrub it pause it play it and control my volume now this also works with Google Play movies so if we play a movie here this is that Transformer movie that came with the Nexus 7 so you can see we lose that strobing LED effect because when you're watching the movie you probably don't want your entertainment center glowing now you can also control the Nexus Q from the notification bar so up here you can see the app you tap on that brings us right back to where we were and we can pause it or play it generally picture quality is very good it's very solid there is there tends to be a little lag when you start playing video but it goes away pretty quickly as it catches up video is 1080p so it does support 1080p output now it's important to remember that unlike AirPlay the media streaming from the Nexus Q is actually streaming from Google server so it's not streaming audio or media from the device you're using it's streaming from the internet now alternatively you can also use NFC to set up and pair a device so all you have to do is hold it next to the Nexus Q it will launch the Nexus Q app and you're good to go now taking a closer look at the Nexus Q app itself we can see some other options here so right now you see the Nexus Q devices I have on my network so right now I just have the one obviously which is labeled office so if I tap on that I have some additional controls here so I can control the brightness of the LEDs on the device so you can see if I slide it back and forth you can see they get dimmer and brighter you can also change the visualization so right now the spectrum is the default one but I can go to warm which gives you a brighter warmer color and also changes the liting effect on the Nexus Q so you have lots of options here I'm not going to go through all of them you can the cooler effect you have the smoke effect which gives a very low light more of a white light and you can turn it off or you can do track info so it will display track info at all times if you go to advance you can also change some of the settings here so you can turn HTMI on you can turn analog on you can control your Optical settings here so you can do auto calibration manual calibration fixed volume output uh you can also do a factory data reset of the device itself and you have some debugging info now if you go up to settings you have some other options here you can change the name of the network which the Nexus Q is running right now you can also toggle whether you want this to be open to guests or not so you can allow other users to log into your Nexus Q to stream music and video or you can invite a guest via email so in conclusion the Nexus Q is a very interesting design it's well made and the software works pretty well but unfortunately it is locked down to the Google ecosystem so unlike AirPlay uh you cannot stream directly from from your device so you can't stream from apps like Netflix you have to stream from Google services uh from the internet so that kind of limits its functionality so maybe if they make a big shift in how this operates and move it toward that direct streaming process maybe this will become more useful and perhaps Google is working on that but right now if you can operate entirely within the Google ecosystem this is actually a pretty interesting product but otherwise there are many other media streaming services or media players out there that will do give you a lot more flexibility and a lot more options so that's going to do for me guys in this video thanks for watching and I'll see you again in the next one\n"