Google Opens Up Its Smart Home To Everyone (theverge.com) 27
Google is opening up API access to its Google Home smart home platform, allowing app developers to access over 600 million connected devices and tap into the Google Home automation engine. In addition, Google announced that it'll be turning Google TVs into Google Home hubs and Matter controllers. The Verge reports: The Home APIs can access any Matter device or Works with Google Home device, and allows developers to build their own experiences using Google Home devices and automations into their apps on both iOS and Android. This is a significant move for Google in opening up its smart home platform, following shutting down its Works with Nest program back in 2019. [...] The Home APIs are already available to Google's early access partners, and Google is opening up a waitlist for any developer to sign up today. "We are opening up access on a rolling basis so they can begin building and testing within their apps," Anish Kattukaran, head of product at Google Home and Nest, told The Verge. "The first apps using the home APIs will be able to publish to the Play and App stores in the fall."
The access is not just limited to smart home developers. In the blog post, Matt Van Der Staay, engineering director at Google Home, said the Home APIs could be used to connect smart home devices to fitness or delivery apps. "You can build a complex app to manage any aspect of a smart home, or simply integrate with a smart device to solve pain points -- like turning on the lights automatically before the food delivery driver arrives." The APIs allow access to most devices connected to Google Home and to the Google Home structure, letting apps control and manage devices such as Matter light bulbs or the Nest Learning Thermostat. They also leverage Google Home's automation signals, such as motion from sensors, an appliance's mode changing, or Google's Home and Away mode, which uses various signals to determine if a home is occupied. [...]
What's also interesting here is that developers will be able to use the APIs to access and control any device that works with the new smart home standard Matter and even let people set up Matter devices directly in their app. This should make it easier for them to implement Matter into their apps, as it will add devices to the Google Home fabric, so they won't have to develop their own. In addition, Google announced that it's vastly expanding its Matter infrastructure by turning Google TVs into Google Home hubs and Matter controllers. Any app using the APIs would need a Google hub in a customer's home in order to control Matter devices locally. Later this year, Chromecast with Google TV, select panel TVs with Google TV running Android 14 or higher, and some LG TVs will be upgraded to become Google Home hubs.
Additionally, Kattukaran said Google will upgrade all of its existing home hubs -- which include Nest Hub (second-gen), Nest Hub Max, and Google Wifi -- with a new ability called Home runtime. "With this update, all hubs for Google Home will be able to directly route commands from any app built with Home APIs (such as the Google Home app) to a customer's Matter device locally, when the phone is on the same Wi-Fi network as the hub," said Kattukaran. This means you should see "significant latency improvements using local control via a hub for Google Home," he added.
The access is not just limited to smart home developers. In the blog post, Matt Van Der Staay, engineering director at Google Home, said the Home APIs could be used to connect smart home devices to fitness or delivery apps. "You can build a complex app to manage any aspect of a smart home, or simply integrate with a smart device to solve pain points -- like turning on the lights automatically before the food delivery driver arrives." The APIs allow access to most devices connected to Google Home and to the Google Home structure, letting apps control and manage devices such as Matter light bulbs or the Nest Learning Thermostat. They also leverage Google Home's automation signals, such as motion from sensors, an appliance's mode changing, or Google's Home and Away mode, which uses various signals to determine if a home is occupied. [...]
What's also interesting here is that developers will be able to use the APIs to access and control any device that works with the new smart home standard Matter and even let people set up Matter devices directly in their app. This should make it easier for them to implement Matter into their apps, as it will add devices to the Google Home fabric, so they won't have to develop their own. In addition, Google announced that it's vastly expanding its Matter infrastructure by turning Google TVs into Google Home hubs and Matter controllers. Any app using the APIs would need a Google hub in a customer's home in order to control Matter devices locally. Later this year, Chromecast with Google TV, select panel TVs with Google TV running Android 14 or higher, and some LG TVs will be upgraded to become Google Home hubs.
Additionally, Kattukaran said Google will upgrade all of its existing home hubs -- which include Nest Hub (second-gen), Nest Hub Max, and Google Wifi -- with a new ability called Home runtime. "With this update, all hubs for Google Home will be able to directly route commands from any app built with Home APIs (such as the Google Home app) to a customer's Matter device locally, when the phone is on the same Wi-Fi network as the hub," said Kattukaran. This means you should see "significant latency improvements using local control via a hub for Google Home," he added.
Where I live, homes are built to last 100 years (Score:3, Insightful)
The Golden Rules of Home Automation (Score:3)
2) Where possible, depend on standards rather than brands or services. With every component, ask yourself: "What if this stops working tomorrow?" ZWave / Zigbee are good. Google Home / Apple HomeKit not so much... use them as a subsidiary service if you must, but never as your core service. In that sense, Google opening up their service with an API means (I hope) that yo
Avoid internet connect home devices (Score:3)
How many /. stories of companies abandoning the internet servers for a device or service which requires internet do you need to have a skepticism of ever buying a smart device for the home?
Combine with vendors not updating smart devices after 5 years, or less, and you have things which will get bricked at some point.
Re: (Score:2)
... and indeed the house I live in is at that age. No way would I make functionality of my home dependent on something from a company that is well known to abandon their services quickly, suddenly, whenever they please. https://killedbygoogle.com/ [killedbygoogle.com]
As much as I agree with the general sentiment, the one thing you won't see Google abandon is a chance to scrape more data on people. Home automation for Google is the ultimate data-scrape. Imagine the amount of data they can gather from all those systems. They may not have any god damned clue what they'll do with that data, but that sure as shit never stopped the tech companies from gathering whatever data they can. They'll let the AI tell them what value it has once it's figured it out for them.
Open "Source" Data (Score:1)
Including hackers.
Let's all commit to this... (Score:3, Funny)
Aaaand it's gone.
Re: (Score:2)
Let's all dump truly open platforms
Wait... you have a truly open platform that you're capable of dumping? What is it?
There is only one thing that is constant and guaranteed in the smart home world, there's no truly open platform, and even those that pretend to be open are either led by consolidated power (e.g. Matter), or have a laundry list of vendor specific quirks and extensions (e.g. virtually everything with a Zigbee transmitter).
Re:Let's all commit to this... (Score:4, Informative)
Matter, the underlying protocol for IoT devices, is fully open and fully local-only (no cloud needed). It's supported by Home Assistant and other open source apps.
The Google APIs are only needed where a device can't use the Matter protocol itself for some reason, or where they want to integrate with other Google services. If you don't want those, just use Matter devices locally with Home Assistant instead.
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't Matter supposed to be an open platform?
If they allowing proprietary google's smart home to hook up to Matter, I think that is good news?
How long before this goes to the google graveyard? (Score:2)
It is the other way around, actually. (Score:2, Interesting)
Google hopes you open your home to its data collection service.
They need to open up the firmware as well (Score:4, Insightful)
To prevent so many devices from going into landfills when they inevitably stop supporting them.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think that relying on firmware updates to keep people secure is a good idea. Even if they are available, people tend to be quite lax when it comes to updating stuff.
The devices need to be considered untrusted, and the network itself needs to be secure.
DOn't do it (Score:2, Insightful)
This is simple another BS evil attempt by Pechai to get others to put in their tech and once Google is at the center, then destroy. IOW, Google practices EEE and is just as evil as MS once was ( based on their lack of security, they remain evil, but better than 2-3 decades ago).
I tell you why (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
What kind of shit is this?
A patent for the windows95 device manager? LOL...
http://toastytech.com/guis/win... [toastytech.com]
Re: I tell you why (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Who are "they"?
Re: I tell you why (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I certainly didn't. I roll my own for my home, hasn't been hard in the past 15 years.
Re: I tell you why (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Why? The roomba at home is also an IoT device - it is a T, it uses I for some shit, and someone cared to make it.
Re: I tell you why (Score:1)
Google's spying platform now open to all (Score:1)
they want to get into everyone's house, whether you sign up with them or not.