Google’s best-ever 4K streamer is within $1 of its lowest price

It’s rare to find a gadget that can handle two totally separate tasks very well, but Google’s TV Streamer 4K pulls it off. The 4K set top box allows you to stream your favorite TV shows and movies, and is also an impressive smart home hub, with support for Matter and a built-in Thread radio. It’s currently on sale for $79.99 ($20 off) at Amazon, Best Buy, and Walmart, which is its lowest price since May, and a dollar shy of its lowest price to date.

The TV Streamer 4K is bigger than a streaming dongle like the Fire TV Stick, but won’t take up much room on top of your TV stand. It has a gigabit ethernet port for wired networking and a HDMI 2.1 port to send a 4K 60Hz signal to your TV or projector. It supports multiple HDR (High Dynamic Range) and surround sound audio formats, including Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos. In our tests, the TV Streamer 4K took about 10 minutes to set up — including downloading and installing a software update — when using the Google Home app on a smartphone. The TV Streamer asks whether you’d like to set up a child’s profile during setup, which is helpful if you have kids.

The Google TV Streamer 4K runs on Android TV, which we found easy to navigate using buttons on the remote or our voice via the remote’s built-in mic and Google Assistant. Google Assistant recognized our voice requests, and took us directly to the shows we wanted to watch (most of the time). Android TV has apps for every major streaming service, and popping in and out of them constantly can get tedious, which is why it’s nice to have reliable on-board voice controls.

If you want a Google Home Hub to control your smart home gadgets, the TV Streamer 4K is a great choice. You can use it to connect smart lights, locks, and thermostats to Google Home, and once these devices are configured, you can control them from the TV Streamer 4K by using Google Assistant or navigating to a Home panel. It only took a few seconds to run a scene controlling multiple smart home devices simultaneously. If your TV’s built-in streaming apps are feeling sluggish, or you want to expand your smart home into the living room, the Google TV Streamer 4K is a great choice — especially now that it’s on sale.