Google’s Gemini-powered smart home revamp is here with a new app and cameras

Google's products and services have been flooded with AI features over the past couple of years, but smart home has been largely spared until now. The company's plans to replace Assistant are moving forward with a big Google Home reset. We've been told over and over that generative AI will do incredible things when given enough data, and here's the test.

There's a new Home app with Gemini intelligence throughout the experience, updated subscriptions, and even some new hardware. The revamped Home app will allegedly gain deeper insights into what happens in your home, unlocking advanced video features and conversational commands. It demos well, but will it make smart home tech less or more frustrating?

A new Home

You may have already seen some elements of the revamped Home experience percolating to the surface, but that process begins in earnest today. The new app apparently boosts speed and reliability considerably, with camera feeds loading 70 percent faster and with 80 percent fewer app crashes. The app will also bring new Gemini features, some of which are free. Google's new Home subscription retains the same price as the old Nest subs, but naturally, there's a lot more AI.

Google claims that Gemini will make your smart home easier to monitor and manage. All that video streaming from your cameras churns through the AI, which interprets the goings on. As a result, you get features like AI-enhanced notifications that give you more context about what your cameras saw. For instance, your notifications will include descriptions of activity, and Home Brief will summarize everything that happens each day.