A new chapter for Google Home & Nest

[AnishKattukaran]

Hey folks,

Anish here, I lead the product teams for Google Home & Nest.

I want to start by saying thank you for being on this journey with us, especially as we kick off a new era for the smart home! We have our biggest update in years and I wanted to share it with you directly.

Today marks the start of a new chapter for us. Today, we talked about Gemini for Home, Google Home Premium, two new Cameras, a new doorbell, a reimagined Google Home app, and a first look at our new upcoming speaker and new partner devices. The blog posts have all of the details:

• Welcome to the next era of Google Home

• Gemini for Home: The helpful home gets an AI upgrade. A new AI, Gemini for Home, which replaces the Google Assistant and is far more capable

• A new Google Home app, redesigned for Gemini. Now faster, more reliable, and complete with all of your older Nest devices. It's been redesigned to be simpler and more fluid, and we've infused it with the power of Gemini.

• Our newest Google Home devices are built for Gemini.

• We’re introducing the new Google Home Premium subscription plus new benefits for AI Pro and Ultra su...

As we begin this next era of Google Home, we know that building a truly helpful home is a long-term commitment. That’s why we’re bringing Gemini for Home to every speaker, smart display, camera and doorbell we’ve made in the last decade, along with the new Google Home app. It will be available via an early access program because we want you to try all of these new features and continue giving us feedback as we work to perfect the experience. The early access rollout for these devices will begin this month (with speakers and smart displays starting towards the end of the month).

We know our journey with you hasn't always been smooth, and frankly, we haven't always gotten it right. We are committed to earning back your trust, and improving the products with you.

-Anish

P.S. For more updates you can follow me on https://x.com/AnishKattukaran or Threads https://www.threads.com/@anishk

[AK27]

For clarity, the voice commands work on the iOS Google Home app but not via the Google Home device app. It almost seems like the apps are calling on different logic. A primary function of the Google home hardware now seem broken and primed for displacement w Apple Home or Alexa infra 

[MonkeyDLuffy]

Hi nami is that you I'm talking to

[ca2025]

Can you please add the simple ability to resize/organize the camera views in either the favorites or camera tab in both the app and web versions of Home.  It seems quite odd this is not an intuitive UI feature given the myriad of screen sizes.  

[sult]

• xxx

[ZKoenig92]

What about keeping the original Gemini voices from the Gemini apps? I love Pegasus but there is no male British voice in the new Gemini for home! Hopefully once UK English gets their release I’ll be able to access Pegasus but until then I’m disappointed that I have Pegasus on my Pixel 10 and Pixel Watch 4 but a different voice on my Nest Hubs 😭

[Vlselz79]

I completely agree with this comment, and I have copied it from another user. 

☆☆I’m writing to express deep frustration with the recent change from Google Assistant to Gemini on my smart-home devices.

Before this forced transition, Google Assistant included a free and essential feature called Continued Conversation, which allowed the Assistant to listen for several seconds after a response for follow-up commands. This made interactions feel natural and fluid, exactly what a voice assistant is supposed to do.

Now that my devices have been switched to Gemini, that same feature has effectively been removed and replaced by Gemini Live, which is only available through a paid Home Premium subscription. In other words, I’ve lost functionality that was previously built into my devices unless I pay an additional $10 per month.

This feels like one step forward and two steps back. Users never had the choice to remain on Google Assistant, and yet a feature that has worked for years is suddenly being treated as a “premium” option. It’s beyond disappointing — it feels unfair and, frankly, deceptive.

From a consumer standpoint, this raises serious concerns:

Google devices were marketed and sold with “Continued Conversation” as part of their advertised functionality.

Users purchased these devices with the expectation that such features were included as part of the product experience.

Removing this capability and putting its replacement behind a paywall feels like a breach of trust, if not bordering on misleading business practice.

I already pay for a Google One subscription, and I strongly believe that Gemini Live should at least be included in that plan, or better yet, offered free to all users as a continuation of the functionality we already had.

Please reconsider this policy. Don’t penalize loyal users for adopting Gemini — especially when the “new” feature simply replaces something that used to be free.

[jco23]

does this also include support for the Google Nest Hub (2nd Gen) ?

after "upgrading" to Gemini, my nest hub could not play my playlists from YouTube Music nor Spotify. this is the ONLY thing I use my voice and primary reason for having a nest hub.

[Mcarithers]

Is there a way to convert back to Google assistant? The Gemini AI is so dumb. When asking simple tasks I use to ask Google assistant (like turn off xxx room). It just says okay and DOES NOTHING 

[Mcarithers]

I absolutely hate this upgrade. Also I felt forced into a premium subscription 30-day trial I did not want. Send this back to testing. It’s not good and answers WAY WORSE than the original. It doesn’t even remember what just happened like the old did when I ask a question. Absolutely terrible. 

[Jphil1987]

Gemini is awful. Assistant and nest worked great until you hamstrung them and shifted development to Ai garbage that nobody wants. 

[Retreader]

Hi,

OK, I have Gemini as my home assistant. Big improvement! Thanks. Small issue, both my wife and I have accounts, however, we are unable to setup Gemini with a female voice for her and a male voice for me. How come?

[NgDemiGod]

I signed up for Gemini for Home early access in October and still haven't received it. 

[SmartHomeH-TAGS]

@NgDemiGod 

Do you live in the US? 

Only US residents have access to Gemini on Home devices for now. The rest of the world next year.

[NgDemiGod]

Yes, I'm in the US and still nothing

[SmartHomeH-TAGS]

@NgDemiGod  it's still in a slow rollout.

To keep informed of the situation you should constantly visit this Google Community blog.

This one was posted yesterday...

https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Blog/Expanding-early-access-to-the-Gemini-for-Home-voice-expe...

[Travis]

I have Google One with Home Premium and your Gemini rollout broke continuous conversation on my first gen Google Nest Hubs…. Pls fix?

[nopking]

On Wednesday there was a post pointing here ( https://www.googlenestcommunity.com/t5/Blog/Expanding-early-access-to-the-Gemini-for-Home-voice-expe...) that anyone who hasn't received an invitation could sign up and receive an invite within 24 hours. I've been signed up for at least a week and have not seen the invite. There also appears to be no way to un-sign up and re-sign up.

Any way to get this invite poked?

[jwade73]

Same issue but signed up in October. Have Google Home Premium Advanced and I'm a little frustrated with the lack of answers on this.

[nopking]

Google Home Premium Advanced as well here. I also decided to sign up my other address (work, I've got a couple of devices there) and 30+ hours later no invite.

Wonder if they forgot to invite the premium advanced crowd

[Flynmartn]

Very excited to have gotten the Gemini upgrade.

The first problem I have run into is this:

From a nest hub gen2 I ask it to play a particular band. It repeats back the correct band and says playing on YouTube music.

Then the music starts and it is not that band. It seems to be just kick starting my super mix on yt music.

Config: nest hub gen2 with default music speaker set to a Sonos device. My yt music account is properly set up on sonos. 

[nopking]

After being on the list for weeks and nothing I did two things last night - 1, got my wife's phone and went into home on her device and discovered that even though I control the home settings she was not opted into Gemini in her home app, 2 changed my plan from the Google Premium Advanced, to Google Home Premium plus advanced as an upgrade as part of Google One.

I suspect it was the second option that worked. Also evidently returned $79.28 to my credit card and then charged 63.58 to it for a total refund of $15.70.

So yeah, if you've got Google Home Premium Advanced and it's asking you to downgrade go select that and then purchase the separate upgrade for Google One to Advanced and then end up with the whole thing exactly the same and with $15.70 extra without losing any video recording or functionality. Or find your spouse's phone and opt in there too.

[Karboknight]

I was personally looking forward to this upgrade, but my son is now anti-AI {not specifically Gemini) due to its negative impact on the environment. He does not want the Gemini upgrade for the Nest mini in his room, and we are prepared to respect his wishes. 

Is there any way for him to keep his personal device using Google Assistant while I upgrade the rest of our devices? Or will I have to keep all of our devices on Google Assistant? 

On a tangent, if we end up avoiding the upgrade, will we be forced into the upgrade at some point down the road, or can we stay indefinitely on Google Assistant? 

Thanks for any assistance!

[The_WB]

It will push to all in 2026. Staying on the old stuff isn't an option. It's not an if but a when.

[nopking]

As long as you're telling commands I don't think it's going through the AI. I tell it to turn on the lights it's no delay. I tell it that I think it's a bit dark in the room it sits there for a second, a forest in Canada goes up in flames, and then the lights come on. 

[The_WB]

Pretty sure it all hits AI. Even basics, like "living room light on" is slower than Home was.  

And it's not very bright.  Home could handle turn off the kitchen and the dining room lights.  Gemini required more detail, turn off the kitchen light and turn off the dining room light.  I do like it can now handle turning one on and another off, like at bedtime, but doing multiple, all on or all off, is cumbersome.

[Bantuanbca]

Hallo bca

[Matt202]

Yes, is he creates his own Google account and activates that device with his Google account, he can stay of the Assistant while you downgrade to Gemini. That isn't a typo, gemini is a major downgrade from the Google Assistant. Read some if the posts before switching over. I would say that roughly 99.9% of Gemini users regret switching over. It's nowhere near ready for public use. I seriously think you'll regret switching over if you do

[Skipcastro99]

Just remove the piece of crap!!!

[Skipcastro99]

Gemini sucks,Iwant Assistant back. Google should not shove Gemini down our throats. You are looking to lose a lot of business.

[Bantuanbca]

Hallo bca 085381066494

[burroudc]

How about we fix the stability of the Google home app before we go adding a bunch of ai features? The app is so unstable currently using ai features is the very last thing on my mind. I just want me camera feeds and best wifi settings to work. Focus on core features and remedying these issues before expanding on potential additional use cases. 

[Matt202]

Google is intentionally removing features from the Google Assistant and that is why it's getting so bad.  My guess is they're doing that to entice people to try Gemini and once they're on Gemini, they're pretty much stuck and can't go back. You can go back but it's not a simple task like it is switching to a Gemini which makes no sense at all. More proof that they are forcing people to be unpaid beta testers for their nightmare software.

[Bob75]

I'm unhappy that Continued Conversation was moved behind a paywall. It was a basic feature and now my smart home feels less useful without a subscription.

[The_WB]

Worse than that. The AI even the enabled one can't do chains of light controls as home did. No more turn off the kitchen light...ok...turn off the dining room light...ok type conversations. It says it can't do that. It's as though the AI is decoupled from the home controls.  This is not an improvement.  The old style basic continued conversation needs to return. There is zero reason for such a basic function to not be in here, or pay walled.

[mshulman]

You can ask to turn off or on multiple devices.
Try asking "Hey Google, Turn off the lights in the dining room and kitchen"  I just tested here with asking my OG Google Home (with Gemini) to turn on lights in multiple rooms and it did it without issues.

[The_WB]

Tried variations on that, and mixed results.  "Turn off the kitchen and dining room lights" which worked in old home, fails.  "Turn off the kitchen light and turn off the dining room light" works.  You can mix and match, "turn on the kitchen light and turn off the dining room light".  But still not the same as continued conversation. 

[Matt202]

Don't forget to add that you need to tell Gemini that you want to chat before even beginning to ask questions. If you don't do that, there is no continued conversation

[ErikJ]

The new Gemini powered google home is basically non functional for playing music via the Sonos integration.  It says sure I’ll play Tate McRae then plays Ed Sheeran.   

[ajackson]

Google home has started hallucinating weather forecasts since switching to Gemini. I asked last night "how cold is it going to be tonight?" and it replied "45 degrees". I then pointed out to it that weather underground said the low would be 68, to which it agreed. I then asked again, and it said it would be 55 degrees. This is useless. The common queries (like weather) should be accurate and fast. There is also a notable delay now in responding to simple requests. "Hey Google, turn off the lights" now gets a 1-2 second delay, consistently. Finally, some command no longer work. "Hey Google, play Brian Eno for two hours" used to work. Now it ignores the 2 hour qualifier. 

[The_WB]

Welcome to AI. In my opinion, AI should step aside from home automation queries and fact based questions, like weather.  AI should be there for fun time only, where facts don't apply.