Google Home continues to get frequent updates since Google introduced Gemini to it as the go-to voice assistant. This week, those updates continue with big speed improvements for Gemini for Home, plus there are some new early access features for the Google Home app.
The biggest bits of news here involve Gemini for Home as the voice assistant. Google is claiming that with new improvements in speed, they’ve sped up every day commands (like “Turn on the lights”) by 40%. Gemini should also be more accurate with getting local information and it’ll respond in a quicker way when it confirms actions. For example, it’ll say “Alarm set for 9AM” now instead, “Alright, I’ve created an alarm for 9AM.”
Outside of the speed improvements, Gemini should be far better at setting alarms, timers, and tools. Gemini will now let you set alarms based on world events, like setting an alarm for a sports match. You can also do things like, “Cancel my timer and set a new one,” which I did 2 days ago not knowing you couldn’t previously. There’s more too and you’ll find it all in the lengthy changelog below.
Finally, we have new automation capabilities with new starters and conditions, as well as language expansion for Voice Assistant and country expansion for Gemini for Home.
Again, there is a ton in this update from Google that you can read through below.
Gemini for Home: Voice Assistant (Early access)
Language Expansion
- New language expansion: Bonjour, Canada! We’ve expanded Early Access to include all of Canada and added Canadian French support. To explore the latest features in your preferred language, update to Google Home app version 4.12.
- Gemini Live translation is now faster and more capable: Experience significantly quicker response times in Translation mode (available for Google Home Premium subscribers). Just say, “Hey Google, can you be my Spanish interpreter?” We now support translations between 30 languages: Arabic, Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese.
Responsiveness & Accuracy
- Smart Home Latency: Your most common smart home commands are now faster. Everyday commands like “Turn on the lights” should see latency improvements up to 40%.
- More accurate local information: Gemini for Home better detects local weather units, and will provide more relevant local news responses.
- Streamlined Responses: We’ve reduced the verbosity of responses for many of the features that keep you productive (e.g. alarms & timers, notes & lists, calendar events) so you can focus on getting things done. For example, instead of “Alright, I’ve created an alarm for 9 AM,” Gemini will simply say “Alarm set for 9 AM.”
Advanced Alarms, Timers & Tools
- Alarms & Timers: We’ve rolled out a number of Gemini improvements for alarms & timers:
- Set alarms or timers based on Gemini’s knowledge about the world. For example, ask: “Set an alarm for the start of [Team A vs Team B] match.”
- Ask for the initial timer set time in addition to how much time remains. For example, ask: “What was the original time of my timer and how much time is left?”
- Perform multiple alarm & timer commands in a single interaction. For example, say: “Cancel my timer then set a new one.”
- Fixed – Set recurring alarms and timers. For example, you can ask: “Wake me up on weekdays at 7 AM.”
- Fixed – Snooze an alarm. For example, you can sleep in a little by saying: “Snooze until 10 AM.”
- Calendar: You can now create multiple calendar events with the same details. Try creating a lunch event, then asking “Can you create another one for the following week?”
Google Home App
Gemini for Home: app features and capabilities (Early access)
Country & language expansion: We are expanding Early Access of Gemini for Home features, like Ask Home, Home Brief, Help me create, and Gemini for Home camera features, to more users in countries where Google Home Premium is available. Early Access to these features are already available to users in Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, United Kingdom, United States and starting today access will expand to 14 more countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.
If you’re in an eligible country, you’ll see these features become available to set up in the Google Home app. Please note that some features require a Google Home Premium subscription.
New Google Home automation capabilities
Today, we are rolling out new starters, conditions and actions. These are only available in the Google Home app, using the automation editor. They will soon be integrated into Ask Home and Help me create automation tools.
New Starters/Conditions:
- Oven is running, stopped, paused, or has an error: e.g. “When the oven is running…”
New Actions:
- Voice assistant reports local weather: e.g. “Announce tomorrow’s weather”
- Set smart bulb to wake: e.g. “…start my wake light effects for my bedroom light at AM”
- Set smart bulb to pulse: e.g. “…pulse the living room light for one minute”
- Set smart bulb to sleep: e.g. “…start sleep light effect in kid’s room for 10 minutes”
We are continuing to expand support for home automation capabilities so make sure to check back for updates to our supported automation starters, conditions & actions.
