Well, we picked a Google Home mini yesterday, they are on offer at the moment so it felt like a good time to have a dabble.
Frankly, it was worth the money just for an evening of comedy value! /Children
In fairness it works mostly quite well, when it doesn't pick something up it's no different to my fat fingers jabbing at the wrong thing on my phone.
The voice is very clear.
The 'add to shopping list' is a real gem and we now have a shared shopping list set up.
Creepiness: Joans can broadcast his voice over it from elsewhere.
Minor frustration: I wanted to be able to listen to my podcasts from it. It currently doesn't link to a pod cast application, but you can just say what you want to listen to. I can't seem to specify which episode though, linking to the most recent one even when I specify an episode number.
This is just a few thoughts after playing with it for a couple of hours. Will do more research before deciding if we will need a max or just go with a smart speaker.