The Google Home app is getting some much-needed renovations
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As the Google Home app has grown and changed over the years, absorbing bits and pieces of the legacy Nest app along the way, it’s become increasingly cluttered and, as a result, more frustrating to use. That may not be the case for long, though, as Google has announced that there’s a major overhaul of Home in the works — and that it wants users to give it a spin in a Public Preview program.
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The refreshed Home app, which is set to be available in Public Preview “in the next few weeks,” features a tabbed design with views for Favorites, Devices, Automations, Activity, and Settings. That first tab will be a boon for users with lots of devices: you’ll be able to manually choose which devices show up there, saving the frustration of navigating the current Home app’s info-dump landing screen. Starting next year, you’ll also be able to define “spaces” — groups of connected devices that aren’t necessarily in the same physical room, but whose controls you want to be able to access in one place.
Custom “spaces” are coming next year.
Any media you’re playing on smart devices around your home will be front and center in a new floating bar at the bottom of the app; tapping the bar will open a playback menu where you can do things like adjust volume and choose which devices you want the media playing through.
Routines are moving to the Automations tab. Like before, you’ll be able to set a trigger — like time of day, sensor activation, or a phrase of your choosing — to cause actions like adjusting smart lights or playing media. You’ll also be able toset a second start condition, so you can do things like have a motion sensor trigger lights at night, but not during the day. Google also says it’s working on a script editor for power users, which should enable practically unlimited Automation customization. The editor won’t be available until sometime next year, though.
There’ll be a new camera UI that scrolls vertically between recorded events, with newer recordings at the top. Events recorded by Nest cameras will automatically be labeled asperson,package,vehicle,activity, oranimal,where applicable. This new interface will be available for the “latest Nest cameras and doorbells” with support for “legacy Nest cameras” coming “over the next year.”
Finally, Google says it’s working to bring Google Home to both Wear OS and the web. Wear OS 3 devices will have access to a wrist-size version of the Home app that can do things like adjust thermostats and lights, plus show “notifications from your Nest cameras and more.” The Wear OS Home app is coming this week, presumably around the launch of the Pixel Watch, which isset to be fully detailed at Google’s hardware event on Thursday. The web view, which will be accessible at home.google.com sometime in the next few weeks, seems like it’ll be camera-centric, at least to start. The ability to check your cameras from a browser tab is certainly a nice addition, but hopefully support for more device types is soon to follow.
All in all, the new Google Home app seems like a huge update — and one that’s sorely needed. Google says both Android and iOS Google Home users will be able torequest an invite to participate in the Public Preview programfor the updated app from inside the existing app soon.
An earlier version of this story based on information from Google incorrectly stated that users could sign up for the Google Home app Public Preview beginning today. Google has issued a correction saying the preview “will become available in the coming weeks.” We regret the error.
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This article is sponsored by Total Wireless.
