Google Assistant gets a new voice as Gemini AI comes to Google Home

Summary

• Google is introducing new devices and AI models to enhance the smart home experience for users starting this year.
• Gemini AI will allow Nest Cameras to provide detailed event descriptions, while a Help Me Create feature simplifies automations.
• New voices for Google Assistant will offer a more conversational experience with better understanding and follow-up capabilities.

Google appears to be revamping its smart home portfolio, with two new devices unveiled on the same day. The Mountain View, California-based company introduced a new streaming device, called the Google TV Streamer, alongside the 4th-Gen Nest Learning Thermostat. Both new devices are available for pre-order starting today, with the thermostat officially available starting August 20 and the Google TV Streamer on September 24.

Now, as part of a wider smart home push, Google has announced that it is using its advanced Gemini AI models to redefine how users interact with smart home devices in their homes, supercharging the tech giant’s Nest Cameras, automations within the Google Home app, and “a variety of new voices” for the Google Assistant.

In a new blog post, the tech giant announced that its Nest Camera should soon be able to see beyond the obvious. With Gemini, the camera’s feed can be analyzed to provide detailed descriptions of events happening in front of your Nest Camera. “Your Nest cameras will go from understanding a narrow set of specific things (i.e., motion, people, packages, etc.) to being able to more broadly understand what it sees and hears, and then surface what’s most important,” wrote Google in its blog post.

So, for example, if you have a camera pointing towards your backyard, and your dog happens to be causing mischief there, the camera might pick it up as an animal event. Going forward (later this year), with Gemini integration, your Google Home app will be able to offer context into what the camera detected, likely specifying that the “dog was digging in the garden.”

Such granular control should help users search for certain events within the Google Home app, like “Did the kids leave their bikes in the driveway?” The app will then sift through the feed to find the event in recent days, as seen in the GIF above.

It’s worth noting that users would need a Nest Aware subscription to take advantage of the Gemini context feature.

Creating automations has never been easier

Creating automations isn’t difficult, but tedious. Google is introducing a new Help me create feature within the Google Home app, which, as the name suggests, will help you create automations by describing what you want in plain language. In an example shared by the tech giant, seen in the GIF above, users would be able to use prompts like “Help the kids remember to put their bikes away when they get home from school.” The tool can then create an automation and describe what will happen for you to review. In this case, it described it as “When someone gets home between 3:30 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. on weekdays, turn on the garage light, and broadcast a message.”

The automation likely employs three smart home devices: a smart camera to detect when someone is home, smart speakers to announce/broadcast the reminder, and smart lights in the garage to help the kids put their bikes away.

Help me create and Gemini context for events will roll out to a limited number of Nest Aware subscribers in Public Preview later this year. The tech giant said that it will expand the features over time but wants to take it slow to get it right.

A more natural Google Assistant

In its blog post, Google said that users can expect to experiment with “a variety of new voices” later this year, built to make “interacting with your devices feel more conversational.”

The tech giant said that it is improving the assistant on your Nest speakers and displays with Gemini tech, which should soon be able to better understand you, allowing you to put forward your queries in a more natural way. Elsewhere, users would also be able to ask follow-up questions without having to offer context about their previous query, offering an overall more natural dialogue with the assistant.