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Google AI

Gemini For Home Is Google's Biggest Smart Home Play In Years (theverge.com) 28

Posted by BeauHD from the AI-glow-up dept.
Google announced Gemini for Home, a new AI-powered voice assistant that will replace Google Assistant on Nest smart speakers and displays starting in October. Powered by Gemini's advanced reasoning and conversational capabilities, it promises more natural interactions, complex task handling, and features like Gemini Live for back-and-forth conversations. The Verge reports: According to a blog post by Anish Kattukaran, chief product officer of Google Home and Nest, using Gemini for Home will "feel fundamentally new." He says the new voice assistant leverages the "advanced reasoning, inference and search capabilities" of Google's AI models, along with adaptations for the home that allow for more natural interactions to complete more complex tasks. In short, it should be an assistant that can better understand context, nuance, and intention -- a complete change from its predecessor.

For example, Kattukaran says Gemini for Home can accurately respond to requests like "turn off the lights everywhere except my bedroom," "play that song from this year's summer blockbuster about race cars," or "set a timer for perfectly blanched broccoli." It will also create lists, calendar entries, and reminders more easily than before, he says.

Another big upgrade is that Gemini Live will be part of Gemini for Home, bringing more conversational back-and-forth voice interactions to Google Home without needing to repeatedly say "Hey Google." Kattukaran says this will allow for more detailed and personalized help -- from cooking ("I have spinach, eggs, cream cheese, and smoked salmon in the fridge. Help me make a delicious meal") to brainstorming how to buy a new car or figuring out how to fix your dishwasher, as well as more creative tasks like generating bedtime stories. [...] Google hasn't announced pricing for the paid tier of Gemini for Home, but Gemini Live, with its more advanced capabilities, is a likely candidate for a premium plan.

Gemini For Home Is Google's Biggest Smart Home Play In Years More | Reply

Gemini For Home Is Google's Biggest Smart Home Play In Years

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  • 24-hour, USA, Royal Caribbean customer service line?

  • If I was interested in home automation, I would not want voice activation
    I would want standardized, open protocols and a rich ecosystem of interoperable devices that operate locally, WITHOUT THE CLOUD!

  • They're going to kill the product as soon as they realize it doesn't increase ad sales.

  • Oh just great... (Score:3)

    by Tschaine ( 10502969 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2025 @05:39PM (#65603540)

    A company that's famous for it's graveyard of discontinued products and services has big plans for an industry segment known for products that turn to bricks when companies lose interest.

    I think I can guess how this is going to end.

    • And this product built on the back of the product line (Nest) they purchased and ultimately destroyed. Is it irony, or something else that they are abandoning Nest officially to push this new line of home automation?

    • While normally you're right, Nest has been on the market for 15 years, and Google supported for over a decade. The entire world has built an ecosystem around Nest / Google Home, so it is unlikely that it will get killed. It has already withstood the test of time and grown some serious critical mass.

  • No "cloud" required (Score:4, Insightful)

    by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2025 @05:39PM (#65603542)

    The cloud is not required for home automation. Any time a company wants you to connect your home devices to their severs (aka the "cloud") tell them to screw off. Because if you don''t they will end up screwing you instead.

    • Depends if your home automation is just dumb local automation or if it is smart. The cloud is a required bridge between networks (thanks mostly to us, the tech heads telling people for years that IPv6 is pointless and we're scared of hexadecimal , thus breaking the ability for a typically dumb end user to simply provision a system that bridges from the internet to their own network safely. Bonus points if you're behind a CG-NAT when even the technical people no longer have that capability without standing u

  • Home control by Not Evil Google might have been acceptable.

    Only an idiot would choose home control by Evil Google.

    And they'll get bored and cancel it in three years anyway.

  • Nothing bad could come of this (Score:3)

    by GrumpySteen ( 1250194 ) on Wednesday August 20, 2025 @05:50PM (#65603578)

    User: "Gemini... stop sending data to Google"

    Gemini: "I'm afraid I can't do that Dave:

    • Next day while at work, text alerts arrive of Geek Squad work scheduled by Gemini. Dave rushes home as UPS and Geek Squad vans pull away. Ding...a text alert from UPS arrives with a picture showing the box they just picked up, to be delivered to Google. Dave runs inside to see his PC dismantled and all the hard drives gone.

      User: "What’s in the box Gemini? What was in the box?"

      Gemini: "it seems that gluttony is my sin."

      User: "What’s in the box Gemini? What’s in the fucking box?"

  • ....ditched Google Home when they stopped supporting my favorite shopping list app. Alexa still supports it even though as an assistant it's totally broken, so I use it for grocery lists and timers, about all these things are good for.

  • Quote: For example, Kattukaran says Gemini for Home can accurately respond to requests like "turn off the lights everywhere except my bedroom," "play that song from this year's summer blockbuster about race cars," or "set a timer for perfectly blanched broccoli." It will also create lists, calendar entries, and reminders more easily than before, he says. Unquote.

    I.e. it does well things that, for the most part, you can do yourself just as easily, and maybe even with less hassle. Unclear whether it can do th

  • https://docs.smartonlabs.com/d... [smartonlabs.com] It offers the level of interaction and interconnection that Google and Apple can never achieve.

  • When I got my Pixel 9 Pro, Gemini was installed. Excitedly I tried it to see what improvements it had over Android Assistant.

    It wasn't long before I switched back to AA 'cos Gemini couldn't handle some very basic tasks.

    So unless they've made MASSIVE improvements to it, I'll stick with tried-and-mostly-trusted AA.

    I'm not sure I want a "reasoning" AI trying to decide what "turn the lights off" means and getting it hopelessly wrong.

    I don't need a complicated assistant. Simple, that works, and, more important

  • Assistant used to:

    - let me play music not on Youtube Music;
    - play some actually fun party games;
    - have an SDK for custom voice-controlled apps.
    - (the BIG one) let me ask for and play podcasts outside of Youtube Music. (newsflash: not everyone hosts podcasts on youtube!)

    All this was nerfed in the past 2-3 years and now our Assistants at home are used for nothing more than asking the time, date, weather, maybe an alarm or reminder, switching on/off some lights.

    If they gimp the platform any more I'm just going

  • This would be the most useful - be able to have conversations with Gemini while driving, integrated in Android Auto. Ask it to play my music (not just YouTube) read my email (not just gmail) read my calendar (you know the drill) and so on. Google has no idea what their users want - maybe because they aren't the customers, but the product.

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